I like to think of art as a trained lion: tamed enough to be obedient to commands, but still carrying that uncertainty of when it can pounce on you. This is why I was initially skeptical when I first heard about having to create a digital artwork. I thought that involving a computer would strip away the humanness, the emotional weight, that art is supposed to carry. Casey Reas’ talk challenged that assumption of mine. At the beginning of the video, he explains, “The goal…was to make things that are artificial and still had an organic quality to it and try to spot the difference in between” (03:36). This was when I got a glimpse of what this meant. Involving a computer does not necessarily trivialize the thought process of an artist, but can instead act as a medium for creating randomness (or, in the language of my metaphor, the fear of the lion’s pounce). It is indeed that very balance of the artist navigating chance to decide how something should feel that makes coded art legitimate art. I believe Cage would agree, considering his critique as highlighted by Reas: “Those involved in the composition of experimental music find ways and means to remove themselves from the activity of the sounds they make” (16:27).
Even work built on chance still demands that the artist make consequential decisions that shape its direction. For instance, Reas himself claimed to have spent months developing a composition before writing a single line of code. This is what mainly convinced me to move past my preconception and actually appreciate the artistic possibility and the hard work behind coded artworks. Reas’ point near the end about symmetry, about how it taps into the “basic pattern recognition we have in our heads” (28:21), struck me. I did not think that there would be room for imagination in a coded output. Therefore, I am convinced by Reas that the play of structure and randomness is at the core of digital art. However, I still wonder what that balance should actually look like. What level of order and how much chance are to be employed remains very subjective. I do not think this is a flaw in his argument, but rather that it encapsulates what makes an artwork original.