Casey Reas’s talk really changed the way I think about randomness in art. Before watching it I mostly thought of randomness as something that takes away the artist’s control and gives freedom to the computer but I now see that randomness can still be intentional when the artist creates the rules and limits first. What interested me most was how Reas showed that order and chaos can exist together. The biological pieces especially stood out to me such as the representations of proteins, cancer cells and tissue. Computer vision was being used to visualize things that would normally be strange or difficult to represent visually but the results became these beautiful organic forms. I was particularly drawn to the pieces made from long lines that curve and build into cirI was also interested in how the same idea of randomness could be used in completely different fields, from biological structures to fashion, vehicles, music and movement. It made me think of how something that looks chaotic can still convey a certain feeling or idea if the artist has created an underlying structure.
The talk also made me question where I personally want the balance between randomness and control to be. I do not think that more randomness automatically makes a piece more interesting. If everything is random, I feel that the work can become visual noise and lose the artist’s intention. For me, the most interesting point is when the artist controls the concept, structure and limits, while the computer controls smaller decisions within those boundaries. I never thought such a simple coding function could create art at a technical level. I now see code more like an artistic medium similar to paints where the artist can set the rules and allow the system to produce something unexpected. Reas’ examples of random numbers and the idea of making small changes that create chaos in an ordered way also made me think about how even very small variations can completely change an outcome.
For my production project, I think I want to explore this idea through the biological-inspired visual art. The pieces with the long, flowing lines that formed these organic structures were probably what interested me the most because they reminded me of something alive and gave me this feeling of freedom and flow. I want to try creating something similar where I have control over the overall structure, but I don’t control every little detail. For example, I could use randomness to decide the direction, length, color or movement of the lines. I think that would make the process more interesting because I would still have an idea of what I want the piece to feel like but I would also be able to see what the computer comes up with on its own.