Painting for a Robot

Painting for a Robot

Video Generates Abstract “Pre-Paintings”

Video by William A. Brown

“I amuse myself with many conceits but I have a particular fondness for my importance as an artist with a track record for serious explorations that push the boundaries of what exactly defines painting, video, and sculpture. With painting I’m trying to find new digital solutions for the coming era of painting by robots. With sculpture I’m proposing incorporating photography as a source material for public art. With video I’m trying to shoot as if I’m a still documentary photographer. Blurring definitions of what painting, sculpture, and video can be is my mission.

“In my latest my latest work, Paintings for a Robot, I’m proposing the use of film editing technologies to rapidly create merged images that will be made into paintings in the near future by robots. I was interested in creating abstract images based on conventions from photography. I consider myself a pioneer in the use of digital techniques to create “pre-paintings” that will be rendered by robots that have mastered the highly complex task of applying precisely mixed paint to a flat surface creating the kinds of images that have made painting, historically, the medium which has defined the visual imagination of our most brilliant artists.”

William A. Brown is an independent filmmaker and visual artist whose award winning work has been shown at festivals throughout the world. As President of Atlanta Video, Brown has produced literally thousands of media projects since the company’s inception in 1976. His documentaries have aired on PBS and The Arts & Entertainment Network. He recently retired from the Film & Media Studies Department at Emory University. Brown has written, produced, and directed projects for IBM, the Coca-Cola Company, and the High Museum of Art. His art works are in the permanent collection of the High Museum of Art and have been shown at the Corcoran Museum of Art. In his spare time Brown can be found filming architectural oddities and ritual crowd activities anywhere from Las Vegas to Angkor Wat.

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