A wonderful coincidence NL

I still don't know much about art. Works of art, events and people float like beacons or obstacles in my head and heart. I paddle in between with new technology in a shower of daily distractions that overwhelm my own experiences, thoughts and insights.

Even with the help of new technology images continue to appear as gifts to me. The spontaneous act transforms even faster than before to a kind of insight or recipe, glowing on the screen right in front of me. It's confronting: your thoughts as an editable file with a history and a precisely identifiable location.

The machine gives you the possibility at any time to return to a previous moment and create a new variant. Endless repetition of almost the same thing with chance playing hide and seek. My brain, enlightened by feelings, is an excellent partner for the electric-powered calculators. The interaction of these two creates a desired coincidence.

Coincidence thrives perfectly in that repetitive tinkering with instructions for the machines. As with ordinary language, when working with code, I trust that the instructions are clear and articulate exactly what has to be shown.

In that cloud of self-delusion, it can take long before instructions lead to something interesting. After a while, the endless adaptation and execution of the tinkered codes always becomes unbearable. The list of variants becomes as big as the urge to delete. Sometimes all that remains is the hope of a happy coincidence, which might suddenly emerges from that endless repetition. Chance and conception are inextricably linked in the illusion of what is supposed to happen.

So I write very intentionally almost always the same instructions to produce repetitive variations. Using that blatantly minimal figuration in as artificially constructed compositions as possible. With coincidence sometimes literally added into the code as a variable parameter. Once or several times. Only then can the addictive rain dance begin of adjusting and playing over and over again. Sometimes it drips right away, sometimes a miraculous gust of rain, but often there are those long periods of dull repetition.

This interaction with the machine, results in a multitude of possible works. They are saved, named and published. Some remain floating in the sight of everyone who wants to see them, sometimes they drift towards a vague horizon or sink slowly until they only exist as a forgotten file in a folder.

But every conceived and accidentally generated image permeates every next image that appears afterwards. In a temporary blinding caused by the rapid succession of images, chance seems to show itself again and again as a seemingly thoughtless gift.

Author: Hans Verhaegen, 2020