About 10 years ago, Brian Eno was walking home from his studio in London, when he peered into a window. There he saw a group of “posh people sitting around a table,” having dinner. Behind them was a black plasma screen. It was a eureka moment.
“I thought, ‘That’s a missed opportunity, that ought to be a painting,” he told a group of assembled journalists at the Glenbow Museum.
In the intervening decade, Eno has been working to reclaim those lost moments as well as show art on computer and television screens. His video work was already being shown around the world in galleries, but why couldn’t people sitting at home have access to the same work? Computers are an easy dissemination platform.
The ultimate result of that walk home is 77 Million Paintings, opening today at the Glenbow as part of the High Performance Rodeo. The work is a morphing amalgamation of 296 images, overlaid in random sequences and set to Eno’s ambient music. As the exhibition title suggests, there are 77 million possible combinations, ensuring every viewer sees something different. The work proves to be meditative, slow and vibrant as it splashes across the darkened exhibition room.
Eno started working with light and video in the late ’60s. “I haven’t gotten very far, that’s pretty much what this is,” he says.
I beg to differ. Watch the video to form your own opinion.
77 Million Paintings will be on display until March 20.
Hugh
7:52 PM
I was no English major, Drew, but shouldn’t it be, “It was an eureka moment.” Or is that too Englishey?
Drew Anderson
12:32 PM
Aloha Hugh! (you can’t hide your identity from me sir). It’s funny, I stumbled on that one and went with easier to read rather than proper. I think it might indeed be too Englishey for this day and age. But I’m sure folks will disagree.
Richard Lam
1:35 PM
That IS a really impressive little camera. Kudos.
In comparison, I’d say getting a measly email account is nothin’.