Going into Reas’ talk about the length of using order or complexity in a digital artwork, I find it striking just how different the artworks are made depending on the level of randomness used. I mean looking at the Commodore 64 program, it’s very clear that logic and clearly defined patterns are sort of the bedrock of the artwork. Whilst there is a slight bit of randomness in terms of the direction of the lines, it’s interesting that the core of it, is quite literally a random coin flip. Starting from a random coin flip and then giving it symmetry, it’s clear that while on the surface there is a sense of unity and structure to it, the very first base layer is randomness. The level of randomness used is certainly not as heightened as other art pieces but I find it interesting how it is still present.
Whereas for the art piece “Articulate” there is a much higher level of randomness and noise, but the bedrock level is actually a unifrom, straight line. The artwork starts out from logic, in the form of a line, but then it branches out in random directions. It doesn’t have any sense where it goes to and what’s even more interesting is that it is able to make an art piece with actual depth to it. This is vehemently clear as some parts of the artwork are lighter than others, giving a pop feel and something that can be more so passed off as an art piece. So even still, it is possible to have a coherent art piece even if the starting layer is randomness.
For my own art, I would utilise the second approach. I’d start perhaps even with a uniform pattern of dots or lines, and then really go from there. I’ve used this practice even for drawings with acrylic colours, as it gives me more of a lovely sense of chaos as the drawing progresses. I feel like that’s what we sort of strive for in art, as we feel as though throughout the drawing process, we need a sense of rebellion to get our emotions across.
But how do we balance chaos and order? Personally I believe we need a good amount of intial grounding at the beginning of our drawing. And then as we go, we should have a very good degree of randomness. But not so much it actively ruins our order. Translating it into percentages, I would say a good 5-10% of order at the beginning, with a decent sized 70% randomness and 30% of order throughout the drawing process. But of course, at the end we are our own artist, so we set our limits and I’d always welcome more randomness.