Semi-raw Notes on the Generative Documentary "Eno"
“Eno,” is a music documentary about Brian Eno that mirrors the creative spirit of him. It’s created with generative software that allows the film to show different versions that never repeat in different screening. The parts of the film are reshuffled each time with two-fold randomness: both the footages and the order of the footages are changing. I was lucky to watch one iteration in Brain Dead Studios in LA three days ago. The director told us he’s still adding new materials into the edit while he is doing this screening tour across the US. Overall, the documentary is densely peppered with short interviews with Eno about his philosophy about art creation and broadly his worldviews, pairing with visual materials such as archive footages of his band performances or media coverages of him from 70s-90s. It feels more textual than visual because I was very drawn by his words of wits and wisdom, I jotted down everything I can remember right after the screening and edited my raw notes today with links to references. I thought recreating the fragmentariness by transferring my raw notes is a good idea to honor the spirit of this generative documentary.
So here it is.
When Eno was a teenager, he was moved by three things —
the voice of singer Ketty Lester (singing Love Letter, 1961) (“the first time feeling turned on by a voice”)
the color purple coming out of red and blue paint
the feeling of walking along a boardwalk at sunset
Feeling is the start of thoughts. Feeling is powerful because it drives thinking.
Art is the synchronizing of feelings, (but people don’t admit it), what’s so shameful about it being the purpose of art — is it too small an ambition?
(When creating artworks), you put together a few materials then magic happens.
Working with David Bowie
“what if” philosophy, tuning, experiment, changing parameters
Eno and Bowie took different cards from Oblique Strategies (a prompt-based card game to assist creative activities developed by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt, online version) and performed them accordingly through music, and figured out later which cards they got. Example:
“Repeat what you have without being distracted”
“Destroy the most obvious thing”
Eno talks about the heroic voice in Bowie’s Heroes performance — but the heroism is purely done by voice, not the figure of the artist. Even so, the voice isn’t necessarily defined by a strong sense of soldierliness or combativeness, but a brave, cuttingly gentleness.
Embrace randomness
People seem to have an appetite for certainty, but Eno is more pleased to confuse people (tantalizing them with uncertainty).
“I can’t repeat myself, that’s why I never had a hit record album. Because everything I did is one-off and I never did them properly, but I just need to get them out, when it’s done and it’s there, nothing can be done about it. I move on to other things.”
Here, he seems to touch on the “quantity begets quality” creative philosophy but his reluctance to repeat stems from his low intolerance for boredom.
The commitment to not repeating includes no revision and no returning.
The value of surrender
Modern society is obsessed with control and manipulation. People don’t seem to appreciate the value of losing control or losing their ego. Nowadays, surrender only happens in drug, sex, and religion, where you choose to stop being yourself temporarily.
It’s generative to stop being yourself momentarily since people are so hung up on being themselves.
Surrender should be used as a strategy to explore the other side of control.
Why do people like music?
Eno keeps coming back to this question throughout his career and reaches the conclusion: people need to belong. It’s a powerful, strong desire, even stronger than sex. People need to feel that they are a part of something bigger (more than themselves). Music does it for them.
“We are social creatures, we are almost never individuals.”
Ambient music
Ambient music itself is a new instrument that no one knows how to play.
Eno compares (ambient) music making to “painting sound pictures” with notes (brushes). Meanwhile, he doesn’t view them as simple spreads or aggregations of different musical units. He shows how he composes music on his PC by varying up the same set notes using different parameters. With this possibility to evolve and change into the unknown, they assume a life of their own. He talks about he’s inspired by human evolution theory, where complexity develops from simplicity.
Ambient music creates spaces or“imaginary landscape” through music, it’s less of an arranged sequence than a place/landscape you can inhabit and stay in, it should remind you of certain places.
Ambient music is half finished and has a participatory quality. The artist puts the materials (sounds) out there, but the listeners finish the music by completing the internal unfolding of it. It’s participatory and collaborative between the artists and the listeners since it’s the human brain that does the work.
Ambient music is playing the attention that is paid to the environment. It’s designed for people who notice and pay attention to what surrounds them. Eno thinks his expertise is in “slowness”. “When you slow down, your brain is more active in a different way.” “Although I never mediate (I’m too nervous to meditate) but I think that’s what happens in meditation.”
He has a long lasting interest in cybernetic theory, which later become an inspiration for his ambient music. A famous case in cybernetics is “What the Frog's Eye Tells the Frog's Brain”, frog eyes are highly adapted for their specific needs, such as catching prey and avoiding predators. Their eyes and the corresponding brain processing makes a feedback loop/controlling system. Frog eyes are adept at picking up small, moving targets against a static background, like flies. Eno proceeds to explain how this selective attention applies in Ambient Music, “when you look at something long enough, you stop seeing it…when you listen to repetition of piece of music, you start to ignore/unhear the repetition but notice the difference/dissonance.”
Polarities are never interesting, what’s interesting is everything in between, then if you are pointing to a point in this continuum, it’s also not right (since it’s also binary), you need to be able to move along the continuum all the time and don’t stay at a specific place. People have the tendency to attach to points on the continuum, but the key is to move along (both in ideology and creativity).
(Just like the continuum), river/water is constant and flowing. Make river-like music. Growing up in countryside britain cultivates Eno’s unique attachment to river.
Song writing
When people write songs, they never write them by striking guitar and writing the melody down. They always start off by singing nonsense (not real lyrics but a feeling to start with, a handle to grasp), because they need a personality for the music, the feeling, what kind of person this song is about.
Art & the world
Two things that anchor his creative processes:
what I’m creating
how is going to be relevant in the world
Climate change might/should be a chance for human to tackle the series of issues they are facing, and after this, we will live in a better world.