Randomness in the Arts

From Maze

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Random Notes 29 November 2010

some additions about randomness and surprise from Noah 1/26/2010

// From Chance, Edited by Margaret Iversen. MIT Press 2010

In art, 'chance' is discussed more than 'random'.

Chance can mean the free association works of the surrealists (automatism) or allowing things to happen (paint to drip). It can also be a more strict/technical definition of 'random'.

(added emotion stuff here)

As observant creatures, we remember and perceive, combing through one another's experiences and stories to thrive. In the process of acquiring that culture, randomness is a manifestation of surprise. That is how it so effectively accesses our emotions.

Perceptually, random visual images can alert us to previously undiscovered compositions. Musically, random sound works the same. It can re-order sonic events or even produce original ones. which satisfy our

particularly  such as when one “practices a random act of kindness.” 

Randomness heightens every other emotion, because, like Bruce Schneier has observed of technology, it obscures perception, and mandates further observation and investment. When combined with generosity, it can be a cause for celebration. When scientific predictions are made, such as whether a meteor will destroy the planet, or whether a new drug will help people, surveys are made, and noise, or random events must be separated.

randomness implies a relationship between expectation and surprise, a violation of anticipation as well as a notion of temporariness and release. This notion of violated predictability is key to some modern musician's playing and composing styles, leading many to create “generative music,” such as Autechre (http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/apr04/articles/autechre.htm)

Yet surprise elements have existed in music well before computers. Consider blues music - a genre which invites improvisation. It might be imagined as a personal music, in which the performer surprises himself though taking random chances in the notes played on an instrument. Imagine an evening's performance, a guitarist onstage, struggling to connect his inner feelings with the motion of his hands and the sound his instrument produces. As playing gets more intense, the body couples tightly to the instrument, and perhaps due to a bit of perspiration, a brief index finger slip near the 14th fret leads to a random “wrong note” which the player's and listeners' ears quickly detect. Yet, the skilled player perceives it not as a "wrong note," but an unexamined slice of his story, and incorporates the new pitch into the melody. Working the note back into the fold, the player relives that surprise moment with every pluck until it no longer becomes a surprise.

When used in art and performance, the surprise which random moments produce may even be contagious: Imagine the story in the previous paragraph from the perspective of a potential romantic couple:

In that moment of tension after the performer stuck the random note, the whole roomed breathed in together. Instead of resolving it, the guitarist let the silence of the room suffuse. This delighted two shy listeners. As they simultaneously smiled, they mutually recognized the expressions from the corners of their eyes and took it as a cue to move closer together. In their first conversation, one of them revealed, "I wasn't even supposed to be here, I took the wrong train. It was an accident..." Their conclusion is that fate brought them together. While their biological systems may have primed them for the experience, it was the accumulation of random events which produced the perceptible event.

In this theoretical example, the randomness played only a small role in the story. In some artworks, as in 10Print, randomness plays a much larger role.

(end of added emotion stuff here)

Must discuss Cage and Zen Buddhism and his influence.

Cage in Experimental Music, 1958 [Iversen 51] " 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 from sources as ancient as the Chinese Book of Changes, or as moderns as the tables of random numbers used also by physicists in research. " In a world in which surprise is available as a commodity, e.g. entrance to the fairgrounds, Cage's observation may be interpreted as a criticism on the over-reliance of chance-determined processes to "produce" surprise on demand.

" Dada wished to destroy the reasonable frauds of men and recover the natural, unreasonable order. Dada wished to replace the logical nonsense of the men of today with an illogical nonsense. "

Marcel Duchamp and John Cage have been the most influential. Duchamp influenced Cage and Cage influenced many more across a range of fields.

Must discuss Duchamp's 3 Standard Stoppages and their use in the Large Glass.

Gabrielle Buffet-Picabia quoted in Chance Imagery by George Brecht [Iversen 38]

Sometimes, it is not merely a single random event, but an accumulation of them which really makes the world run, at least according to a theory science fiction writer Douglas Adams repeatedly referred to called "Infinite Improbability."   

… " This means each performance of such a piece of music is unique, as interesting to its composer as to others listening. It is easy again to see the parallel with nature, for even with leaves of the same tree, no two are exactly alike. The parallel in art is the sculpture with moving parts, the mobile. "

"Art, Cage remarked, is not 'self expression but self alteration.'" [Iversen 92]

Fluxus was important in promoting the ideas further.

Random processes are essential to contemporary practice. Notable include Ellsworth Kelly, Gerhard Richter, Keith Tyson.

Gerhard Richter, Interview with Benjamin H.D. Buchlow [Iversen 159] " Above all, it's never a blind chance; its a chance that is always planned, but also always surprising. And I need it in order to carry on, in order to eradicate my mistakes, to destroy what I've worked out wrong, to introduce something different and disruptive. I'm often astonished to find how much better chance is than I am. "

Why "Chance" a theme in art?

• Response to science: Heisenberg uncertainty
• Response to science: Mutation in genetics
• Response to war: dada response to WWI, anti-rational
• Response to ?: Bypass human agency (self)

Free of social customs and other artificial restrictions on intellectual freedom.

Related notes:

• Find a historial random number tables used in the sciences as a figure
• Freud wrote about the mind and random numbers and bias: Psychopathology of Everyday Life, Chapter 12 http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Freud/Psycho/chap12.htm
• There seems to be some interesting discussion within statistics about generating non-biased random numbers

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