In his talk on chance operations, Casey Reas, an artist, professor, and co-creator of the Processing programming language explores how randomness can be both a force and a generative tool in the making of art.
What drew me in most in Reas’ talk was the tension between control and surrender. His practice shows that randomness in art isn’t just chaos, but a tool for opening up creative possibilities. I found myself agreeing with his point that randomness can act as a “starting point”, like a door cracked open to reveal paths the artist might not have consciously chosen. For me, this resonates with John Cage’s example of random chance operations for musical symbols showed in the video, where unpredictability forces both creator and audience to reconsider what structure even means. At the same time, I can’t help but notice that Reas often reins randomness back into systems of symmetry and geometry, which makes me question whether he is truly embracing chance or ultimately seeking to discipline it. That tension raises a larger question: do artists ever fully give up control, or are they simply redefining the boundaries of authorship?
What challenged me most was his framing of post-WWI art as shifting toward more ‘automatic’ processes in response to destruction. While I see the logic in his argument, it seemed to privilege systematization, order and process as the most meaningful artistic response. This made me wonder if such a view unintentionally downplays the equally powerful role of intuitive or emotional art that also emerged from the same crisis. Personally, I’ve always seen randomness as something threatening, a loss of clarity, but Reas’ examples of layering it into fashion, architecture, or even modeling cancer cells made me reconsider. His work makes me ask: if randomness is unavoidable in life, is the role of the artist to harness it, or to expose its rawness without containment? That question lingers with me, and I think it pushes me to rethink my own preference for order as the only path to meaning in art.
At the same time, Reas’ talk made me consider how much my own creative process relies on hidden forms of randomness. Even when I plan a project down to the details, chance still slips in, through accidents, glitches, or unexpected associations, and often those “mistakes” end up carrying the most meaning. I think I’d like to incorporate random elements into my work as a way to break habits and push past predictable choices. Even something small, like letting code generate unexpected colors or positions, could spark ideas I wouldn’t have considered. For me, the ideal balance is somewhere in the middle: too much randomness feels empty, like the work loses its voice, but too much control risks suffocating the piece. I view randomness as something that works alongside intention, not something that overrides it, a way to keep the process alive and surprising. Reas similarly argues that randomness is not the opposite of intention but a collaborator, and that idea really shifted my perspective. Instead of resisting unpredictability, maybe it’s more useful to design spaces where it can push me outside my comfort zone. This raises a final question I’m left with: in a world increasingly defined by algorithms and precision, is cultivating randomness a way of keeping art (and ourselves) human?
I was so intrigued after the talk that I even explored his personal website, and I loved its throwback, almost nostalgic HTML aesthetic, it felt like a deliberate extension of his philosophy of simplicity and structure. I appreciated how it didn’t feel so commercial. It looked like it was made raw, and for the people who searched for his work. This was a refreshing take compared to the cookie-cutter portfolio websites we see artists use today.
I will link it here: https://reas.com/