Casey Reas’s talk made me look at the concept of randomness differently. In my prior opinion, randomness was something that took away the “magic” of art, as it took away the artist’s control over what their piece will look like. Yet, Reas’s speech gave a new perspective of randomness, as in, that it can be used with intentionality, utilizing logical rules given and created by the artist, therefore giving them a sense of control over their work. Generative art is exactly that in my opinion. I think that the “magic” of art in this case is the artist designing the structure, giving the rules, setting the limits on variations etc. Artists in this case, I think, showcase that code can be used as an art medium much like chalk, acrylic paint, colored pencils and various other types of mediums. If looked from the perspective that computers and generative tools were created by humans for humans, the same as paint and canvas, generative art is art. An artist can control the limits of the “random” decision made by the computer, and it can be exciting. Art is meant to be exciting, at least in my perspective of it. I am not saying it is meant to reach a deep part of your soul every time, but one of the reasons many people create art is for that sense of excitement it brings you.
Generative art is unique because of its randomness. One of the things that kept appearing in my head is chance operations in dance. I have taken Intro to Modern Dance last semester, and our professor introduced us to Merce Cunnigham’s work. His idea was to have a set of moves, number each of them, then randomly select the numbers and therefore build a unique dance each time. I feel like this is one of the examples of how I would like to utilize random elements in my work – having a set of elements that I adhere particular meaning to, then randomizing their order to see how many new and unique combinations I can get. In my opinion this is also an example of balancing randomness and control – you give an algorithm/ a machine a set of elements/variables that matter to you as an artist, but leave the combinational part up to the machine.