Casey Reas says that instead of directly painting a picture or sculpting an object, the artist becomes a builder of systems. The final art is just the result of the system the artist built. I strongly agree with this claim. I believe that having direct control over every single detail kills the magic of digital art. Straightforward instructions that create totally predictable, controlled pieces feel useless to me.
However, the same applies to pure randomness. While we might find some meaning in things that are fully random, it’s hard to feel an emotional connection to something that has zero structure. Casey Reas mentions that he finds “white noise” or total randomness boring because it has no intent, and I can really relate to that.
I believe the perfect balance happens when the artist creates a structure that allows for randomness, resulting in art that is controlled yet creative. The artist writes the instructions, but the outcome still has some natural variation. Reas talks about algorithms like Perlin noise as a way to do this: it has randomness, but it creates smooth, “alive” motion within a set of rules, rather than just chaotic jittering.
For me, the beauty of computer art is in the power of this controlled randomness. Sometimes the best part is knowing exactly what algorithms you are using, but being surprised by the result every time you run it. Computers are much better than humans at creating something that is random but still follows a system. This reminds me of Reas’ “Process” series shown in the talk, where simple elements react to each other to create complex, organic forms.
I really want to use this kind of randomness in my work. For example, in my assignment for this week, the code is the same every time I run it, but the shape of the figures, the connections between them, and their speed are different. I can never get the exact same picture twice. I find it extremely cool to create something that looks super “mathematical” but, at the same time, never turns out to be the same thing twice.