Casey Reas’ talk made me think about questions about authorship when chance and randomness are the producers of the final output. If a program “fips a coin” to generate an image, who truly owns the reuslting work? While generative experiments like the Commodore 64 maze patterns or the Simulation of the Conception Vehicles (as Reas called them) rely heavily on the randomness of the program, I think the code itselfreflectst human control. The artist still defines the rules, boundary conditions and the parameters of the system, and the only thing being done by the computer is listening to these inputs and actually generating an image. I think, an optimal balance lies in using randomness not to replace artiistic intent but to introduce unexpected images or variations within the parameters designed by a human. Reas also mentions at the beginning of the video that they created a program for a show where they can “tailor and customise how much they want to leave it to chance,” and I think that this is a very good example of balance. I would also love to include random elements in my work, especially with colours. I would love to give my work the chance to be randomly colourful, rather than me deciding on specific colours or objects.
On the other hand, I also think that it is very easy to lose control and authorship over these works and flip the balance. In my opinion, authorship includes the artist being able to express their emotions and desires through the art piece itself. If we leave the final output for a program, despite us owning the code, the product might not resonate with the artist and deliver the wrong message. I thought of this while watching the example of the Fractal Invaders. Until then, I felt really confident in myself, that it is completely okay to use a computer program for drawings. That, though, made me really wonder where the line could be. If I really let my program create something random, the chance that it will create something I don’t want to or can’t resonate with grows a lot and statistically will happen. Do I still own that even if I don’t resonate with it? I do, in my opinion. But do I want to? I think the balance is probably between letting the program execute my vision, but maybe not over and over again.