Reas’ talk on chance operations fascinated me and made me reflect on how “organized chaos” is present in our everyday life, such as jazz. Jazz musicians often make up melodies on the spot, riffing off each other. There’s a theme, but most of the melodies come from being in the moment and catching the rhythm. That’s what I think most of Reas’ projects are where the “non-human agent” creates them; the experience or art comes to be by following a basic line of code to give a unique piece of visuals.
The video opened my eyes to how one can use randomness to be creative. Before watching Reas’ talk, I used to attach a negative connotation to “chaos”. That it means destruction. So rather than welcoming it, I would try to eliminate variables that would disrupt the aesthetics or homogeneity of my projects. I realized that allowing a little bit of “chance” would help me discover new experiences, such as attending a surprise dinner party would allow me to form relationships with incredibly, grounded people.
What stood out to me the most is the perfect balance and tension of chaos and order. Reas’ examples of using very simple shapes, like dots and dashes, or even a single line of code from the 10 PRINT program indicated that there’s beauty in a set of instructions mixed with randomness.