William Oldacre Photography

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Chaos & Order Explained

Light Signatures series, day, colour photograph, art, abstract, abstract expressionism, creative, city street, urban, downtown, cityscape, speed, blur, movement, motion, burgundy, orange, muted, streaks, waves, layers, pattern

Linear Jellyfish, 2014 – Light Signatures :: (click to see more)

I need to explain the statement – I seek order from chaos.

I view the movements of all things as patterned on some scale. I am drawn to the larger more integrated patterns that appear, when the movement of many things intersect. I consider these intersections a form of order, or perhaps a higher level of order. This is a loose definition, because from a purist perspective there is always movement somewhere and any moment could be considered an intersection – but clearly, not all intersections are as interesting as some.

When I say chaos I’m really speaking about scale. Pattern in the movement of things, particularly larger things in a city, like vehicles and people, seem more chaotic on a smaller scale – like for example the frame of my camera.

Flow is important too. There is clearly a flow to the movement of things in a city, on a larger scale like the ebb and flow of traffic throughout a day, but frequency is where chaos lives within the larger patterns of flow – like the fluctuating number of vehicles clustered at a traffic light. Frequency in conjunction with scale make the movement of things appear chaotic.

I seek the order that spontaneously and instantaneously arises from this apparent chaotic dance – like a choreographed Fosse move that will momentarily appear and then evaporate back into noise.