One of the key takeaways for me from Casey Reas’ talk is the importance of a ruleset in creating beauty from randomness. I was impressed by the amount of time and effort Reas and his team dedicated to experimenting with shapes – they created more than 1,000 compositions to explore patterns (11:20) . They observed and connected the pieces, then determined which rules to apply to restrict randomness and create stronger compositions.
The idea of developing concepts on paper before writing code also stood out to me. I think the notion of “play” is more effectively expressed through physical materials first, and then translated into code. This approach helps prevent getting sidetracked by implementation details and allows for more focus on the idea itself.
However, I do question the meaning of relinquishing control when creating art. Artists usually have specific intentions – such as what tools to use or how to arrange shapes. Without a ruleset, I feel that randomness can obscure the meaning of a piece. In creating my own art, I want to maintain control over what is in the picture, but I can incorporate randomness by allowing a range of inputs. For example, instead of using a single fixed shape, I could introduce an array of shapes and leave the selection to chance. In general, I think randomness is an intriguing element I would like to attempt at integrating into user interaction.