Before watching the talk, I thought randomness in art mostly meant that the artist was giving up control. The talk changed my thought because his examples showed that chance can operate within rules chosen by the artist. I found Richter’s idea of “planned” chance especially convincing. Reas’ own projects also support this because he sets limits for features such as position, size, and direction, while still allowing unexpected results. I think Reas is slightly biased toward randomness because it has been important in his own practice for many years, however, he also admits that he is skeptical of this kind of work, so his argument does not feel completely one-sided.
In my own work, I plan to use randomness for the positions or colors of repeated shapes. I would still control the canvas size, available colors, shape sizes, and the area where objects can appear. For me, the best balance would be around 25% randomness and 75% control. Total randomness might produce something confusing, while complete control could make every result predictable. A smaller amount of randomness could make each version different without losing my original idea. Therefore, the talk made me wonder how much randomness an artist should use before the artwork feels out of control.