Reflection

Casey Reas talk reframed how I think about the role of randomness in creative work. He talks about “controlled randomness,” where the artist doesn’t control every outcome, but does control the rules that the randomness has to follow. So chance is not a lack of decisions, it is just a different kind of decision.

For my own work, I plan to use randomness with some control to make things feel more realistic. I think that too much randomness can make a piece feel meaningless, since it can look like nothing was actually decided or planned before the project. But too much control isn’t great either because it only leaves room for what I’ve already imagined and nothing more.

I don’t think there’s one fixed balance between randomness and control because it really depends on the piece someone is working on. Some ideas need more structure with just a little randomness added in, while others can handle a lot more chance. For me, I would aim to keep the overall rules consistent, but let the small details  like position or timing  be randomized enough to surprise me.