Lessness: Randomness, Consciousness and Meaning

Lessness is a prose piece by Samuel Beckett in which he used random permutation to order sentences. Like interactive artworks, the piece is experienced as a process that depends upon the participant’s attempts to comprehend and create meaning. Although Lessness is linear prose, its orderly disorder sets up a non-linear reading process in which contradictory perspectives are viewed simultaneously. The piece comprises two of the approximately 8.3 x10 possible orderings of Beckett’s 60 sentences. The authors have developed a web site that generates versions of Lessness, exploring the effects of the capabilities of computing in the creation and exploration of art.