Instructor Jeff Thompson (Stevens Institute of Technology)
Email jeff.thompson@stevens.edu
Office/hours None since I will only be in Hartford on
Fridays, but reachable by email :)
Meeting times Fridays 9:30am–12:20pm, 1:30–4:30pm
Location Varies, depending on what we’re working on that week
In this seven-week course, we will explore chance and randomness as tools for making art. We’ll look at lots of historical examples—from visual art, music, popular culture, science, and technology—and create artworks that investigate the creative potential of letting go of artistic decisions and collaborating with chance and randomness. We’ll start with analog methods like drawing and collage, then move into writing code later in the class. The course culminates in a multi-week, open-ended project that connects the ideas covered in the class with your own creative practice.
Along the way, we’ll also discuss the differences between chance, randomness, information, and entropy, do some readings to contextualize our work, explore performance and scores for work, and discuss what happens when (to varying degrees) remove the artist’s hand in favor of mechanisms out of our control.
See Syllabus.pdf for course policies, grading, etc.
“The randomness to me is always very precise, a kind of zeroing in.” — Robert Smithson
“Then I made a superb dive into the human conscience, that I have infested with strange chances, formless flowers, and cries of marvels.” — André Breton
Please note this may change depending on timing, interest of the class, and other random variables; check this website regularly.
WEEK 1 (OCT 25): CHANCE OPERATIONS
Introductions, syllabus, cut-up photographs, gravity drawings, dérive, Surrealist newspaper poems
WEEK 2 (NOV 1): CHANCE OPERATIONS 2
Critique of homework, discuss reading, Oblique Strategies, making our own prompts, drawing scores
WEEK 3 (NOV 8): RANDOM CHOICES
Critique of homework, Chaos Game, dice drawings, analog random value generators
WEEK 4 (NOV 15): PSEUDORANDOMNESS, CODE
Critique of homework, final project ideation session, introduction to Processing, drawing basics, loops, random values
WEEK 5 (NOV 22): PSEUDORANDOMNESS 2
Further Processing demos, prepping files for the plotter
[ Thanksgiving break, no class ]
WEEK 6 (DEC 6): ENTROPY, CODE 3
Feedback session on work in progress, listening session, outputting sketches to the plotter, work day on final project
WEEK 7 (DEC 13): FINAL CRITIQUE
Work time, critique of finished projects