This reminds me - a few years ago we had a new kitchen fitted. The floor was to be ceramic tiles, which came in three different sizes and looked like stone slabs. We were aiming at a vaguely rustic / farmhouse look and when we placed the order in the showroom we probably said that they should be put down in a random pattern.
On the day of installation the fitter started laying the three sizes of tile on the floor. Far from appearing random, the tiles were in a very regular geometric pattern, with strong diagonals which we didn't like at all. We told the fitter that we didn't want a regular pattern, we wanted random. He then showed us a sheet of paper with the pattern for "random" which he was following, and the sales order which said that we had ordered "random". Work was suspended while he called his boss to say that the customers had changed their minds about the pattern they wanted, and that he only had the right quantities of tiles for "random" on the van.
It made me wonder if they had other patterns called "any old how" and "higgledy-piggledy".
To resolve the situation, my partner and I had to get down on our hands and knees and arrange the tiles in what, to us, appeared to be a pleasingly random arrangement. Crisis averted and lesson learnt - tilers have a pattern called "random" which is anything but random.
-R
LOL, interesting. Makes me wonder what the word random meant to the makers of that design. You can't really go by names, I guess, but this was quite a remarkable coincidence. Glad you noticed in time and were able to resolve the issue.
We really do appreciate random patterns and textures. Quite often these serve as backgrounds, but I think there might be a place for these designs on their own too.
Interesting experiences and observations - but maybe, just maybe, "pattern" and "random" are intrinsically contradicting terms. "Pattern" suggests order, however apparant or not that might be; "random" precisely
doesn't mean it's as it's expected to be, so our expectations what a "random pattern"
should look like are most probably technically incorrect. I'm not saying that there aren't
tastefully random patterns - but they're probably not truely random because they meet some expectation or other, which any random arrangement simply couldn't do - or if it did, it'd be coincidence. I'd suggest that we love coincidental
order that we know to have been caused by random or chaotic processes.
But maybe I'm just confusing terms and concepts here - because I'm using a more logical or mathematical notion of "random" that may be the wrong approach to "beauty". However, it's well understood that the perfectly symmetrical, while impressive, can also be uncanny* - especially if it occurs in nature (or humans), so maybe the slight inconsistencies we perceive as randomness add to beauty whenever they appear, The random aspects are the recognizable, individual ones ... But true randomness would just be seen as "chaotic", "overwhelming" or, as it were, "any old how".
*... even though the beauty industry seems to want to suggest otherwise; I tried to locate the relevant research quickly and just stumbled upon offers to change your face into something as symmetrical as possible ... oh, my ...
Anyway, I remembered a few videos that put down some key observations. Feel free to ignore them if I'm on the wrong track, but they may shed some light as to what we're actually looking for; it may not be orthodox randomness, but more likely "surprisingly pleasing order where it's not expected" or "pleasantly ever-changing, unpredictable smoothness" we're really after.
The second video is less directly relevant, but it shows us that recognizable patterns are inherent even in something approaching randomness (only at the beginning - afterwards, it's about interference patterns (more precisely, moiré)).
So, the photographer's eye may establish the "pleasing order" and use whatever they see to create an impression of randomness - which means creating a pattern to satisfy our craving to discover something we can perceive as beautiful or satisfying.
Creating randomness is something much more difficult - because we have no way of predicting that any specific approach might work.
So, in that sense, the poor tiler was in for something overwhelming for him: a pattern (divided up by straight lines, most likely) that should
appear random - so he stuck to a plan someone had devised after some "idea" that didn't meet your expectations, which might still have been fine (randomness, right?), but
not in a pleasing way because you discovered more order than you found desirable, which wasn't acceptable. We're hard creatures to please ...
Whenever we create an image of randomness, we'll certainly try to "get it all in" or "make it work" - which means superimposing an order of sorts. I think it's this act of making it properly fitting our vision that creates the impression of beauty. Because in the end, beauty is what we
want it to be (and, thus, subject to culturally transmitted expectatsions, but that's a different can of worms).
So, again, yes, of course there
is a beauty in randomness because we're pleased with having discovered it, and furthermore, we've fleshed it out by putting it into an image that works as we want it to. Beauty is always kind of "interactive": It's in the eye of the beholder, so, only exists when perceived (the beauty, not the substance). But it also does so
immediately upon being perceived, which is always gratifying for the observer.
M.
