Étoiles I
A discourse on methods of chance

Étoiles I is a linocut reduction, edition of three, 14 x 11 inches, and the 31-second film is composed with Adobe Photoshop and Premiere.

Each of thirteen stars keeps its own clock in two sequences: one sequence determines the length each star face holds drawn from six durations (0.2 to 0.7 seconds, in tenths) and one sequence determines which of three faces appears.

Each sequence is independent and built to 73 events. All sequences are stochastic.

The thirteen stars are split into a top group of five and a bottom group of eight.

Two alphabets are in play: the six durations and the three faces.

D = {0.2, 0.3, 0.4, 0.5, 0.6, 0.7}
F = {1, 2, 3}

Each star carries two independent sequences of durations and faces.

An event holds a face for a duration. Because each star sums its own random duration, the clocks never share a pulse. All twenty-six sequences are drawn independently.

What follows is the rule of two sequences applied according to durations and faces.

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The top five stars

For each of these five stars the sequence is built by chance under a single restriction: At every event a value is picked at random from the full set — any of the six durations at any of the three faces — and all values are eligible no matter how recently it last appeared. One rule applies: the value used does not appear again immediately after the preceding value.

Values return as often as they may but they may not follow themselves immediately.

The rule is therefore the uniform distribution over all values with no two equal values adjacent.

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The bottom eight stars

For each of these stars each sequence is built in completed rounds.

A full set is taken — all six durations and all three faces twice — and placed in a random order; that scramble is one round. One round is all values of D attached to all values of F twice. When the round is spent the full set is taken again and scrambled independently of the last and the next round is laid down until 73 events are reached.

No value repeats beyond the prescribed twelve, inside a round or between rounds, and none may return until every other value in its set has been used.

On every completed round the values exhaust the alphabet.

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The discourse describes a single field of stars governed by two methods of chance, in two approximate blocks of thirds (top and bottom): the loose and the exhaustive each running on its own independent clock.

The top five stars are drawn freely and prohibited from repeating themselves, while the bottom eight exhaust the full alphabet (D once, F twice) in a fresh scramble before any value returns.

The first rule lets a duration or face cluster, thin, or recur at any distance and the second holds the distribution to an even hand.

The rules are constraints that shape the randomness — chance as the condition in which intention operates.

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I decline to provide an aesthetic summary of this discourse.