77 Million Paintings (2007) by Brian Eno (dvd. Second revised version)
77 Million Paintings is the next evolutionary stage of Brian Eno's exploration into light as an artist's medium and the aesthetic possibilities of 'generative software'. This piece utilizes the computer's unique capacity as a generating processor to produce original visual compounds out of a large quantity of hand-painted elements.
"Take all the values of normal TV and postulate their opposites.
TV is a way of controlling light Images are a subset of controlled light Narratives are a subset of images.
TV is the movement of light in time. Think of TV as light entertainment.
Information and stimulus are not separate.
Stop thinking of 'effects' as something added to straight TV.
Whatever is now at the edges will, in time, become the centre.
Don't start from meaning it will appear.
Future TV will be made with simple equipment unqualified people small budgets and bad taste.
Adjust your set as much as you like.
Television was developped as a substitute for cinema, which was developped as a substitute for the theatre. The values of the theatre — literacy, continuity and narrative coherence — to this day dominate the culture of television. The pictorial space of the theatre remains intact on the small screen.
What about another way of thinking about TV? Why not regard it as the late 20th century's way of making paintings? You don't have to preclude any of the possibilities that have been explored in TV's short history, but instead you re-evaluate them as a part of a more inspiring historical conception — television as the new, living centre of contemporary visual culture."
Brian Eno, The Future of Television, 1991.