The Taming of the Shrew. About Randomness in Art

Abstract

The article explores the topic of randomness in art. The term "randomness" is very widely used in colloquial speech and ranges from a chance encounter to the random result of a paint splatter or the random result of a dice roll. In many areas of science, the term randomness is used in a narrower sense for random experiments with computable or statistically estimated probabilities of possible outcomes.

At the same time, for many artistic purposes — from the pursuit of naturalness to the "imitation" of nature through artistic creation — the use of chance seems absolutely necessary, which entails the artist's responsibility in accepting this necessity, for the very creative handling of chance requires art. It makes sense, therefore, to distinguish between two concepts of chance: faulty chance, in which probabilities are incalculable, and aleatoric, or probabilistic chance, in which an individual event cannot be calculated or predicted, but in which probabilities can be calculated or determined. Such an understanding and such a dilemma actually points to the range of topics addressed in this essay. To substantiate his views on the nature and specificity of manifestations of randomness in art, the author relies on Aristotle's conception of art, the works of contemporary researchers — T. Adorno, R. Arnheim, T. Bolzano, H.W. Rek, P. Handolla, composers Pierre Boulez and John Cage.