Casey Reas’ talk about randomness, the intersection between chaos and order, and how art is a form of manifest result made me rethink my definition of what I consider art. I used to see art as paintings where an artist would express his thoughts using shapes or colours, or music where the musician expresses his feelings through notes. To me, art had to be a byproduct of human expression, random and never perfect. As a result I never thought of anything digital as art simply because there is no human aspect to it. However, Casey Reas’ talk about making something artificial have an organic quality made me reconsider. If we just apply natural randomness or disorder, we can make digital creations count as art. The way I plan to do that is by using human expression as inspiration for randomness, the same way buildings and body tissues were used in Reas’ talk. For example, I’d love to maybe use voice frequencies, heart rhythms or random patterns of brain activity to experiment and incorporate randomness into my work to create expressive digital paintings.
I feel like the optimum balance between total randomness and complete control is somewhere in between. While randomness introduces unpredictability, making a piece feel organic and alive, control ensures coherence and intentionality. By setting parameters, we can guide the chaos in a way that still reflects human intent. As Casey Reas mentions we are the creators of the code and we can implement constraints even with randomness.