Reality is not Always Probable

‘Reality is not always probable’ is constructed from tens of thousands of white dice and is generated, line by line, by manually emulating the rules of a simple computer binary program.  Its title references a quote by Jorge Luis Borges and men’s disquiet towards a lack of controllable or predictable events and the belief that complete knowledge is impossible.

The work originates from Troika’s interest in the human experience of digital production and the shift away from the material towards the virtual and the digital.

It is part of a series of works in which Troika adapt systems and methods, such as computer algorithms or mathematical sequences using materials such as copper and high tech tape or, here, dice to simulate digital sequences.

Troika arrive at these logically-derived compositions by setting initial conditions or frameworks and then introduce an unpredictable element, here an evolutionary algorithm, from which the unexpected emerges.

The use of dice refers back to the historical use of dice as a means of determining fate, chance and luck. In restricting the visible numbers on the dice to 1 and 6, Troika have reduced the random potential of numbers to a binary outcome.

‘Life and Death of an Algorithm’, a work in this series, was included in the permanent collection of the Centre Pompidou in 2018.