In his speech at the Walker Art Center, Casey Reas talks about navigating the balance between order and chaos in generative art. We had to do something somewhat similar in our assignment this week, where a lot of us started with a structure, writing code that defined the rules and parameters governing the creation of our artwork, as sort of a form of order imposed on the creative process. We then manipulated these rules to introduce variability and chaotic randomness into the system, allowing for serendipitous and visually striking outcomes.
He also explored how some generative art is dynamic and responsive to user interaction, which leads to the evolution of chaos as the art interacts with its environment. Some of us had this element of controlled chaos in our art as well, seemingly chaotic in response to changing inputs but again, governed by underlying rules.
Ultimately, what I took away from his insight is a welcoming attitude toward the idea that order and chaos are not opposing forces but can coexist with each other in meaningful ways. If you look at my assignment for long enough, the blinding randomness of colorful boxes soon blends into intricate patterns, the artist of which is chaos itself.