Random the Book

Questions for you:

• When I describe my own work, do I retrofit intention onto processes that were actually more exploratory or accidental?
• How much of my creative or problem-solving process involves responding to unexpected developments rather than executing a plan?
• Do I give myself credit for the skilful response to accidents, or only for successful execution of intentions?

Questions for your organisation:

• Do we create pressure for people to present their work as more planned and intentional than it actually was?
• Are we missing valuable insights by not capturing the role of accident and response in successful projects?
• How do we balance celebrating strategic thinking with acknowledging the productive role of chance and adaptation?

Further reading

A biography of Pollock and a timeline of his work: https://www.theartstory.org/artist/pollock-jackson/

The app below was inspired and informed by this article about the complexity of the techniques that Pollock used: https://swarezart.com/drip-painting-technique/ 

Interactive exhibit

Try your own hand at drip painting with this Jackson Pollock Simulator: https://experiments.randomthebook.com/pollock/index.html 

About the image

The foreground is an image of Jackson Pollock taken from his passport which is in the Smithsonian Collection.

The background image was generated using the Jackson Pollock Simulator.

Photomontage Matt Ballantine 2026.