Looking Outwards 06: Randomness

This piece displays randomness because the artist used it to create different-sized polygons. They used the Pareto distribution, which helps in creating a balance of different sizes. In his artwork, he used this to choose the length and width of the shapes. By doing so there are many small shapes but only a few large shapes. This way, even though the size of the polygons is random, the composition that is created is still balanced. If there were too many big shapes then they would overpower the composition. What I admire most about this project, is that it shows control even though it is generated through randomness. So even though the length and the width are controlled by chance, the artist still has some control so they can still get the desired effect. If there was no control, then the composition might communicate something that is unintended.  The artist particularly used this form of randomness because they believed that it is what is most common in society and nature. To prove their point they provided examples. One of the examples was that the amount of people that have a lot of money is less than the number of people that don’t. This piece can be something that helps visualize this idea.  

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By: Tyler Hobbs

https://tylerxhobbs.com/essays/2014/probability-distributions-for-algorithmic-artists