Abstract
UncategorizedAuthor: albertogonzalezg
Reflective review 5
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Contextual Presentation
UncategorizedFINAL REFLECTION
UncategorizedThroughout this year, I have tried to push my practice further. Whilst last year I was focused on the use of materials to achieve visual indeterminacy, this year, I have tried to focus on a specific topic. I have approached this by working particularly on still-life images. Interestingly, I started with an influence from abstract expressionism as this was focused on spontaneity; given this was something I wanted to achieve with my practice. This initial project made me reflect on agency and the possibility of the unexpected. At that moment, I started reading about chance and I thought this could be a great topic to explore further. Thanks to this, I learnt more about fluids theory and how to work with liquids to achieve droplets, splashes, and coronets. However, my intention was not to achieve these for the sake of showing a mastery of the technical aspects of photography but to embed this into visual imagery. When engaging in the practice, I realised that I was mainly focusing on methodical chance as I was taking multiple repetitions to achieve a specific outcome. However, even in those instances, sometimes there was accidental chance as well. In addition, the more repetitions the more mechanical the process turned out and the lower the chance. The mechanisation of the process is not achieved by repetition itself though but through the observation of the variables that may play a role in shaping the final outcome (i.e., reflective practice). Although some outcomes have been more successful than others, overall, I feel that I have continued progressing and have learnt a lot about other photographers, photographic theory, and new techniques.
For my final project, I would like to continue working on chance but trying to push again my practice. First, I want to ensure that the mood I achieve in the images is consistent across all of them. In my practice this year, I have managed to get some images with surreal aesthetics, whereas others have not achieved successfully achieved this. Second, I would like to continue exploring video. Specifically, I would like to test whether I can embed video in photographs as if it is a projection that can potentially complete the photograph. I think this can be particularly challenging but I want to experiment to see what possible results I can obtain. Finally, I would like to see whether I can work on a specific topic as I feel this would help to connect the images better. In regard to presentation methods, I want to learn more about this as I feel that the way I have displayed the work in the WIP exhibitions is okay but it is not particularly provoking for the beholder. Hence, I want to see how the display of my work can be more engaging. To that aim, I will look for more information about current exhibitions and display theory.
WIP EXHIBITIONS
UncategorizedTutorial 3
UncategorizedDate: 23/2/2022
Tutor: Stephen Carrick
Tutorial report: In this meeting, I showed Steve the images I initially created with the droplets to gather some feedback. The discussion focused on the choice of images and how I determined what image was successful. He requested I send him some of the images that I discarded. I explained that the images were discarded either for aesthetical or technical aspects. For example, an image may not have the right composition or the droplet achieved is not the one I was aiming for. Steve suggested that this process of elimination seemed to operate as in evolutionary biology where large amounts of chaos eventually create order – not through any purpose or indeed any positive action but rather through the accumulation of changes that rely on the removal (natural selection) of vast numbers of unfit members of a population (editing).
Points for action: Steve suggested I continued reading about chance and indeed I had planned to borrow two books from the library. In addition, the discussion with him made me think about the different points in which chance may operate and the link with the agency. In my work, it seems that chance may operate mainly in the creation of the images but I thought the idea of the selection was interesting and could potentially be something to consider when displaying the images maybe for the final exhibition.
Reflective practice weeks 29 to 33
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These weeks I wanted to explore the limits between methodical chance and a mechanistic approach where chance would no longer exist. I thought this was interesting as the beholder may potentially struggle to differentiate whether chance is taking place or not just by looking at the images without having additional knowledge of the process. Hence, the ambition for these weeks was to produce some images in which the limits between methodical chance and mechanical would be addressed.
Week 29
In this week, I wanted to explore the limits between methodical and mechanical by trying to replicate the shape of a droplet inside a bubble and without a bubble. This is quite technically challenging as the shape of the droplet is indeed affecting by having the bubble burst. However, this was the best possible approach to show that even a chance process can turn mechanical with several trials. Following Nickerson (2004) even if the outcome is not frequent there is a point in which the practitioner can end up making quite accurate predictions (i.e., chance irregularity).
As seen in the contact sheet, I worked again with multiple layers of light to decontextualise the liquid. Although initially I considered working with multiple bubbles I realised that it was hard to achieve a specific droplet pattern that could be replicated without the bubbles so I soon dropped this idea and just focus on a single bubble with the splash. Although the two splashes are not completely identical they are quite similar. As outlined before, it is physically impossible they can be identical considering that the bubble needs to burst to achieve a similar pattern which in itself can affect the shape of the splash. Despite this, I thought the two outcomes worked well to exemplify when chance can turn mechanical if the practitioner can predict all the possible variables that may play a role on them:
References
Nickerson, R. S. (2004). The production and perception of randomness. Psychological Review, 109(2), 330–357. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.109.2.330
Week 30
Last year I worked more on portraits but this year the focus has been mainly on still life images. This is due to the complexity of the materials used. I felt that I needed to master them first before I could potentially incorporate them into a portrait. Following my aim of showing how chance can turn mechanical once the process has been mastered I decided to incorporate a droplet into a potential portrait. I wanted to achieve something similar to a Cubist portrait in which different elements might be distorted or not potentially visible. By incorporating the droplet into a portrait I could show how the process is mastered and how methodical chance has turned into mechanical. This was evident for example in Edgerton’s images in which he captured photographs of phenomena that a priori could be seen as chance but that he managed to master completely by multiple repetition (Elkins, 2004).
Working on the portrait was not easy as I was completely on my own and had to trigger the camera, the pump for the droplet, the flash and be the model. Working with another person has made the process easier. Despite this, I managed to achieve a good outcome similar to what I had in mind. I tried different poses and lighting to see what could work best and chose the image in which the droplet was fully visible but integrated as well on my face.
Althought the image turned out well, I thought this was a good experiment to further refine in other trials as I thought it was subject to improvement. For example, the black side of the face would benefit from having other elements that would help to compensate the final composition of the image. Hence, this might be a potential idea to consider in the final project.
References
Elkins, J. (2004). Harold’s Edgerton’s Rapatronic photographs of atomic tests. History of Photography, 28(1), 74-81. https://doi.org/10.1080/03087298.2004.10441290
Week 31
Continuing focusing on the mechanical view, I wanted to address from a more representational point of view by playing with the idea of repetition. To that aim, I used multiple mirrors with a twofold aim: 1) helping to decontextualise the droplets and 2) achieving a repetitive pattern. For this shoot, I got inspiration from Robert Sulkin. Sulkin’s work is characterised by complex staged still life images with surreal aesthetics (the Eleanor D. Wilson Museum, 2020). The image I mainly got inspiration from relies on mirrors to show different planes of the same object:
Although I did not want to display different sides of the same object, I thought that using multiple mirrors as in the image above could lead to interesting results.
To produce the image I used three mirrors of different sizes so that it could replicate the same pattern but with different sizes. I discarded those images in which the droplet was not clear or produce a splash as this is not what I was after. I realise that even though I try to approach it from a quite mechanical point of view, there was some accidental chance as well as one of the droplets fell precisely in the intersection between the mirror and the surface.
This image tends to approach the concept of mechanical chance from a more representational point of view. I thought the image was fine but I thought that it could potentially be subject to improvement by working with more stable mirrors as the small mirrors were prone to bend. Also, placing the mirrors in different angles could have provided potentially different perspective which had created more interesting effects.
References
The Eleanor D. Wilson Museum (2020). Robert Sulkin Photographs (1973-2019). Hollins University.
Week 32
In this week, I wanted to continue what I started exploring in the previous week by focusing on mechanisation from a more representational point of view. I played once again with lighting and a mirror to decontextualise the liquid. However, unlike the previous week, I wanted to explore the idea of displaying the droplet from different perspectives. Photographing different perspectives is not new and has been previously done by Barbara Probst (Sherman, 2016). However, unlike Probst, I am not intersted in showing different perspectives in different images but in the same image.
Images were discarded because the splash was not clear or because the shadow cast pattern created by the splash projection did not produce an interesting result.
The final image achieved a very surreal outlook. Interestingly, surrealism and chance have been intrinsically related since surrealism embrace chance to access the unconscious (Susik, 2016).
References
Sherman, K. L. (2016). The Manipulation of Perception: Barbara Probst’s Exposure# 106. The Journal of Undergraduate Research at Ohio State, 6.
Susik, A. (2016). Chance and automatism. In D. Hopkins (Eds.), A companion to Dada and Surrealism (pp. 242-256). Wiley. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118476215.ch14
Week 33
In this week, I wanted to continue exploring the limits between methodical chance and a mechanical approach but creating a more staged still life. I felt the previous images were acceptable but they did not look “clean” and “crisp” as other images that I had generated during the year. Hence, I went back to the use of geometrical shapes and added a wasp to the composition to add ambiguity. The beholder could wonder whether this was accidental bringing again ambiguity in regards to the chance itself. Aesthetically, I took inspiration once more from Nathan Lerner’s image Paper on string (1938). He worked with multiple strings and I thought this would work great for this image in which the strings could potentially generate different planes in the photograph decontextualising all elements (Zollo, 1996). I displayed his work in Week 21. Before arranging the threads I wanted to use I created a possible sketch to think about the composition:
This is what I set up to make the image:
For this image, I took almost 100 images. The ones included in the contact sheet are just an example of some of the outcomes obtained. I discarded those images in which the droplet did not achieve a certain height which made it work with the overall composition.
I thought this image worked significantly better than the image of the previous two weeks and matched better with other outcomes produced since I started exploring the topic of chance.
References
Zollo, R. (1996). Nathan Lerner and Maxwell Street. Chicago Review, 42(2), 20-31.
Reflection on these week’s work
Overall, I felt that some outcomes were more successful than others but as indicated previously, the more I worked on a process the more control I had. This gave the opportunity to achieve very precise outcomes similar to what I had in mind. Adding elements such as mirrors, light planes, and shadow casts is helpful to shape the beholder’s views of the photographs.
Reflective practice weeks 22 to 28
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These weeks, I started reading about chance and the distinction between accidental and methodical. I realised that my work in the previous weeks was focused on methodical chance as it was based on repetitions until achieving a desired outcome. In these weeks, I decided to keep exploring that by playing with staged still life images and bubbles.
Week 22
In this week, I wanted to keep experimenting with droplets but disguise the beholder by adding a magnifier glass. This magnifier glass not only affected how the droplet might be perceived but it may simulate a bubble in itself. The use of glass magnifier offered the opportunity to change the scale of the objects by for example making the flower look bigger than it was in reality and to change the direction of the planes. The beholder’s perception of the image is indeed tricked by playing with these elements. I reflect on this while preparing a possible sketch:
Following Arnheim (1974), the addition of these different elements in the image may increase its ambiguity to increase the likelihood of triggering different meanings. That is why, the initial images as evidenced in the contact sheet was still too simple and in fact, they did not work that well in terms of composition and potential ambiguity. However, when adding further elements such as a metallic grid (i.e., images in the second row of the contact sheet) and additional natural elements (i.e., the plant added in the last trials as evidenced in the third row of the contact sheet) the imagery becomes more complex and ambiguity may be more present.
I have selected for the contact sheet some of the most significant trials to comment on the different processes followed. The images of the third row worked significantly better as the lighting and the composition worked well together. The rectangle created by light was done on purpose so that the droplet could fall in there. That is why, I selected the second image as the droplet just fell where it was planned.
The final image can be found below:
Overall, I was pleased with the image as the droplet fell where it was expected as the image achieved was open to interpretation.
References
Arnheim, R. (1974). Art and visual perception: A psychology of the creative eye. University of California Press.
Week 23
In this week, I wanted to keep playing with ambiguity by combining the magnifier glass and the lighting to achieve an abstract image. Given that methodical chance is based on repetition (Malone, 2009), I thought I could experiment with having a series of images in which the droplet could adopt different shapes. Playing with the lighting and the magnifier glass would help me to decontextualise the droplet and break the schema of a what a droplet is (Gombrich, 2000). Aesthetically, I got inspired by Moholy-Nagy’s photograms as they are characterised by stark contrasts of black and white and the objects depicted displayed at times a level of ambiguity (Nelson, 2006). The contact sheet can be found below:
As evidenced in the contact sheet, the first attempts selected to display in the contact sheet, the lighting chosen did not allow for the water texture to be seen. The second set of attempts (i.e., second row) allowed for the water texture to be more visible but the droplet was not fully visible so these images were also discarded. Finally, the images selected (i.e., last row) allowed for both the water texture and the droplet to be fully visible. The images selected are those in which the droplet clearly emerged from the hole. Although the final outputs were quite similar, I thought it was interesting to show precisely the same set up but with slight variations in the droplets to evidence the process of methodical chance, similarly to how John Baldessari did with his series of images in 1973 (Kelsey, 2015).
References
Gombrich, E.H. (2000). Art and illusion: A study in the psychology of pictorial representation. London: Phaidon.
Kelsey, R. (2015). Photography and the Art of Chance. Harvard University Press.
Malone, M. (2009). Chance aesthetics. Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum.
Nelson, A. (2006). László Moholy-Nagy and Painting Photography Film: A guide to narrative montage. History of Photography, 30(3), 258-269.
Week 24
In these weeks, I realised that the more trials I engaged when trying to achieve an image the more the control I was gaining over the process and the outcome. This made me think about agency since this is supposed to be in direct opposition to chance (Iversen, 2010). The more control I was gaining, the lower the chance in the images. I decided then to add some complexity so that chance could be reintroduced in my work and I could lose control. I went back to the objects I used in the previous weeks to try to achieve a geometrically pleasant droplet that could pass through a glass ball. Although the image could look simple considering the number of elements added, the complexity underlay the process to attain the specific outcome. The focus on the process and the unexpected is similar to how Ori Gherst has approached his practice. His images are characterised by freezing elements when exploding (Wainbright, 2008).
As evidenced in the contact sheet, it was not an easy process. I discarded those images in which the droplet did not achieve a splash. Those in which there was a splash, I discarded those in which this was not fully visible due the lighting or the position of the splash itself. The final image can be found below:
Adding elements to complicate the process reintroduced chance. As evidenced in the contact sheet, obtaining a particular splash that was well lit and had a good shape was not easy. Despite this, the overall image turned out well.
References
Iversen, M. (2010). Chance. MIT/Whitechapel Gallery.
Wainwright, J. (2008). Ori Gersht. Time After Time. Photography and Culture, 1(1), 115-117. https://doi.org/10.2752/175145108784861383
Week 25
In this week, i wanted to continue playing with abstraction by combining different lights and playing with refraction to decontextualise once more the droplet. Although this process was not complex itself, the attainment of a particular outcome could be challenging. I continued following the principles of methodical chance and engaged once more in multiple trials until achieving a desired outcome (Malone, 2009). For this week, I took inspiration in Berenice Abbot’s images in which she experimented with light and a mirror to achieve diffraction. These images had the aim to showcase scientific phenomena (Sullivan, 2006).
Abbott’s images were subject to chance as in many instances she could not control what the final outcome might be. In the selected image above, we can find the effect of refraction which I was after in my own image by mixing water and light.
As seen in the contact sheet, I tried different lighting diagrams to see which one could work best. The problem with the first two lighting set ups is that the diffraction was not fully visible so I had to change this up as evidenced in the third row. It was challenging to decide on a specific outcome as many of them looked great. I took my decision based on the shape (i.e., more aesthetically pleasing) and in which the was more diffraction. The final image can be found below:
The use of different lights changed the quality of the liquid and made it look very different. Once more, the light helped to decontextualise the liquid and make it look like a liquid sculpture.
References
Sullivan, G. (2006). Berenice Abbott, Photographer: An Independent Vision. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
Week 26
In this week, I wanted to continue with simplicity in terms of the elements used but wanted to focus on the attainment of a specific outcome. Hence, as in the previous weeks, I engaged in multiple repetitions following a methodical approach. Specifically, I wanted to see whether I could attain a figure similar to Giacometti’s sculptures. Giacometti’s work was highly influenced by surrealism and cubism, two artistic movements quite influential in my own practice. His figure sculptures wanted to represent the imaginary and inaccessible space (Boyne, 2008).
As it can be seen in the contact sheet, it was not easy to achieve an abstract figure similar to Giacometti’s. I I included some of the most significant trials from all the ones undertaken (i.e., close to 100 images). The images discarded did not show a similar figure to the one I was after, did not have a collision of just showed a regular splash. The final image can be found below:
Although I did achieve a shape similar to Giacometti’s work, I was not entirely sure this would work as the lack of elements made the image quite simple and I think it’s quite evident it’s liquid so not sure it really fits well with the rest of the work as I was after a more ambiguous outcome.
References
Boyne, R. (2008). A brief note on Giacometti. Theory, Culture & Society, 25(5), 20-29.
Week 27
In the previous weeks, most of the experimentation relied on droplets. I felt as acknowledged in some of the earlier weeks that I started mastering the process to an extent I was feeling I had total agency and no chance was taking place. Hence, I thought I had to bring more elements into the equation to increase chance. To that aim, I decided to play with two elements: bubbles and droplets. Bubbles are elements that are intrinsically related to chance as they are very hard to control and they can explode at any time. Hence, there is little scope for control. Once more Jaromir Funke’s work focused on the use of different light planes was influential (Witkovsky, 2005), as well as Gyorgy Kepes’s images focused on abstraction and use of geometrical shapes (Blakinger, 2019).
Before taking pictures, I drew a possible effect I wanted to achieve with my images:
In the contact sheet, I have identified in red the images selected. As it can be seen I experimented with multiple processes that range from a single bubble and a droplet to including multiple bubbles as evidenced in the last image selected from the last row. I found in many instances hard to choose a specific image as many of them depicted an interesting pattern. I took over 100 images and I selected the ones in which the droplet (Warthington’s column) touched the bubble but did not break it and altered its shape instead. The final series of images for this week are as follows:
The final images depict a kind of tension in which the bubbles seem to be about to explode. I think these images represent quite well the concept of chance as something ephemeral and that one might be able to capture once but potentially might be hard to repeat the process. I felt that adding more elements brought back chance to my practice.
References
Blakinger, J. R. (2019). Gyorgy Kepes: Undreaming the Bauhaus. MIT Press.
Witkovsky, M. S. (2005). Jaromír Funke’s Abstract Photo series of 1927–1929: History in the making. History of Photography, 29(3), 228-239.
Week 28
To finish the practice of these weeks, I continued exploring multiple elements playing in this case with multiple bubbles and droplets. I wanted to continue adding uncontrollable elements to the practice. I played with multiple light planes to decontextualise the elements. Following Malone’s (2009) classification, I wanted to explore randomness by incorporating multiple uncontrollable elements to see what possible outcomes I could obtain. This is similar in the approach to Sugimoto’s series of images in which he experimented with electricity. Electricity is an element impossible to control and hence, difficult to predict what possible patterns may emerge (Wittmann, 2009). As in some other images, I stated working with a sketch so that I could try to achieve a very specific outcome:
In the contact sheet, it can be seen that it was not easy to work with two bubbles simultaneously and actually they only resisted very few images. the challenge was to ensure that the droplet would not burst the bubble and this turned out quite challenging. The final image selected achieved to showcase two bubbles and a droplet that did not break the bubble and had the appropriate height to make the composition work. The final image is as follows:
References
Wittmann, M. (2009). Time, extended: Hiroshi Sugimoto with Gilles Deleuze. Image & Narrative, 10(1), 187.
Final reflection on these week’s work
Working these weeks, I reflected upon agency most of the time and whether this was dropped and regained when experimenting with different materials and levels of complexity. Different authors have suggested that even the accidental has some level of agency as the artist makes conscious choices (Mitcheson, 2010). I agree with this but at the same time there are times in which the artist can be surprised with outcomes completed unexpected (i.e., happy accidents using Sally Mann’s words; Parsons, 2008). Finally, I also reflected on the possibilities of chance turning mechanical if the process is totally mastered by the practitioner. I think there is a very fine line between methodical chance and no chance at all. In fact, chance has been viewed in opposition to determinism. Hence, this is something I would like to continue exploring as I think it would be interesting to see where the limit is for something to be considered chance.
WIP Exhibition May 2022
UncategorizedSetting up the exhibition
In this exhibition, I felt more comfortable with the work to display as I felt that I had the opportunity to engage with a topic more in-depth. As in the previous submissions, my work was focused on chance, I decided to display some of the images that I found more successful. Whereas in the previous exhibition, I decided I did not want to display very large images, in this exhibition I felt some of the outcomes should be exhibited in a large format. The rationale behind that is that the droplets are actually quite small so by changing the scale the “water sculptures” might be perceived differently by the beholder. The change of the scale helps to decontextualise the droplets so that these can acquire a completely different meaning.
As in the previous exhibition, I decided to print my images in fine art paper as I thought the quality of the prints is better and it gives a more painting-like effect to the photographs playing again with the ambiguity in my visual imagery approach.
Having the opportunity to display the images allows the practitioner to complete the whole process in the artistic creation of the images. Unless the images are printed and displayed, most of the time this would remain in digital format. Hence, it is difficult to see how each photographer would envision their work.
To install the images, I brought my exhibition plan as well as the different materials to ensure that I could not damage the images and that these would be displayed appropriately
The final set up of the exhibition can be found below:
As it can be seen, the larger images decontextualise the droplets whereas the smaller images invite the beholder to find similarities in the patterns and the shapes obtained. The statement written for the exhibition can be read below:
During the presentation, I brought some images printed so that they could be used as referents when I was explaining the different concepts and processes followed. These can be seen below:
Further Reflection on the Interim Exhibition
I received really positive feedback from the exhibition from my tutors and colleagues. Some important aspects of the discussion focused on the aesthetics of the images and the selection. The aesthetics of the images were discussed as something magical and created rather than taken. In fact, I would describe myself as an image-maker rather than -taker. I enjoy creating the sets and imagining the image to then trying to achieve it. I was suggested to look at the Quay brothers animators. In fact, when I have explored their stop-motion films the aesthetics are similar and it is clearly based on German expressionism. I have never heard of them before so I was grateful to receive suggestions of further sources of inspiration. Concerning the choice of images, I was asked what makes me decide what works and what doesn’t. This is a very pertinent question, especially considering that methodical chance is based on multiple repetitions in which outputs may differ only in small variations. I feel the act of choosing rules out chance and brings back agency. This is definitely something to continue reflecting on and to show in the journal.
The exhibition was a great opportunity to see the work undertaken by my colleagues:
The exhibition showed the evolution of the work. I could see how everyone explored additional processes and experimented with either the processes or the display of the work. Looking at the work of others I also reflected on the role of chance in their work. For example, the work undertaken by one of my colleagues based on the collection of small branches can be quite determined by chance or for example when using coffee to dye the work. It might be difficult to predict what the final work can be. I thought that somehow chance could underpin most of the work displayed even if the creators were not totally aware of it.
Conceptual research weeks 29 to 33
UncategorizedIn the previous weeks, I investigated the concept of chance and focused mainly on the distinction between accidental and methodical. This distinction highlights the difference between something that happens randomly (once or maybe one among many trials in an unpredictable way) or something that happens on a predictable basis after a certain number of trials (Malone, 2009). This made me think that chance should be contextualised in probabilistic theory as this theory is concerned with the explanation of occurrences, events, and randomness (Stevens, 2006). Interestingly the link between chance and probability should be dated back to the Greek literature as the games of chance were described in the Trojan wars. In fact, the first dice is dated back to almost 3000 before Christ (Bennett, 2011). Despite chance being so prevalent in games from so early on it was not until quite late when a theory of probability was developed. Many scholars have questioned why probability theories were developed so late and it seems that it might be due to a deterministic epistemology dominant until at least the 16th century. Determinism assumes that only a certain number of factors can account for a number of outcomes and it is not possible to consider alternative choices (Loewer, 2001). In fact, the use of chance in art at the beginning of the 20th century emerged as a reaction to the determinism dominant in the 18th and 19th centuries (Iversen, 2010).
Probabilistic theory can help us to understand whether certain outcomes are probable or improbable. Nickerson (2004) makes an important distinction between irregularity and randomness. He argues that when something happens on an irregular basis does not mean is random. For example, I may toss a coin ten times, and it might be that it yields 10 heads in a row. Hence, there is an irregularity but there is no randomness as if I would continue tossing the coin I would reach a 50:50 ratio distribution in the heads and tails. This is what Nickerson (2004) would call “chance irregularity”. Hence, we could say that chance irregularity might be present in methodical chance as there might be irregularities but patterns can end up being predictable, especially after a number of trials. If we want to put this in statistical terms we could use a regression equation:
Y = X1 + X2+…Xn+e
The Y would represent the outcome, that is, what we are trying to achieve in our artistic creation. The X would represent the different factors that can play a role in shaping the outcome, and E would represent the error as it is virtually impossible to know all the possible factors that may play a role in the outcome (Osborne, 2002). In methodical chance, the artist is playing with multiple repetitions to try to predict what the variables are and what value the variables should have in order to attain a specific outcome. However, in accidental chance it is not possible to predict those variables as in this type of chance, randomness would be present, following Nickerson (2004).
In methodical chance, after a number of repetitions, it is indeed possible to make very accurate predictions. This brings back again the debate of agency and whether this may be placed as opposite in the continuum of chance (Malone, 2009). Agency is defined as ‘attributable to those persons (and things …) who/which are seen as initiating causal sequences … events caused by acts of mind or will or intention … An agent is the source, the origin, of causal events, independently of the state of the physical universe’ (Gell, 1998, p. 16). Therefore, agency is the ability to create in different ways and as such more than one course of action is plausible. Agency disappears when the agent can no longer make a difference and there is only a single course of action (Giddens, 1984). If we link this with our discussion around chance so far, we can find the following: First, in accidental chance, agency would only be present in the act of choosing a specific image. The process of creation in this type of chance is random as it happens accidentally or by luck (Nickerson, 2004). Agency only happens when the photographer for example has to select an image over a set of images that have been taken randomly as more than one course of action is possible. Second, in methodical chance agency would take place in the process of creation. Images here are made not taken. The photographer has to decipher the different factors needed in order to attain a specific outcome. Here the photographer has to make conscious choices bearing in mind the outcome they may want to achieve. However, different levels of the factors or even different factors can potentially lead to the same outcome. Hence, as suggested by Giddens (1984) the photographer has more than a single course of action to make their images. Finally, when the photographer can make perfect predictions and can achieve specific outcomes after a very few trials this leads to the mechanisation of the creative process. This mechanisation would entail zero chance and potentially very limited agency as only one alternative would be followed to attain a single outcome. It is interesting to note that despite these differences, the beholder may not be capable to differentiate whether chance has taken place when confronted with images that have emerged through the three different processes outlined. This may only happen if the beholder is shown the different processes followed to achieve a specific image. It would be naive to assume that the beholder has the capacity to make such inferences without receiving more information that the outcomes themselves. This resonates with Barthes’s argument in the Death of the author (1977) about the tendency to mistakenly see the work as a direct message from the creator. However, the work created is subject to interpretations but for this to happen accurately in regards to chance it may imply having additional information.
In our discussion around accidental, methodical, and mechanical chance it is pertinent to bring the concept of aura (Benjamin, 1935). For Benjamin (1935) aura was the unique aesthetic authority of a work of art, or in other words, it is what makes a work of art authentic. Hence, for Benjamin, a work can only be called a work of art if it is original and does not emerge from reproduction. Following this and considering the three types of chance (i.e., accidental, methodical, and mechanical), accidental chance would have aura as it’s impossible to reproduce. Aura would be present to a lower extent in methodical chance as repetition is present and in fact, Benjamin would challenge whether this could be called art. Finally, mechanical chance would be the perfect example of no aura as it’s based on statistics and reproducibility. Hence, this opens a debate not only about the role of the practitioner in the creation of the work but also a debate about what can be considered art when introducing chance in one’s own practice.
Reading about this has been extremely helpful to connect different concepts and making me reflect on the creative process. This will serve as a foundation for this final project in which I will explore the boundaries of chance. Can accidental and mechanical chance co-exist? Can we kill the chance in artistic creation? When does methodical chance turn mechanical? These are some of the questions I would like to start exploring in these weeks.
References
Barthes, R. (1977). Image-music-text. Macmillan.
Benjamin, W. (2008). The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction. Penguin UK.
Bennet, D. (2011). Defining Randomness. In S. Prasanta Bandyopadhyay & R. Malcom Forster (Eds.) Philosophy of Statistics (pp. 633-638) Oxford: Elsevier.
Gell, A. (1998). Art and agency: an anthropological theory. Oxford: University Press.
Giddens, A. (1984). The constitution of society. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Iversen, M. (2010). Chance. MIT/Whitechapel Gallery.
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Alberto Gonzalez 