"Accounts by several Dadaists describe how Arp made "chance collages" such as this one: by tearing paper into pieces, dropping them onto a larger sheet, and pasting each scrap wherever it happened to fall. The relatively ordered appearance of Arp's collages suggests, however, that the artist did not fully relinquish artistic control." via MOMA
"...finally tore it up, and let the pieces flutter to the floor of his studio [. . . .] Some time later he happened to notice these same scraps of paper as they lay on the floor, and was struck by the pattern they formed. It had all the expressive power that he had tried in vain to achieve. How meaningful! How telling! Chance movements of his hand and of the fluttering scraps of paper had achieved what all his efforts had failed to achieve, namely expression."
"...finally tore it up, and let the pieces flutter to the floor of his studio [. . . .] Some time later he happened to notice these same scraps of paper as they lay on the floor, and was struck by the pattern they formed. It had all the expressive power that he had tried in vain to achieve. How meaningful! How telling! Chance movements of his hand and of the fluttering scraps of paper had achieved what all his efforts had failed to achieve, namely expression."
Thinking a lot about experimental collage music, chance, and improvisational aesthetics. The way focus group and children of alice's music can at times feel directed by chance and try to constantly toss the listener off of their comfortable grip of the music. But how much "improv" or collage music is true chance? What is to be said about the "aesthetical sound" of something improvisational or controlled by some form of odds - whether it be dropping samples in on top of eachother, twisting knobs on a granular effect, or just picking slices of music before you can decide how you feel about it. Sometimes it really sounds like they are picking sounds out of a hat, tearing them up and dropping them onto a piece of paper, gluing them where they land. There is definitely a sound to it, though - musique concrete?
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