The first thing about Casey’s presentation that made me challenge my beliefs is that digital art is not real art. I used to think that things that are ‘generated’ are not authentic enough to be considered a unique piece of art. Yet, seeing how much thought and structure it takes to create an abstract pattern with the help of algorithms made me reevaluate my views. It’s fascinating how a series of flat geometric shapes drawn over and over again can create such a lively picture. This idea is reflected in the quote by Michael Noll, “The computer is a unique device for the arts, since it can function solely as an obedient tool with vast capabilities for controlling complicated and involved processes. But then again, full exploitation of those unique talents for controlled randomness and detailed algorithms can result in an entirely new medium—a creative, artistic medium.” In my future works, I’d like to work more on thinking creatively within a limited range of functions I know.
I believe that uncontrolled randomness leads to complete chaos, while good digital artwork takes a little bit of randomness and a lot of decision-making. As humans, we are set to think in patters, thus it can be quite challenging to create something inherently random, something that has no beginning or end, or doesn’t follow standard rules of composition. I like how Casey uses randomness as a jumping-off point for his artworks such as rolling a dice to trigger the final composition, which is built based on a series of carefully designed algorithms.
Looking at Casey’s journey, I admire how meticulous he is about building an algorithm and exploring it to the fullest before moving onto a new concept. It seems like he won’t leave his idea until he has tried visualizing it in all ways possible. This reminds me of how famous artists such as Picasso, who went though different ‘eras’ in his art, ended up creating a series of artworks known as The Blue Period.
My final takeaway from this talk is that true randomness can not be generated by a computer – it has to be “borrowed” from nature, like the patters that bacteria create while reacting to sunlight, where computer serves as a tool to make randomness make sense.