ENTROPY

AND
CHANCE

Ardi Makki Pantow Gunawan

Monash University
Faculty of Art and Design

Exegesis documentation submitted for the degree of Master of Fine Art

July 2009

i
Synopsis

Through an investigation of the concepts of entropy and chance, this

exegesis explores the methodological practice of two distinct
artists: sculptor and writer Robert Smithson, and
composer/musician/poet John Cage. The practices of these artists are
intertwined insofar as their work gives prominence to the question of
process in art’s production. Throughout the exegesis I explore how
entropy and chance are related to the questions of material formation
and making activities, physicality, forces and event. And I
demonstrate how entropy and chance are active conditions in the
operations of three-dimensional artwork. This exploration situates
the discussion of my practice, which I regard as coming from the
tradition of sculpture. It is through this practice that I
investigate various ways of rethinking the relations between
sculpture and embodiment; sculpture and forces; sculpture and event;
and sculpture and its material performance.

ii
CONTENTS

Original signed statement……………………………………………………………………………v

Acknowledgments………………………………………………………………………………………………………vi
List of Figures………………………………………………………………………………………………………vii
Figures……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………xii

INTRODUCTION: ENTROPY AND

CHANCE…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………1
Entropy and chance in the context of Process Art
Contextualizing Robert Smithson and John Cage
Utilizing entropy and chance
Formulating entropy and chance

CHAPTER ONE
NOTES ON SCULPTURE……………………………………………………………………………14
The physicality of sculpture
The theatricality of encountering sculpture

CHAPTER TWO
ENTROPY: SMITHSON………………………………………………………………………………20
Buried architecture
Propping
Matter-pour
Displacement

CHAPTER THREE
CHANCE: CAGE…………………………………………………………………………………………………41
Throw…chance
Irregularity

CONCLUSION…………………………………………………………………………………………………………54
Sculpture and embodiment
Sculpture and forces

iii
Sculpture and event
Sculpture and its material performance

APPENDIX…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………59
Proposal for Walking Exercise: Material Constellation

BIBLIOGRAPHY…………………………………………………………………………………………………67

iv
Original signed statement

The documentation contains no material which has been accepted for

the award of any other degree or diploma in any university, and that
to the best of the candidate’s knowledge and belief, the
documentation contains no material previously published or written by
another person, except when due reference is made in the text of the
documentation.

v
Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my supervisor Terri Bird for her continued

support, and her assistance in the development of this exegesis.
Thanks also to Bianca Hester and Michael Farrell for their feedback
on the text.

A number of colleagues, friends, and collaborators who have played a

part in working out the ideas presented here, including Domenico
Declario, Leslie Eastman, Tamsin Green, Susan Jacobs, Fiona
MacDonald, Spiros Panigirakis, and Keith Wong. Thanks also to my
parents Jimmy Makki Gunawan and Lingkan Pantow for their emotional
support.

This exegesis is dedicated to Bianca, Michael, Terri, and Tamsin.

vi
List of Figures

Figure 1: Robert Smithson, Partially Buried Woodshed, 1970 in R.

Hobbs, Robert Smithson: Sculpture (Ithaca, Cornell University Press,
1981) 189.

Figure 2: Ardi Gunawan, Reconfiguring still: proposals for the super

light, 2008. A bicycle (found), wooden pallet (found), plasterboards
(found on site from existing exhibition), pinewoods (found on site),
chairs (found), table draw (found), metal trestle leg (found), MDF
and plywood boards (debris from previous exhibition), trolley
(found), window glass (found), 10L can of paint (found on site),
water bottles, etc., height 167cm. Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces,
Melbourne.

Figure 3: Robert Smithson, Partially Buried Woodshed [central beam

cracked], 1970 in R. Hobbs, Robert Smithson: Sculpture (Ithaca,
Cornell University Press, 1981) 190.

Figure 4: I Ching table of random numbers, in R. Wilhelm and C F.

Baynes, The I Ching, or, Book of Changes: the Richard Wilhelm
Translation, 3rd ed. (London, Melbourne, Routledge & Kegan Paul,
1968) 741.

Figure 5: John Cage, Water Music, 1952 in P. Schimmel, Out Of

Actions: Between Performance And The Object 1949-1979 (Los Angeles,
The Museum of Contemporary Art New York, Thames and Hudson, 1998) 22.

Figure 6: Richard Serra, Verb List, 1967-68 in Richard Serra,

Writings, Interviews (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1994) 3-
4.

Figure 7: Anthony Caro, Praire, 1967 in A. Potts, The Sculptural

Imagination: Figurative, Modernist, Minimalist (New Haven, Yale
University Press, 2000) 183.

Figure 8: John Cage greets his friend with kisses during the
performance of SPEECH, written in 1955, performed in 1982.

vii
Figure 9: Ardi Gunawan, Reconfiguring still: proposals for the super
light, 2008. A bicycle (found), wooden pallet (found), plasterboards
(found on site from existing exhibition), pinewoods (found on site),
chairs (found), table draw (found), metal trestle leg (found), MDF
and plywood boards (found debris from previous exhibition), trolley
(found), window glass (found), 10L can of paint (found on site),
water bottles, etc., height 167cm. Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces,
Melbourne.

Figure 10: Richard Serra, Circuit, 1972 in A. Potts, The Sculptural

Imagination: Figurative, Modernist, Minimalist (New Haven, Yale
University Press, 2000) 216.

Figure 11: Richard Serra, Circuit [detail], 1986 in A. Potts, The

Sculptural Imagination: Figurative, Modernist, Minimalist (New Haven,
Yale University Press, 2000) 217.

Figure 12: Robert Smithson, Asphalt Rundown, 1969 in J. Flam ed.,

Robert Smithson: The Collected Writings (Berkeley, University of
California Press, 1996) 306.

Figure 13: Ardi Gunawan, Reconfiguring still: proposals for the super
light [studio view], 2007. A bicycle, 2 institutional chairs, plastic
bin, MDF, wooden off-cuts, 2 table draws, and other materials found
around the studio, approx. 142cm in height. Monash University,
Melbourne.

Figure 14: Ardi Gunawan, Reconfiguring still: proposals for the super
light [early stages], 2008. A bicycle (found), lengths of timber
(found on site), a pallet (found), height 144cm. Gertrude
Contemporary Art Spaces, Melbourne.

Figure 15: Ardi Gunawan and Susan Jacobs, plaiting; actions, weed
displacement, clearing, 2009. Weeds. Anstey and Ashton, West
Brunswick, Melbourne.

Figure 16: Ardi Gunawan and Susan Jacobs, weight propped up with 3
concrete discs; actions, weed displacement, clearing, 2009. Grass,
wood beams, dirt, rusted corrugated steel, rocks, gravel stones,
approx. height 153cm. Anstey and Ashton, West Brunswick, Melbourne.

viii
Figure 17: Ardi Gunawan and Susan Jacobs, residue of clearing;
actions, weed displacement, clearing, 2009. Black soil, weeds, and a
concrete roller, variable dimensions. Anstey and Ashton, West
Brunswick, Melbourne.

Figure 18: Richard Serra, installation of Lead Props, 1969 in R.

Krauss, Richard Serra: Sculpture, ed. L. Rosenstock (New York, Museum
of Modern Art, 1986) 70.

Figure 19: Richard Serra, installation of Lead Props, 1969 in R.

Krauss, Richard Serra: Sculpture, ed. L. Rosenstock (New York, Museum
of Modern Art, 1986) 71.

Figure 20: Richard Serra, Corner Prop, 1969 in R. Krauss, Richard

Serra: Sculpture, ed. L. Rosenstock (New York, Museum of Modern Art,
1986) 74.

Figure 21: Ardi Gunawan, untitled-construction, 2007. Found office

furniture, approx. 202cm in height. BUS gallery, Melbourne.

Figure 22: Ardi Gunawan, following piece in 3 parts as installed at

Firstdraft gallery, Sydney, in 2007.

Figure 23: Ardi Gunawan, layout of photo-pamphlet; following piece in

3 parts, 2007.

Figure 24: Ardi Gunawan, photo-pamphlets as installed at Firstdraft

gallery, Sydney, in 2007.

Figure 25: Ardi Gunawan, repeated acts for following piece in 3 parts
(studio view), 2007. Found objects, height approx. 192cm. Monash
University, Melbourne.

Figure 26: Ardi Gunawan, a still image from following piece in 3

parts, 2007.

Figure 27: Robert Smithson, stills from Spiral Jetty, 1970 in J. Flam
ed., Robert Smithson: The Collected Writings (Berkeley, University of
California Press, 1996) 140-141.

ix
Figure 28: Robert Smithson, photographic documentations of Spiral
Jetty, 1970 in J. Flam ed., Robert Smithson: The Collected Writings
(Berkeley, University of California Press, 1996) 144. All photos are
by Gianfranco Gorgoni.

Figure 29: Ardi Gunawan, installation of pamphlet pile (front) and

the earlier version of untitled-construction (back). Variable
dimensions. Monash University, Melbourne, 2006.

Figure 30: Ardi Gunawan, detail of pamphlet pile, 2006. Over 1300
black and white photocopy papers, approx. 70 x 210 x 450cm. Monash
University, Melbourne.

Figure 31: Ardi Gunawan, installation of collage collapse with

fluorescent lights by Domenico Declario, 2008. Fluorescent lights;
each tube is covered with a cellophane sheet. MDF, tables, and other
found institutional items. Studio 9, Gertrude Contemporary Art
Spaces, Melbourne.

Figure 32: Ardi Gunawan, installation of collage collapse with

fluorescent lights by Domenico Declario, 2008. Fluorescent lights;
each tube covered with a cellophane sheet. MDF, tables, and other
found institutional items. Studio 9, Gertrude Contemporary Art
Spaces, Melbourne.

Figure 33: Ardi Gunawan, installation of collage collapse with

fluorescent light works by Domenico Declario, 2008. Fluorescent
lights; each tube is covered with a cellophane sheet. MDF, tables,
and other found institutional items. Studio 9, Gertrude Contemporary
Art Spaces, Melbourne.

Figure 34: Bianca Hester and Ardi Gunawan, THROW, 2008. Various
lengths and thicknesses of wooden stick. Meat Market, Melbourne.

Figure 35: Bianca Hester and Ardi Gunawan, THROW [detail], 2008.
Various lengths and thicknesses of wooden stick. Meat Market,
Melbourne.

Figure 36: John Cage, Writing Through Finnegans Wake For The Second
Time, 1977 in R. Kostelanetz ed., Writings About John Cage (Ann
Arbor, University of Michigan Press, 1993) 216.

x
Figure 37: Ardi Gunawan, stills from Time-racing, 2009, BUS gallery,
Melbourne.

xi
Figures:

xii
0
INTRODUCTION: ENTROPY AND CHANCE

This exegesis explores the notion of entropy as a working program and

chance as an experimental system. This exploration, through the work
of Robert Smithson and John Cage respectively, provides the context
for considering my practice, which I regard as developing out of the
tradition of sculpture. My engagement with the tradition of sculpture
emphasizes the relations of sculpture to process and material
performance. This will be examined in the context of a focus on the
temporality of entropy and chance, as discussed in Chapter Two.

I argue that the understanding of entropy developed by Smithson is

useful for the practice of sculpture understood as a context in which
things, mass, or weight are deposited, displaced or distributed. Even
though sculpture involves a wide range of practices that have changed
over time, I argue the central concern of sculptural practices has
been the search for a greater understanding of corporeality and
materiality. As the art theorist Alex Potts has written,

A consideration of sculpture gives particular

prominence to the materiality of the artwork and
to the viewer’s more embodied, potentially
tactile engagement with things and environments.1

Potts makes clear that the bodily aspects of the materiality of

sculpture are inevitable, and as I elaborate, this materiality is
affected in many ways by the temporal condition concurrent with
entropy through chance. These conditions demand the question, is
sculpture built against or with entropy. It is in this sense that I
argue entropy can be considered as a working program for the practice
of sculpture. How a sculptural work responds to entropy is a central
question underpinning my work and is particularly evident in
Reconfiguring still: proposals for the super light, 2008, exhibited
at Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces, Melbourne. This work is a key

1
Potts, “Introduction: the Idea of Modern Sculpture,” in A Modern Sculpture Reader,
ed. John Wood, David Hulks & Alex Potts (Leeds: Henry Moore Institute, 2007), xiv.
This idea by Potts owes a particular debt to Anne Wagner’s discussion of Henry Moore’s
sculptures. See Anne Wagner, Mother Stone: The Vitality of Modern British Sculpture
(New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 2005).

1
project in my exegesis as it brings together elements of chance and
entropy. It is discussed in detail in Chapter Two in terms of the
gradual increase in the physicality of this work, and again in
Chapter Three, in terms of chance.

Although Cage does not use the word ‘chance’ in reference to the
generation of his musical forms, I explore the manner in which chance
nonetheless operates in his compositions. Chance as an experimental
system is one of the decision-making procedures employed by Cage,
particularly through the method of throwing devised for the practice
of the I Ching. Compositions such as Theater Piece No. 1 and Writings
Through Finnegans Wake for the Third Time, discussed in Chapter
Three, can be considered as a direct result of the use of chance
given that the composition results from the throw of coins, as in the
I Ching.

The purposeful use of chance by Cage as a method of composing his

musical forms, and the theorization and exploration of entropy by
Smithson provide both physical and temporal understandings to what is
integral in the materialization of my work. For example, my work,
Reconfiguring still: proposal for the super light, utilized a working
process to built a form involving propping, stacking, and wedging
different weights of material. It can be argued that, on the one
hand, the resulting order of this assemblage is configured by chance
events. On the other hand, the effect of entropy is at work during
the process of forming and particularly after it had concluded. In
addition, the future of the work’s total collapse would become
another chance event.

The temporal duration of entropic processes operates according to the

gradual release of energy, whereas chance operates with an
unpredictable temporality. The gradual increase of entropy in a
material system proceeds forward in time, although at a different
duration; such that when entropy increases, energy decreases. This
irreversibility of entropy and its temporal trajectory, resulting in
material deformation, is linked to the other model of temporality
examined in this exegesis that of chance. For example, in Smithson’s
Partially Buried Woodshed, 1970 [Fig. 1], the potential collapse of
the work is always present, as will be discussed in detail in Chapter
Two. Chance events play a part in the production of this work as the
available energy in the object becoming diffused, that is, it falls.

2
As I will discuss in a following section “Utilizing entropy and
chance,” there is a potential for a fall to takes place when there is
a diffusion of energy, however the timing of this is dependent on
many factors and it is here that chance plays a part.

Whilst this exegesis is primarily focused on an examination of

entropy and chance, specifically in relation to the practices of
Smithson and Cage, and where appropriate my work, I will initially
explore the importance of sculpture in my practice in Chapter One.
Drawing on arguments presented by Potts in the Sculptural
Imagination: Figurative, Modernist, Minimalist, 2000, and Michael
Fried in his essay, “Art and Objecthood,” first published in Artforum
in 1967, I situate the practices I examine in the context of the
physicality and theatricality of sculpture. It is through the term of
theatricality that Minimalism relates to this research in terms of
its activation of a corporeal understanding of mass, weight, scale
and volume in the art object. It is through the activation of
physicality of sculpture, together with a discussion of differing
temporalities of chance and entropy, that I explore various ways of
rethinking the relations between sculpture and embodiment; sculpture
and forces; sculpture and event; and sculpture and its material
performance. These relations are the forces at play in my practice,
and it is the rethinking of these relations that this exegesis will
elaborate via a discussion of my practice.

Entropy and chance in the context of Process Art

Entropy and chance, understood as methodologies, have a strong
connection to the history of Process Art, particularly in terms of
the temporality at play in many Process Art works. The term ‘Process
Art’ refers largely to sculptural and installation-based practices
from the late sixties and seventies. They are typically associated
with the work of Eva Hesse, Richard Serra, Robert Morris, Bruce
Nauman, Barry Le Va, Robert Smithson, Gordon Matta-Clark, and many
others.2 Drawing on work made by the process-oriented sculptors of
the sixties, Pamela M. Lee investigates what she describes as, “a
kind of rethinking of the relationship between the hand and materials

2
Pamela M. Lee, “Some Kinds of Duration: the Temporality of Drawing as Process Art,”
in Cornelia H. Butler, Afterimage: Drawing through Process (Cambridge: MIT Press,
1999), 26.

3
and the status of form.”3 Lee also argues for a convergence in the
manner process-oriented sculptures holds on to their form whilst
acknowledging the partiality (or the incomplete-ness) of matter.4 It
is this tension between form and formlessness, complete and
incompleteness that I am to activate through my various projects,
discussed throughout this exegesis.

Of the artists associated with Process Art, Robert Morris’ reading of

Jackson Pollock’s gestural painting is of particular interest in
terms of locating a central ‘moment’ in process-orientated works that
inform my practice. Morris focuses on Pollock’s use of a stick to
drip paint, noting it, “acknowledges the nature of fluidity of
paint.”5 Whilst Morris points out the relationship between the stick
as a tool and its control and transformation of matter, he also
remarks, “it is in far greater sympathy with matter because it
acknowledges the inherent tendencies and properties of that matter.”6
Morris also remarks on the paintings of Morris Louis, noting, “Louis
was even closer to matter in his use of the container itself to pour
the fluid.”7 From this perspective, Morris locates a system at play
in both Pollock’s ‘drip’ and Louis ‘pour.’ Morris maintains, “…order
is not… [sought in advance]…, but in the ‘tendencies’ inherent in
materials/process interaction.”8 Morris suggests that the encounter
between material and process reveals a system for which the making of
the artwork becomes an investigation of “how paint behaves under
certain conditions of gravity.”9 Here, Morris accentuates Pollock’s
and Louis’s painting in terms of how the effect of gravity produces a
certain response in the material.

What is evident in these works is the potentiality of the material to

be given expression through bodily possibility; with both the body
and gravity at play with material forces.

3
Lee, “Some Kinds of Duration,” 25.
4
Lee, “Some Kinds of Duration,” 32-3.
5
Robert Morris, “Anti Form,” in Continuous Project Altered Daily: the Writings of
Robert Morris, (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1993), 43.
6
Morris, “Anti Form,” 43.
7
Morris, “Anti Form,” 43.
8
Robert Morris, “Some Notes on the Phenomenology of Making: the Search for the
Motivated,” in Continuous Project Altered Daily: the writings of Robert Morris,
(Cambridge: MIT Press, 1993), 77.
9
Morris, “Some Notes on the Phenomenology of Making,” 77.

4
The possibilities for bodily actions, gravity and material forces to
come into play with each other, as noted by Morris, are also central
concerns in my practice. Similar to Morris, my concern is with the
resulting order both configured by chance events, for example, the
paint drip, and entropy’s self-determining effect. This is evident in
the disorderly effect created by the materiality of the paint once
its release outside of containment. The work of process-oriented art
extrapolated by Morris happens through chance, entropy, and what Lee
terms, the duration of the activity of making.10 It is during this
process of encountering material that chance events are internalized.
Morris’ account shows that the capacity of the hand to transform
matter collaborates with the effect of entropy, or other external
forces, such as gravity, in the production of form.

The inseparability between chance events and the forming effects of

entropy is partly derived from the gesture of doing, which is
provisional in nature. I discuss this interconnected-ness through the
propped and stacked up elements activated in several of Richard
Serra’s work, especially, his Prop series. This series mainly
demonstrates the potential increase of entropy’s effect through
propping, stacking, and wedging possibilities. These are methods of
forming that have also preoccupied my working practice. For example,
my work Reconfiguring still: proposals for the super light is formed
without permanent joins being used to secure the stacked
configuration. As a result, the distribution of the load results in
the work’s precariousness [Fig. 2]. The potential movement of the
work is brought to a standstill. At this point of suspension, the
potential of entropy’s effect is at its highest because the weight of
the work puts pressure on one of the slenderest supporting-
structures. The materials that prop eventually have inadequate energy
to support the load. In Chapter Two, I discuss this work in detail,
where I focus on the unpredictable operation of chance events and the
chronological flow of entropy’s dispersal of energy, as a physical
experience amplified through art making processes.

Contextualizing Smithson and Cage

Although Smithson is primarily recognized as a sculptor and Cage as a
musician and a composer, their conception of art resides within a

10
Lee, “Some Kinds of Duration,” 26.

5
similar vein, namely, the processes of art’s production. As discussed
previously the inception of process-orientated art practices in the
1960s came to prominence through the work and writings of Morris,
such as, “Anti-Form,” “Notes on Sculpture, Pt. 4: Beyond Objects,”
and “Some Notes on the Phenomenology of Making: The Search for The
Motivated.”11 Also active during this period as an artist and writer
was Robert Smithson. In this exegesis, I focus on Smithson rather
than Morris, because of his writing on, and work with, the notion of
entropy. This investigation contributes to a detailed examination of
several of my works in terms of their ‘material self-ordering.’ This
notion of ‘material self-ordering’ is in part derived from John
Protevi’s reading of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari A Thousand
Plateau in Political Physics: Deleuze, Derrida, and The Body Politic.
I will discuss Protevi’s account of ‘material self-ordering’ in
relationship to Smithson’s work, Asphalt Rundown in Chapter Two.12
This discussion frames a consideration of my recent collaborative
work THROW, 2008, with a Melbourne-based artist Bianca Hester, which
I discuss in the context of chance events in Chapter Three.

Cage’s encounters with chance procedure were amongst the most

important contributions to the community of the Black Mountain
College, near Asheville, North Carolina, in the 1950s. This college
is notable for those who studied there at this time, such as Robert
Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Alan Kaprow, among many others. Cage
taught at the college in an expansively theatrical situation, and it
is here that he began to elaborate his experiment with chance as a
working process. Paul Schimmel goes so far as to argue that Cage
exerted a tremendous influence on the development of numerous postwar
art practices, such as, Fluxus, Happenings, Neo-Dada, and Arte
Povera.13 Cage is credited by Schimmel with constructing a context of
performance in which the primacy of the act in the production of

11
All reprinted in Morris, Continuous Project Altered Daily: the Writings of Robert
Morris.
12
It should be noted that in Difference and Repetition Deleuze presents a contrary
view of entropy to the one discussed here. However I do not take up these differences,
as it is not on the subject of entropy that I am proposing a relationship between
Smithson’s approach to art making and the ideas of Deleuze and Guattari. See Gilles
Deleuze, Difference and Repetition (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994), 228-9.
13
Paul Schimmel, Out of Actions: Between Performance and the Object 1949-1979 (Los
Angeles, Calif.: The Museum of Contemporary Art New York: Thames and Hudson, 1998),
17-18.

6
objects becomes the ‘subject’ of the work.14 Together with the painter
Robert Rauschenberg, and the dancer and choreographer Merce
Cunningham, Cage moved the conception of music, dance and the visual
arts, towards a unifying concept of event-based production. This
involved making a situation, to borrow Cage’s phrases, where
‘anything may happen’ - generalized as ‘Happening.’15

Although Cage and Smithson employ different processes of ‘containing’

this open field, both employ approaches for making that bypass the
control of the artist over its production. Cage uses chance operation
in order to forego his ‘likes and dislikes’ in favor of an arbitrary
system of composition based on throwing.16 Smithson’s practice, on
the other hand, operates within a post-war reconfiguration of
sculptural tradition, teeming with the forces of entropy as the
work’s physical edge. Smithson expanded his exploration of entropy
through a sculptural practice that, as he states, “devotes itself to
the process of disintegration in highly developed structures.”17 To
this he adds, “After all wreckage is more interesting than
18
structure.” Most of Smithson’s late outdoor works are exposed to
nature’s processes of de-formation: sedimentation, erosion,
landslide, etc. In fact Smithson often chose sites specifically
because these conditions are present.

Although Smithson and Cage are not usually referred to in art

historical or art theoretical texts as related, they both nonetheless
make works that emphasize the temporality of matter and the
visibility of process. It is for this reason that I have drawn on
their practices to situate a discussion of my own. For example,
Smithson’s interest in the process of material-systems disintegration
is similar to Cage’s conception of art as directed towards a process
of “imitating nature in the manner of [its] operation,” rather than

14
Schimmel, Out of Actions, 18.
15
The term ‘Happening’ was largely explored in the theatrical performance practices of
Alan Kaprow. Kaprow was Cage’s pupil.
16
John Cage (in conversation with Daniel Charles), For the Birds (Boston: M. Boyars,
c1981), 20.
17
Robert Smithson (interview with Gregoire Müller), “…The Earth, Subject to
Cataclysms, Is A Cruel Master,” in Robert Smithson: The Collected Writings, ed. Jack
Flam (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), 257.
18
Smithson (interview with Müller), “…the Earth, Subject to Cataclysms,” 257.

7
imitating the product created by natural processes.19 Also the
temporalities of chance events and entropy are both operations in the
physical world. It is through an analysis of the practices of
Smithson and Cage, I argue throughout this exegesis, that entropy and
chance form an open field of making. This is also the field in which
I locate my practice.

Whilst the practices of Smithson and Cage could be seen as mutually

exclusive, I argue they operate rather like two sides of the same
coin. On one side is the chance operation, evident in Cage’s musical
compositions reacting to the production of the ‘fixed object.’ And on
the other side, entropy provoking ways of reconfiguring the notion of
the ‘object of sculpture.’ Together these practices shift the
conception of art and its object from imitating the product of
physical formation found in nature or environment towards the process
that creates the object.

Utilizing entropy and chance

As the pioneers of these two categories, entropy and chance, in the
context of art making, Smithson and Cage draw on vastly different
fields of knowledge that they incorporate into their art practices.
Entropy, for example, is a term derived from Rudolf Clausius - a mid-
nineteenth-century German physicist - whose theory was focused on the
regime of disorder operating in physics.20 Whereas Cage’s use of
chance systems, such as the I Ching, is derived from a modern
21
philosophy of East Asia on the subject of change.

The notion of entropy Smithson draws on is described by Clausius in

relation to the second law of Thermodynamic.22 Under this law entropy
is seen as the inherent potential in material systems resulting from
a concentration of energy.23 The First law of Thermodynamic describes

19
This is Cage’s oft-repeated conception of art, quoted in, Jonathan Scott Lee,
“Mimesis and Beyond: Mallarme, Boulez, and Cage (1986-87),” in Writings about John
Cage, ed. Richard Kostelanetz (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1993), 203.
20
Cutler J. Cleveland, Dictionary of Energy (Burlington: Elsevier, 2005), 148.
21
Richard Wilhelm and Cary F. Baynes, The I Ching, or, Book of Changes: the Richard
Wilhelm Translation, 3rd ed. (London; Melbourne: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1968).
22
Frank. L. Lambert, “Time’s Arrow…Murphy’s Law…Entropy,” The Second Law of
Thermodynamics, http://www.secondlaw.com/two.html#time [accessed 08/04/09].
23
Lambert, “Time’s Arrow…Murphy’s Law…Entropy,” http://www.secondlaw.com/two.html#time

8
the process that ensures energy is always active and constant.24 The
second law describes the effect of entropy through which the activity
of energy always dissipates over time. The trajectory of entropy
always proceeds, as Lee notes, “from order to a maximum disorder.”25
Whilst there are circumstances when a material state appears to be
static there is always the potential of kinetic energy to be
released, as Frank Lambert notes, inevitably nothing is capable of
hindering an eventual entropic effect.26 In every material, sub-
system, human, organization, etc, entropy is, as Ann Reynolds writes,
“always-already present.”27 The future conditions of a material form
will always be transformed over time. For example, a crack in the
street or building structures, dead leaves or trees falling, rail
roads buckles, creep in shoes, ice-melting, rusting steel, so forth -
all of these offer some images of entropy at work.

Entropy in Smithson’s practice was not conceived as existing only as

a theoretical, conceptual or philosophical analog to his art works.
Rather it played a positive contribution to the formation of his
practice. Smithson embraced the chance that entropy would occur and
dissipate an art work once it had been completed. Through entropic
processes mass can accumulates, producing a load that displaces an
existing structure of an object. This is particularly evident in
Smithson’s Partially Buried Woodshed, where twenty truckloads of dirt
were placed onto an abandoned woodshed near Kent State University
[Fig. 3].28 Smithson ends the process of loading the dirt when the
woodshed is partly covered and the central beam cracks. The effect of
this event is that for the woodshed to remain upright it must
maintain a sufficient amount of stability. The energy of these two
processes, the load of dirt and the stability of the shed, are
concentrated in a central beam. The collapse of the shed will occur
when the central beam can no longer maintain its stability in the
face of entropic forces. As it eventuated the work was destroyed in
1975 before it got to that point as a result of an arson attack.29
This chance event will be discussed in Chapter Two.

24
Lambert, “Time’s Arrow…Murphy’s Law…Entropy,” http://www.secondlaw.com/two.html#time
25
Lee, “Some Kinds of Duration,” 37.
26
Lambert, “Time’s Arrow…Murphy’s Law…Entropy,” http://www.secondlaw.com/two.html#time
27
Ann Reynolds, Robert Smithson: Learning from New Jersey and Elsewhere (Cambridge,
Mass.: MIT Press, 2003), 197.
28
Reynolds, Learning from New Jersey, 197.
29
Robert Hobbs, Robert Smithson: Sculpture (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1981),
191.

9
The I Ching, on the other hand, is conceived as a system of number
symbols that are used as an oracle to predict the future. The
procedure involves throwing three coins, or yarrow stalks, six times
whilst thinking of a specific question, and recording the result as a
device to determine a response to that question.30 This procedure
identifies, what Richard Wilhelm describes as, “the movement of
31
events taking place in the physical world.” This movement is
intepreted through the indication of the falling pattern of the coins
or the division of the yarrow stalks. The structure of the I Ching is
centered upon the acceptance of, as Wilhem notes the, “continual
process of change of one state into another.”32 The hexagrams,
resulting from the six throws of three coins, are symbols standing
for images or things which, as Wilhem writes, are “constantly
33
undergoing change.” The method of throwing which structures the I
Ching produces a perpetually changing combination of trigrams [Fig.
4]. Each throw of the three coins will only yield a further
differentiation of linear sign configurations.

For Cage however, chance is called upon to operate as a system, one

he employs to ensure his compositions are free of personal taste and
intention.34 Cage achieves this result through the chance order
created by throwing coins several times. The score of Water Music,
1952 [Fig. 5], for instance employs the operation of chance to
determine, as Cage states,

what sound pops up at what time and how loud,

etc. So I simply put into the chart things that
would produce not only sounds but would produce
actions that were interesting to see.35

30
I have also used the I Ching system for my work Many Things Seen At Once, 2008. The
method of throwing was employed as to indicate the spatial positioning of the material
in a site. This work was exhibited within a group show Gertrude Studios 2008 at
Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces, in Melbourne.
31
Wilhelm, the I Ching, xlix-li.
32
Wilhelm, the I Ching, l.
33
Wilhelm, the I Ching, 1.
34
Henry Cowell, “Current Chronicle,” in JOHN CAGE, ed. Richard Kostelanetz (London:
Allen Lane The Penguin Press, 1971), 99.
35
Richard Kostelanetz, Conversing with Cage, 2nd ed. (New York; London: Routledge,
2003), 113.

10
The outcome is that the chance operation of throwing the coin
determines what is done or what form is produced, and therefore what
is heard.

Both systems, the I Ching and entropy, point to constant change and
transformation of matter as a condition of the physical world. What
connects Smithson and Cage for the purpose of this exegesis is not
only the operations of chance and entropy in the processes of their
art making. It is also their interest in systems and their
questioning of how each concept can be put to work in sculptural
practice, in the case of Smithson; and musical practice, in the case
of Cage. Both artists therefore attempt to let the conditions of art
making be contingent on the continual processes of changes in
material formation over time.

Formulating entropy and chance

The two terms, entropy and chance, continue to become less distinct
when considered in relation to foregrounding processes in the
conception and making of art advanced by Smithson and Cage. Inherent
in the notion of process is a reconsideration of temporality. It is
at this juncture that I argue chance and entropy converged. This
convergence is evident in terms of the stages of change and the
issues concerning matter’s energetic work.

For Smithson, his interest in systems led him to contain entropy’s

effect to the artwork’s material self-ordering. The temporal
dimension of the entropic situation is revealed slowly in Smithson’s
works, such as Partially Buried Woodshed, as mentioned previously. In
this work the potential collapse of the shed is the potential
encounter between two or more material systems. The irreversibility
of a work’s formation, in terms of past, present, future events is
also demonstrated in the continually crystallizing salt growing over
the structure of Spiral Jetty basalt base, as will be discussed in
detail in Chapter Two.

In the case of Cage, his chance-centered reading of the I Ching

system asserts a view of coincidence and the variable relation
between parts, and of objects and activities in time and place. The
use of chance operations allowed him to locate sounds, actions,
objects within a constantly changing ‘now’ of time, however uncertain

11
where their appearance in space or time. This is particularly the
case for Cage’s performance practice, such as, his composition for
radio, which is incorporated into several of his works: Imaginary
Landscape, SPEECH and Water Music. The score for these compositions
calls for one or several performers, determined by chance. In the
case of the Imaginary Landscape, chance determines the involvement of
up to twenty-five performers36 who simply tune into the dial of their
radios, selecting various stations to be heard in the course of the
work. The use of the radio and the act of tuning is diversified by
the geographical context of the piece. For example, if the piece is
performed in Jakarta, Indonesia, what would be heard in the work is a
set of local stations. The effect of this procedure for these radio
pieces is that they are performed differently every time. This
methodology connects these works to other process orientated art
works that involve task lists, such as the apparently random gesture
comprising Serra’s Verb List of 1967-68 [Fig. 6]. Or those described
earlier in Morris’ analyses of Pollock’s drip or Louis’ pour. Whilst
the approach taken by Morris, Serra, and Smithson may not be centered
as highly on chance as Cage, nonetheless in the act of making chance
is acknowledged.

If, entropy is always/already present in every kind of situation

(material, sub-system, human or organization), as noted above, then
an increased incident of accident is unavoidable. And if chance
consists of a complex set of events in the scheme of random
occurrence, then it is chance that exposes the limits or boundaries
of these apparently mutually exclusive terms. In effect entropy and
chance coincide in the exact timing in which these two forces meet.
Thus it is upon this juncture, which can be seen to be at play in my
works, and those of other artists examined in this exegesis.

36
For a full critical discussion of the structural notation of Imaginary Landscape by
Cage and his use of a radio see Henry Cowell, “Current Chronicle,” in JOHN CAGE, ed.
Kostelanetz, 96-99.

12