Limiting control: vocabularies and strategies of unpredictability in contemporary art

ABSTRACT Contemporary artists utilise a variety of methods which allow unpredictable forces, such as randomness, chance, chaos, the subconscious, participation, and others, to influence their creative process. These sources of unpredictability are situated against the artist’s control in the creative process. We developed a system of control-limiting strategies that enable the simultaneous study of different methods with similar sources of unpredictability. Through examples – including works by other artists and works by one of the authors – we introduce Internal, External, Relational/Interactive and Mechanical strategies. We analyse the way control is limited in the creative process and draw conclusions on how this affects the artwork. GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT