Lucian Indrei – Predetermined Randomness
Let’s be honest with ourselves: our life, or, our existence, is very… very, fragile. So many things could go wrong (and sometimes they do), so many things that we cannot control. Knowing (or ignoring) all this, we keep carrying on, believing (or wanting to) that the Universe tends towards balance. Randomness is what rules our lifes and makes them enjoyable. Yes, every gambler’s nightmare. What would be the point if we would know what would happen and especially how and, most important, when?
We are nowadays the slaves of statistics. There is even an elementary definition of existential mathematics that states, that any new chance, even the lest probable, which the existence could manifest, transforms the existence in its entire form. This basically means that only the perspective of success or failure could change us.
Did Robert Capa know that he would be in the same room, only a couple of feet away, from a dying American soldier, gunned down by a German sniper (the one with the Italian militia was proven a fake). Or did Eddie Adams know, when he woke up, on the morning of February the 1st, that he will snap (shoot is even better) an image that would make history? Or did Eggleston, or Robert Frank, or Alec Soth, and the list could go on for pages, that when they got out of their bed, on any given day, in their travels, they will make a specific image, which will change their career or highlight their activity. At most, they hoped they would.
How do we explain this in photography? Through Serendipity: “the effect by which one accidentally stumbles upon something fortunate, especially while looking for something entirely unrelated”. This doesn’t mean at all that every coincidence deserves a documentation. This is not, under any circumstance, fool’s luck. This means that sometimes, space and time might agree to produce something very surprising and random, but valuable. If you cannot understand its potential you will walk by; therefore not realizing what you have just found is like not finding anything at all. This is not about scavenging reality. This is more like reading between the lines, filtering, dumping the ballast and keeping only what resonates with your inner self.
Lucian Indrei
More images and other very interesting projects on Lucian Indrei’s website. Lucian Indrei (b. 1983) studied Art and Design University in Cluj Napoca, Romania. He is interrested and open to collaborations and feedbacks are always welcomed. Found via SUB25.