DEBORAH CARRUTHERS
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    • Exhibitions ... Now You See Me... >
      • What Remains Unexplained 2.0: The Endpoint Collective
      • Beyond the Stone Angel: artists reflect on the death of their parents, MacKenzie Art Gallery, Regina, Saskatchewan, October 2021- February 2022 >
        • More About ​Safe Passage
        • More About the Paintings ...
      • Announcing the Coming of the Sun, Adjacent to Life Gallery, New York, New York, USA , 2021
      • The Aura of the Already Said - Zygote Gallery, Cleveland, Ohio - 2019
      • Souvenir / Souvenir - Montréal, Québec 2017 >
        • Souvenir / Souvenir - Press
        • Souvenir / Souvenir - Essay ​Culte du Souvenir
        • Souvenir / Souvenir: About the Exhibition ...
        • Souvenir / Souvenir : Invitation card
    • Performances ... Once Upon a Time ... >
      • Ecstacies of Influence - Le Gesù, Amphithéâtre -Montréal - December 2018
      • slippages - The UBC Symphony Orchestra - Chan Centre - Vancouver - October 2018 >
        • slippages - Press
        • slippages - Instructions for play and score
        • slippages in the Studio: About my process >
          • slippages Athabasca -Photographs
          • slippages Immense Immensities
          • slippages Notebook
          • slippages Athabasca Painting
        • slippages - Performance Videos
    • Residencies ... Home Away From Home ... >
      • Ecstasies of Influence : matralab, Concordia University - Montréal 2018 >
        • Ecstacies of Influence - December 16, 2018 - Le Gesù, Amphithéâtre - Montréal
      • The Past Sealed Away - Peter Wall Institute Artist in Residence - Vancouver, BC 2017 - 2018 >
        • The Past Sealed Away... Article
      • What's in a Song ? Between the Song and the Silence: Banff Centre for the Arts and Creativity, Banff, Alberta 2017
      • In The Hole - Saskatoon, Saskatchewan 2017
      • A Ubiquity of Sparrows : Banff Centre for the Arts and Creativity, Banff, Alberta 2016 >
        • A Ubiquity of Sparrows : Banff Installation
  • Graphic Scores
    • reading between the lines - 2022
    • safe passage - 2021 >
      • safe passage: Graphic Score for Canoe Installation
    • slippages - 2018 >
      • slippages - Press
      • slippages - Instructions for play and score
      • slippages in the Studio: About my process >
        • slippages Athabasca -Photographs
        • slippages Immense Immensities
        • slippages Notebook
        • slippages Athabasca Painting
      • slippages - Performance Videos
    • Between the Song and the Silence: Berlin 2017 - 2021 >
      • Between the Song and the Silence: Graphic Score- Studies for Hobrechtsfelde Iteration
      • Between the Song and the Silence: Graphic Score- Banff Iteration
      • My Muses
      • What's in a Name?
      • Taking Flight ... The Process
      • Swan Song... A summary of my process for my MFA research
  • Portfolio
    • Mortsaf for My Father : the Series ... >
      • Mortsaf for My Father : the Paintings ...
      • Mortsaf for My Father: ​Safe Passage
    • Allegory for a New Ice Age ... Photographs
    • The Past Sealed Away ... Painting
    • The Past Sealed Away... Prints
    • The Past sealed Away: Athabasca - Photographs
    • Immense Immensities Miniature Watercolours
    • In The Hole
    • Souvenir sacré
    • Souvenir sacré - Opasatika
    • Fleurs sacrées
    • Mortsaf
    • Genetics for Cowboys
    • Beautiful Ghosts
    • Niagara Tondos
    • Twinned
  • C V
  • Contact

The Role of Chance - Bowdidge​

Picture
Race! , 2016, 24" x 35", Giclée on moab300

​Chance Aesthetics (Malone, Meredith) pdf

Chance: Is anything in the universe truly random? (New Scientists)  pdf

Stumbling Over/Upon Art, Cabinet Magazine, Issue 19, 2005 (Gamboni, Dario) link

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “Chance Versus Randomness”  link

Iverson, Margaret, “Chance (Documents of Contemporary Art)” 
link

The question of whether or not chance exists has been long debated. Is what we call randomness really a question of lack of information? Scientific theory has leaned towards ideas of determination: there is a reason for everything, whether or not we are capable of parsing out what those reasons are. One of the  problems with determinism is that it calls into question the idea of free will.
The field of chaos theory,  which includes Edward Lorenz's theory known as "the butterfly effect", allows for an acceptance of the unpredictable, while experiments in quantum theory demonstrate the essential randomness of nature.
 
The idea of chance has long been a source of artistic experimentation and research in the arts. The Surrealists played with ideas of chance vis-à-vis the “exquisite corpse “in all its forms.  André Breton coined the term “objective chance” to denote those coincidences which to him seemed extraordinary. It has been suggested that Breton’s objective chance is not unlike the types of coincidence that Carl Jung proposes as being affected by acausal principles in his 1948 book Synchronicity.
 
In 1948 the Automatistes also published their manifesto, Le refus global, or Total Refusal, in which one of the signatories, Paul-Émile Borduas, discusses nécessité(s) The writer Ray Ellenwood has described it as “as an internal compulsion, with a kind of organic inevitability, with the inexplicable forces causing true creativity. It is irrational” [1]. Several of the Automatistes, (Jean-Paul Riopelle, Fernand Leduc as well as Borduas) were known to have had discussions with Breton about automatism and surrealism, particularly as it related to artistic creation and randomness.
 
Meredith Malone, in writing about the spontaneous gesture as a symbol of subjective experience, speaks to an artistic concern that remains relevant, regardless of the medium.
 
The Fluxus artist Dick Higgins composed a piano work in 1980, Clouds for Piano, in which the score was superimposed on a photograph of clouds. The instructions for the player were minimal, and the score was dependent upon the cloud formations for its structure. When asked about the work, Higgins was reported to have said that chance was his collaborator and muse. As Dario Gamboni suggested in his article, Stumbling Over/Upon Art,” what happens in the making of a work of art is always a mixture of control and lack of it, a pattern of abandoning and reclaiming agency”.
 
1.            Borduas, P.-É., Total Refusal: The Complete 1948 Manifesto of the Montréal Automatistes. 1948.
 
 
 


​

​ We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts.
Nous remercions le Conseil des Arts du Canada de son soutien.
Picture
  • Home
    • Artist Statement
    • Bio
  • Exhibitions / Residencies/Performances
    • Exhibitions ... Now You See Me... >
      • What Remains Unexplained 2.0: The Endpoint Collective
      • Beyond the Stone Angel: artists reflect on the death of their parents, MacKenzie Art Gallery, Regina, Saskatchewan, October 2021- February 2022 >
        • More About ​Safe Passage
        • More About the Paintings ...
      • Announcing the Coming of the Sun, Adjacent to Life Gallery, New York, New York, USA , 2021
      • The Aura of the Already Said - Zygote Gallery, Cleveland, Ohio - 2019
      • Souvenir / Souvenir - Montréal, Québec 2017 >
        • Souvenir / Souvenir - Press
        • Souvenir / Souvenir - Essay ​Culte du Souvenir
        • Souvenir / Souvenir: About the Exhibition ...
        • Souvenir / Souvenir : Invitation card
    • Performances ... Once Upon a Time ... >
      • Ecstacies of Influence - Le Gesù, Amphithéâtre -Montréal - December 2018
      • slippages - The UBC Symphony Orchestra - Chan Centre - Vancouver - October 2018 >
        • slippages - Press
        • slippages - Instructions for play and score
        • slippages in the Studio: About my process >
          • slippages Athabasca -Photographs
          • slippages Immense Immensities
          • slippages Notebook
          • slippages Athabasca Painting
        • slippages - Performance Videos
    • Residencies ... Home Away From Home ... >
      • Ecstasies of Influence : matralab, Concordia University - Montréal 2018 >
        • Ecstacies of Influence - December 16, 2018 - Le Gesù, Amphithéâtre - Montréal
      • The Past Sealed Away - Peter Wall Institute Artist in Residence - Vancouver, BC 2017 - 2018 >
        • The Past Sealed Away... Article
      • What's in a Song ? Between the Song and the Silence: Banff Centre for the Arts and Creativity, Banff, Alberta 2017
      • In The Hole - Saskatoon, Saskatchewan 2017
      • A Ubiquity of Sparrows : Banff Centre for the Arts and Creativity, Banff, Alberta 2016 >
        • A Ubiquity of Sparrows : Banff Installation
  • Graphic Scores
    • reading between the lines - 2022
    • safe passage - 2021 >
      • safe passage: Graphic Score for Canoe Installation
    • slippages - 2018 >
      • slippages - Press
      • slippages - Instructions for play and score
      • slippages in the Studio: About my process >
        • slippages Athabasca -Photographs
        • slippages Immense Immensities
        • slippages Notebook
        • slippages Athabasca Painting
      • slippages - Performance Videos
    • Between the Song and the Silence: Berlin 2017 - 2021 >
      • Between the Song and the Silence: Graphic Score- Studies for Hobrechtsfelde Iteration
      • Between the Song and the Silence: Graphic Score- Banff Iteration
      • My Muses
      • What's in a Name?
      • Taking Flight ... The Process
      • Swan Song... A summary of my process for my MFA research
  • Portfolio
    • Mortsaf for My Father : the Series ... >
      • Mortsaf for My Father : the Paintings ...
      • Mortsaf for My Father: ​Safe Passage
    • Allegory for a New Ice Age ... Photographs
    • The Past Sealed Away ... Painting
    • The Past Sealed Away... Prints
    • The Past sealed Away: Athabasca - Photographs
    • Immense Immensities Miniature Watercolours
    • In The Hole
    • Souvenir sacré
    • Souvenir sacré - Opasatika
    • Fleurs sacrées
    • Mortsaf
    • Genetics for Cowboys
    • Beautiful Ghosts
    • Niagara Tondos
    • Twinned
  • C V
  • Contact