Artist Gabriel Orozco eliminated all postproduction processes from his work and relied purely on the outcomes of his initial spontaneous recordings (Orozco 1998, p. 195). My chance processes commence the work and are also incorporated within postproduction. Postproduction allows me to further produce sounds, construct, listen, produce more sounds, and so on. This process is one of building and destroying. The objective and subjective, the conscious and the unconscious, hand-in-hand, creating environments of sounds. The balance can be found within the relationship of opposing forces. Successful applications of chance can result from forced relationships between intentional structure and organised chaos (Nyman 1999, p. 4).
George Brecht expresses the limitless nature of the unconscious and how it would be impossible to retrace its steps (Brecht 1966, p. 6). Inclusively Alan Walker expresses that it is commonplace for musicians to listen in wonderment after a session of unconscious composing (Walker 1979, p. 1642). Gerhard Richter stated, “I’m often astonished to find how much better chance is than I am” (Richter 1986, p.159). It is not a matter that chance is more efficient at achieving results; it is the transmutable power it can lend to the work that is important. Chance processes within Space and Light borrow from elements of indeterminacy, fortune and planned processes.
Contemporary chance artist Céleste Boursier-Mougenot created an installation with an indeterminate output (Barbican 2010). Although the installation has obviously been planned, the process of producing sound within the piece was left entirely to chance. Electric guitars were placed within the installation as horizontal ‘landing’ platforms. Flocks of birds land on the guitars and hit the amplified strings (video media 5). The sounds were created in real-time and every performance was unique, the creator of the sounds being unaware of the production of sound allowing for unconscious participation outside the artists control (2010).
