A Few Words About My Random Letter Generated Word Search Art
When I was in college studying art, I wrote a paper that was specifically about the artist/composer John Cage and his art process, but was more broadly about what is called random or spontaneous art. This ended up being somewhat a misnomer due to the fact that if you plan spontaneous or random art it does not tend to be overly either in the end, although it may appear that way. The concept was fun to explore, as an academic exercise, and led to me deciding to create my own form of “random” art. This took the form of a painting roughly 4x5 feet, that was comprised of a white background with six-inch letters in the form of a word search puzzle grid. I called it Tyrannosaurus Teeth because the letters were the same size as Tyrannosaurus teeth were said to be.
Despite this being a series of random letters there was actually much thought and preparation that had to be done to create this painting. My plan was to write letters, place them in a hat, and draw them at random until I had enough to fill the painting space, replacing each letter back in the hat after it was drawn and recorded. I figured in order to create a sufficient chance for words to be formed the probability for a letter to be drawn should correspond with the chance that letter had to appear in standard English. This meant that there would be multiples of some letters, like E, and only a couple of others, like K, and one of letters like Z and X. I researched letter probabilities online and arrived at a formula to accurately mimic this chance of occurrence. I used these probabilities to calculate that if the least common letters appeared once, others should appear at certain multiples. For example, if X appeared once, then E was six times more likely to appear. I made the letters with their corresponding chance of occurrence, cut them out, drew them, and recorded what I had pulled. Once this was done, I sized, cut, and stretched the canvas, and using six-inch letter stencils, drew out and painted the letters on the canvas.
After this was done, I did what I usually do. I looked at it and thought about it for a few days, then stacked it in the corner with my other artwork and forgot about it. That was roughly ten years ago. And there is sat, until I was rearranging my studio and ran across it. This got me to thinking and wanting to pursue this idea farther. I decided I was interested in creating my list of letters using AI to generate them. For this purpose, I did a bit of research into how AI functions so that I could choose the correct platform and write a prompt that would have the result I intended. I am using Grok AI (Free Version) and the prompt I settled on is:
· Generate a sequence of 120 random letters, using the percent chance each letter appears in standard English text as the percent chance to generate each letter. Do not try to make words but do not refrain from sequences that create words
I enjoy writing, words, and the English language almost as much as studying and creating visual art. Combining the two seems a logical and enjoyable endeavor. So far, there are three types or forms I have come up with for these artworks, in a variety of mediums. The first form is the completely random generated letter painting or drawing. These contain words only if the generated letters randomly fall into the proper order to create them. This can result from the normal left to right occurrence, or vertical, diagonal, and even backwards when the letters are formed into the word search puzzle matrix. They contain no special identifier of their type. The second form is a more intentional hidden phrase creation. This would purposefully embed words and phrases into the otherwise random letters. So, a phrase like Live, Laugh, Love might be hidden within the work. This veers from the idea of randomness, despite having the same overall look, but allows for creation of specific messages, and there may be those who find it interesting. There would still be an element of searching for the words to discern the phrase. These would be differentiated from the completely random ones by using a particular letter in a particular position. Say using an X at the end of the last row, or something similar. The final form would be the one furthest away from the original concept and would largely serve a decorative function. It would also contain intentional words and phrases like the previous form but have the purposefully included words in different colors or fonts to differentiate them plainly and easily. As stated, these would be more for a decorative and inspirational purpose than from any artistic merit but would round out the entire concept from a design perspective.
Overall, this seems both a limitless and yet finite concept by which to create art. The structure and design are interesting, at least to me, the random generation aspect is virtually limitless, and the excitement of laying the letters out and then searching them for words is a dopamine shot I will admit. Although the few tests I have done have only yielded one word over three letters, the possibility is definitely there, and who is to say what could pop up with enough attempts. As far as that goes, the random generated ones would not be constantly run and rerun in order to produce words. Each generation beyond the tests I have done would be consecutive works. Which is to say that I will not be continually creating them to get ones with words and discarding the rest. That seems a bit like cheating to me and makes the ones that may eventually create words feel contrived. In addition, although generating the numbers is quick once I decided on the proper prompt, there is always the consideration of laying them out in a matrix of X by Y characters. Until that is done and studied over, the presence of words cannot be known.
In any event, I am expecting a good bit of enjoyment out of pursuing this concept and hopefully will learn a thing or two along the way. That’s always a good bonus in any endeavor. And perhaps you, dear viewer, will find it interesting enough to follow along on the journey with me. I am documenting each session of letter generation, both prompt and replies. Despite the seemingly simple concept of this project, I find that I am swimming in ideas. This is typically a good sign for an artist. You could get led in directions you never intended and arrive at a destination you never expected. If one is willing to follow the thread sincerely.
Godspeed,
POP
