In his talk about chance operations, Casey Reas introduces the idea that chaos always existed even before creation of the world, and that order was brought by the gods. He then claims that artists are now the ones who have been creating order, structure, and rationality. At first, I was a bit surprised by this view, because it seems to me that, in our modern world filled with structure and rigid rules of “shoulds” and “musts,” artists are actually the ones who are unafraid to bring self-expression outside of that “rational” box.
But then Casey goes on to talk about how artists can balance between complete randomness and total control, using random elements in their work to create interesting patterns and outcomes. He shares examples from his own work, where he created algorithms from scratch to produce highly animated pieces, trying to make something organic while combining different visual elements. This got me thinking about how some artists, myself included, prefer to stick to a specific vision or some kind of structure in their work, and it can be hard to incorporate randomness.
This talk pushed me to reconsider my own artistic process, whether it’s a simple drawing or a piece created through creative coding. Though i still feel like there should be a balance between randomness and some organization in art, I realized that i’d love to experiment with some unexpected and unconventionally creative elements in my future works.