CHANCE HAPPENINGS
Works by Peter Lely

John Innes Conference Centre, Norwich
October 2003

In 1913, Marcel Duchamp dropped three lengths of string horizontally onto a flat surface and marked the new shape and length (Three Standard Stoppages). Over the course of years, he continued to draw upon this experience. It was a new way in which the creative act could be freed from fashion and memory. By using random, uncontrolled methods of arriving, unexpected situations occurred, releasing the artist from aesthetic responsibilities. A new way had been found to side-step the traditional need for self-expression or story-telling.

The image-maker begins by creating a system or framework within which actions will occur. He then, with the use of, for example, dice or numbering systems, allows the process to evolve in its own unpredictable way.

‘… so that if you work with chance operations, you are basically shifting the responsibility to choose…to the responsibility to ask.
… instead of changing something, I change myself. Instead of self-expression, I’m involved in self-alteration.’ John Cage

Images of the show at the John Innes, October 2003