1. Chance
The first step in terms of Bunn's philosophy - and in terms of life itself, Bunn would argue - is the accidental. The error. The chance.
Bunn illustrates this, and also announces his chief referent in doing so, by drawing attention to the artistic pseudonym of Marcel Duchamp - namely Rrose Selavy.
Several other themes are immediately raised here too :
i. Bunn points out that Duchamp used this other name, to state - although, incredibly this is still disputed by some - that 'errors make life'. (Rrose Selvay pronounced as Duchamp intended is indeed "erreurs c'est la vie"). Bunn is immediately at odds here with some critics who still fail to notice this and mistakenly both mis-read Selavy and overlook the artistic imperative which Duchamp made plain, namely that errors or chance could also make or break the work of art of any artist.
ii. Bunn is also making it plain, at the outset, with the 'premier mont' that his work, its very title, is to be read in a similar vein to Duchamp. The Dix Semblaient Monts are correctly pronounced in English as 'Dissemblements'. But to attempt to refute the rest of Bunn's work as such - as dissemblement and as some have tried to do - is also to overlook, significantly, the fact that Bunn is drawing equal attention to the intellectual depth of Duchamps oeuvre. Bunn is not to be taken merely as a dissembler. His work follows seamlessly from the philosophical tradition initiated by Duchamp.
iii. Also, and equally noteworthy, is the tradtion of artistic game - or humor - that originated with Duchamp. Bunn refers to this here, at the outset, but also again throughout. To overlook this tradition, the Duchampian humor, is to misunderstand both Duchamp and Bunn.
These essential keystones made clear, we return to the fundamental issue : Bunn is stating that the first 'mountain', the first obstacle if you will, to be overcome, is that of chance. Fortune. Luck. Error. Without the coin landing heads side up, as it were, whether in life or in art - and Bunn makes little distinction - the artist and the person is in dire trouble.
Specifically relating the matter to art, Bunn makes the essential points : when artists think they are in control of chance, and if critics make the same mistake in believing the artist to be in control of it, once again, both are lost. Both are in error.