At the start of the video, when Casey Reas said that chaos was thought to exist before creation and order was thought to be brought by god or gods, I found his statement very interesting. I was thinking of the fact that artworks focused on the beauty of structured, rational, and ordered things for centuries before randomness, chaos, and unplanned things started to be the themes of the artworks. Then, I realized that randomness, chaos, and unplanned things started to be the themes of artworks after the age of the god-centered community slowly lost its focus on ‘god’ and ‘gods,’ while the focus on ‘science’ increased. This fact made me think that perhaps the reason for the focus on structured and ordered things might be related to the god-centered focus of that time. Here, I felt like the reason why unstructured things were not the theme of artworks was that they were not considered worth drawing, as ordered things – thought to be of god – were considered beautiful. And this made me think that, in a sense, the artwork reflects society’s beliefs.
The video made me realize that chance operation essentially involves adding a touch of randomness to the set of rules governing the generation of colors, shapes, or patterns. When I think of programming, I always associate it with a rational process of structured and ordered code, as it requires precise and logical input of rules to be executed. Using programming—which is typically associated with structured and ordered things—as a medium for creating seemingly unstructured artwork was particularly fascinating. I think the beauty of chance operation lies in creating something seemingly unstructured and irrational through a structured and ordered medium. Moreover, I think the best term to describe chance operation is ‘planned randomness.’ While watching the video, I understood that this process of making artwork is not based on blind randomness, where everything is unknown and based purely on luck. Instead, it is a type of planned randomness, carefully calculated and determined, offering several choices, yet the output remains unpredictable.
After learning about the chance operation through the video, I perceived it as a method of creating artwork in collaboration with the computer. Adding a touch of ‘randomness’ to ordered codes felt like giving the computer free will to choose what to draw independently. By incorporating randomness into the process, the artist and the computer engage in a unique collaboration. I found this aspect very intriguing, as the computer, typically seen as a tool for precise and predictable outcomes, becomes an active participant in the creative process. It was like giving the machine a degree of ‘creative freedom’ within the boundaries set by the artist.