The video inspired me with my week 2 project. Similar to Casey’s examples, I wanted to create a piece that is randomly generated, a work where I don’t fully decide the outcome but instead design the conditions for it to emerge. What stood out to me is that randomness on its own often creates noise, but randomness framed by rules creates variation that still feels intentional. That’s why, in my own project, I didn’t let the lines fall anywhere on the canvas. If the verticals were completely random, sometimes they would overlap or sit too close together, which broke the balance I was trying to capture from Mondrian’s style. By enforcing rules, like keeping vertical lines at least 60 pixels apart and limiting where they could end, I was shaping the randomness so it produced results that still looked coherent.
This process made me think more about the balance between total control and total randomness. If I had forced every line into fixed positions, the piece would look the same every time and lose the surprise that makes generative art exciting. But if I gave up all control, the results would drift too far from what inspired me in the first place. The balance is somewhere in the middle: I act like the system builder, defining boundaries and constraints, while letting randomness fill in the details. For me, that tension is where the art lives. Creating a space where the computer surprises me, but always within a framework that reflects my intention.