Created: September 28th, 2014

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In our composition, we first randomly decided where and in which direction we would start in the space. Each person held a spool of yarn, taped the beginning of the yarn to the wall we are starting next to at waist level, and moved in the direction we were given as the yarn was unwound at the same time to mark where we've been. If we run into an obstacle such as a wall or a table, we would tape the yarn to that obstacle and "bounce" off the obstacle like a ball would. If we run into another piece of yarn, we would similarly tape our own yarn to the other piece and "bounce" off. If we run into a person, we would tape our string together and bounce off as if we bounced off a piece of yarn. Once a person ran out of yarn or he or she was stuck (surrounded by obstacles), he or she would stop while others continued to move. If  5 minutes elapsed before everyone was stuck, we would also all stop. The speed a person moves at is his or her usual walking speed. We chose to limit our starting options to only the corners because we wanted each person to have as much space as possible to bounce around before getting stuck. 

We chose to perform this composition in two different spaces, the racquet ball court, which has no obstacles other than walls and the much bigger Rangos with some tables and chairs around. Because of the extra obstacles, the entropy and indeterminacy we created in Rangos is increased; it is hard to determine ahead of time what we will bounce into. Since we were calculating the angles we bounce off of by eye, we were not always accurate, contributing to more entropy in our performance. Because we start in random directions, what we bounce into and how we bounce off is different each time we perform and at each different place. The patterns we formed at each place, however, are somewhat similar; both times a large section of the room was empty because it was cut off early in the performance by yarn. This resulted in a few parts with highly concentrated yarn because we kept bouncing off and forming obstacles for ourselves in the same location.

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random(4) = starting position
[choose one of the four corners of the room to start on]

random(90) = starting direction
[choose a direction to start on]

while(!isObstacle(starting position && "hasString")) {

    while(!isObstacle(starting position) && "hasString") {

        moveStep(starting position, starting direction) = starting position;

    }

    //isObstacle(starting position)

    tapeString(obstacle(starting position));

    bounceDirection(starting direction, obstacle(starting position)) = starting direction;

}

tapeString(obstacle(starting position));
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