LO 06 – Randomness

John Cage was an American composer who was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde. While most of his work involved music and non-standard use of musical instruments, he also produced visual art. One project titled “Rocks” used randomness to determine the tools and placement of the objects being painted. Cage used computer-generated random numbers from a list which determined what group of stones would be used in his drawing/painting. He would then go through the same process to choose the brush/pencil he would use, and the position of the rocks. After this “seed” has been chosen, Cage would trace the rocks in their random positions. I particularly enjoy this work because of the simplicity in the randomness. While these pieces of art do not use complex algorithms to produce random results, they use random number generators to select the materials, and Cage is still able to physically contribute to the pieces. This is certainly a contrast to the work of Jackson Pollock, which appears to be completely random, but in the end, Pollock is controlling every splatter of paint. In the work of John Cage, his work looks so controlled, yet every aspect of it, aside from the shape of the rocks, is random.

Link: http://hanesgallery.wfu.edu/portfolio-item/johncagerocks/