Trigger Happy

Shoot first, ask questions later

- STEVEN POOLE

Randomisation is the enemy of artistic expression. Luke Rhinehart's cult novel The Diceman (1971) depicts a psychiatrist who outsources his life choices to the roll of a die, but the writer himself (real name George Cockcroft), who had experimented with the idea in his own life, didn't take random choices while composing the story itself. It mattered that one thing came before another, that the novel had a designed narrative shape.

Randomisation is also the essence of artistic freedom. The aural content of any given performance of John Cage's piano piece, “4'33”, is left entirely to chance. William Burroughs cut up pieces of writing and arranged the pieces in random new ways to create unforeseen texts. Composers of ambient or generative music may use pseudo-random pitch generators. To delegate some artistic choices to the roll of a metaphorical die can be a liberating route to new ideas.

The Janus-faced nature of chance is most clearly distilled in the videogame genre known as the Roguelike, which became fashionable again a decade or so ago and is still, alas, with us. I say 'alas' because I don't get on with Roguelikes at all. I once spent a very entertaining few weeks playing