Randomness

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In music and randomness, the major twentieth-century figure was certainly composer John Cage. He was strongly influenced by Duchamp. From Cage's point of view, random elements can remove individual bias from creation; they may be used to go beyond the limitations of the taste and bias through "chance operations". In additional to his work as a composer following these ideas, Cage influenced generations of artists through his writing, lectures, and classes. In this text "Experimental Music," Cage wrote, "Those involved with the composition of experimental music find ways and means to remove themselves from the activities of the sounds they make. Some employ chance operations, derived form sources as ancient as the Chinese ''Books of Changes'', or as modern as the tables of random numbers used also by physicists in research" (10). Cage's style of random composition was to create a system of parameters and then leave the results to circumstance. Cage explained, "This means that each performance of such a piece of music is unique, as interesting to its composer as to others listening. It is easy to see again the parallel with nature, for even with leaves of the same tree, no two are exactly alike" (11). Random components are used to transform a single composition into a space of potential compositions. Over the decades, Cage used an array of techniques to insert unexpected elements into this compositions. He defines the range of techniques used by himself and his contemporaries in the 1958 lectures "Composition as Process." There are generally two methods for using random values in music: to define the work at the time of composition or to allow for variation when the work is performed. The most obvious use of randomness in 10 PRINT is in the second category, as random decisions are made during the program's execution, that is, while the BASIC instructions are performed by the Commodore 64.

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Within two-dimensional visual art, mechanical random processes were explored for the reasons championed by Cage. The eminent contemporary painter Gerhard Richter provided a simple answer to why this is beneficial when he said, "I'm often astonished to find how much better chance is than I am." There are precedents for chance used within visual works dating back to collage works by Jean (Hans) Arp from 1916, but the two early works most relevant to 10 PRINT are the ''Spectrum of Colors Arranged by Chance'' collage series (1951) by Ellsworth Kelly and ''Random Distribution of 40,000 Squares Using the Odd and Even Numbers of a Telephone Directory'' (1961) by François Morellet. Both of these works start with an even grid and proceed to fill the grid carefully with elements based on the algorithms developed by the artists. Kelly used squares of colored paper and placed according to a system he designed. He assigned a number to each color and then plotted the numbers on the grid according the a pseudo-mathematical system (Malone 133). Morellet employed the more strict system by reading a series of numbers from the telephone book. He made a grid of 200 vertical and horizontal lines, painting a square blue if its assigned number was even and painting it red if it was odd. In both of these artworks and in 10 PRINT, the structure of the grid is what makes it possible to focus on the variability created through the random operations.

+

Within two-dimensional visual art, atists explored mechanical random processes for the reasons championed by Cage. The eminent contemporary painter Gerhard Richter provided a simple answer to this method's benefits when he said, "I'm often astonished to find how much better chance is than I am." There are precedents for chance used within visual works dating back to collage works by Arp from 1916, but the two early works most relevant to 10 PRINT are the ''Spectrum of Colors Arranged by Chance'' collage series (1951) by Ellsworth Kelly and ''Random Distribution of 40,000 Squares Using the Odd and Even Numbers of a Telephone Directory'' (1961) by François Morellet. Both of these works start with an even grid and proceed to fill the grid carefully with elements based on the algorithms developed by the artists. Kelly used squares of colored paper and placed according to a system he designed. He assigned a number to each color and then plotted the numbers on the grid according the a pseudo-mathematical system (Malone 133). Morellet employed the more strict system by reading a series of numbers from the telephone book. He made a grid of 200 vertical and horizontal lines, painting a square blue if its assigned number was even and painting it red if it was odd. In both of these artworks and in 10 PRINT, the structure of the grid is what makes it possible to focus on the variability created through the random operations.

== Randomness Comes to Computing ==

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 In music and randomness, the major twentieth-century figure was certainly composer John Cage. He was strongly influenced by Duchamp. From Cage's point of view, random elements can remove individual bias from creation; they may be used to go beyond the limitations of the taste and bias through "chance operations". In additional to his work as a composer following these ideas, Cage influenced generations of artists through his writing, lectures, and classes. In this text "Experimental Music," Cage wrote, "Those involved with the composition of experimental music find ways and means to remove themselves from the activities of the sounds they make. Some employ chance operations, derived form sources as ancient as the Chinese ''Books of Changes'', or as modern as the tables of random numbers used also by physicists in research" (10). Cage's style of random composition was to create a system of parameters and then leave the results to circumstance. Cage explained, "This means that each performance of such a piece of music is unique, as interesting to its composer as to others listening. It is easy to see again the parallel with nature, for even with leaves of the same tree, no two are exactly alike" (11). Random components are used to transform a single composition into a space of potential compositions. Over the decades, Cage used an array of techniques to insert unexpected elements into this compositions. He defines the range of techniques used by himself and his contemporaries in the 1958 lectures "Composition as Process." There are generally two methods for using random values in music: to define the work at the time of composition or to allow for variation when the work is performed. The most obvious use of randomness in 10 PRINT is in the second category, as random decisions are made during the program's execution, that is, while the BASIC instructions are performed by the Commodore 64.
-Within two-dimensional visual art, mechanical random processes were explored for the reasons championed by Cage. The eminent contemporary painter Gerhard Richter provided a simple answer to why this is beneficial when he said, "I'm often astonished to find how much better chance is than I am." There are precedents for chance used within visual works dating back to collage works by Jean (Hans) Arp from 1916, but the two  early works most relevant to 10 PRINT are the ''Spectrum of Colors Arranged by Chance'' collage series (1951) by Ellsworth Kelly and ''Random Distribution of 40,000 Squares Using the Odd and Even Numbers of a Telephone Directory'' (1961) by François Morellet. Both of these works start with an even grid and proceed to fill the grid carefully with elements based on the algorithms developed by the artists. Kelly used squares of colored paper and placed according to a system he designed. He assigned a number to each color and then plotted the numbers on the grid according the a pseudo-mathematical system (Malone 133). Morellet employed the more strict system by reading a series of numbers from the telephone book. He made a grid of 200 vertical and horizontal lines, painting a square blue if its assigned number was even and painting it red if it was odd. In both of these artworks and in 10 PRINT, the structure of the grid is what makes it possible to focus on the variability created through the random operations.
+Within two-dimensional visual art, atists explored mechanical random processes for the reasons championed by Cage. The eminent contemporary painter Gerhard Richter provided a simple answer to this method's benefits when he said, "I'm often astonished to find how much better chance is than I am." There are precedents for chance used within visual works dating back to collage works by Arp from 1916, but the two early works most relevant to 10 PRINT are the ''Spectrum of Colors Arranged by Chance'' collage series (1951) by Ellsworth Kelly and ''Random Distribution of 40,000 Squares Using the Odd and Even Numbers of a Telephone Directory'' (1961) by François Morellet. Both of these works start with an even grid and proceed to fill the grid carefully with elements based on the algorithms developed by the artists. Kelly used squares of colored paper and placed according to a system he designed. He assigned a number to each color and then plotted the numbers on the grid according the a pseudo-mathematical system (Malone 133). Morellet employed the more strict system by reading a series of numbers from the telephone book. He made a grid of 200 vertical and horizontal lines, painting a square blue if its assigned number was even and painting it red if it was odd. In both of these artworks and in 10 PRINT, the structure of the grid is what makes it possible to focus on the variability created through the random operations.
 == Randomness Comes to Computing ==