“Eno” (2024) by Gary Hustwit —A Review
After the premier at Sundance Film Festival in January of this year, the new documentary about the British musician, producer, and artist Brian Eno went on its world tour. For each screening, advertised as “never to be seen again,” the footage is reordered by the software, thus making each presentation somewhat unique. The alleged “first generative film” features much of the archival footage that a viewer may find elsewhere. Yet the work also includes not previously seen interview scenes with Eno in his home studio.
这部关于英国音乐家、制片人和艺术家布莱恩·伊诺的新纪录片今年一月在圣丹斯电影节首映后开始了世界巡演。对于每场放映，广告上都标榜“再也不会被看到”，软件都会对镜头进行重新排序，从而使每个演示都有些独特。这部所谓的“第一部生成电影”包含了观众在其他地方可以找到的大部分档案片段。然而，这部作品还包括以前从未见过的伊诺在他的家庭工作室里接受采访的场景。
A Cutting-Edge Generative Film-Making?
尖端的生成电影制作？
Regarding the “generative” catchphrase, while I realize, based on Q&A, that the audience on average gets impressed by the unique assemblage of footage, unique for each screening, to me the approach appears to be trivial to the extent that makes me wonder why it wasn’t employed as early as in the 1950/60s when algorithmic techniques were introduced in the art-making process. [1] Long story short, the generative profile of the film is as follows: about 10 hours of footage from which in a collage manner the software designed for the film selects segments for about 85-90 min of screening. There are a few pre set elements of the film that are not affected by the “generative” algorithm – the beginning and ending of the documentary. While the footage segments’ being grouped by the software introduces the element of non-linearity in the narrative, the development still follows certain plot prompts pre set by the film director and the team. Such are the oblique strategy cards, for example.
关于“生成”的口号，虽然我根据问答认识到，观众平均会对每场放映的独特的镜头组合印象深刻，但对我来说，这种方法似乎微不足道，让我想知道为什么早在 20 世纪 50/60 年代，当算法技术被引入艺术创作过程时，它就没有被采用。 [1] 长话短说，这部电影的生成概况如下：大约 10 小时的镜头，为电影设计的软件以拼贴的方式从中选择片段进行大约 85-90 分钟的放映。影片中有一些预设元素不受“生成”算法的影响——纪录片的开头和结尾。虽然由软件对片段进行分组，在叙事中引入了非线性元素，但发展仍然遵循电影导演和团队预先设定的某些情节提示。例如，倾斜策略卡就是这样。
Oblique Roots and Influences
斜根和影响
On the intersection of structure/technique and content/message areas lays another issue: the film inevitably features all elements of the conventional narrative that Brian Eno shares when talking about his work; the film includes all conceptual milestones one can absorb by listening to a few interviews of Eno or reading his Wikipedia page. In other words, the film doesn’t open up a new angle on Eno’s work other than what he himself already manifested. . .over decades. For example, have you ever wondered about the place of Eno in the landscape of experimental music? Did you want to learn his positionality with respect to minimalism? The genealogy, if you like. Eno is a kind of an artist who derived from the tradition of American experimentalism, just as John Cale [2] – who’s featured in the film. In his earlier interviews, Eno noted the impact of Terry Riley. In the film, he also talks quite a bit about repetition and slow listening. Why not dig into the subject? In “Eno” the artist is solely mapped within the mainstream music – and a viewer gets exposed to what’s already known about Eno’s work with Roxy Music, U2, David Bowie, etc. On the same page, why other 20th-century experimental art is used for contextualization? For example, the land art is not brought up at all – despite the presence of the scenic shooting of the landscapes/bird eye view scenes accompanied by Eno’s thoughts about our place on Earth.
在结构/技术和内容/信息领域的交叉点上存在另一个问题：这部电影不可避免地采用了布莱恩·伊诺在谈论他的作品时所分享的传统叙事的所有元素；这部电影包含了人们可以通过听伊诺的一些采访或阅读他的维基百科页面来吸收的所有概念里程碑。换句话说，除了他本人已经表现出来的内容之外，这部电影并没有为伊诺的作品开辟一个新的角度。 。 .几十年来。例如，您是否想过伊诺在实验音乐领域的地位？您想了解他对于极简主义的立场吗？家谱，如果你愿意的话。伊诺是一位源自美国实验主义传统的艺术家，就像电影中的约翰·凯尔 [2] 一样。在早期的采访中，伊诺注意到了特里·莱利的影响。在影片中，他还谈到了很多关于重复和慢速聆听的内容。为什么不深入主题呢？在《Eno》中，艺术家完全被映射到主流音乐中——观众可以接触到 Eno 与 Roxy Music、U2、David Bowie 等合作的已知作品。在同一页上，为什么其他 20 世纪的实验艺术是用于情境化？例如，大地艺术根本没有被提及——尽管有风景/鸟瞰场景的风景拍摄，伴随着伊诺对我们在地球上的地位的思考。
Eno as a Thinker – A Man of His Time
作为思想家的伊诺——他那个时代的人
In this part I would like to discuss less of the film features but the overall paradigm of Eno’s creativity and his thinking about music in particular.
在这一部分中，我想讨论较少的电影特色，但讨论伊诺创造力的整体范式，特别是他对音乐的思考。
The first thing to note concerns the compositional process. Since right now an experimental composer of similar influences is writing a book about propositional music, reinventing the wheel, I would like to highlight that what’s to be theorized in that book has been already grounded in the approach of other musicians and in no way is an “invention.” Brian Eno is working in a “propositional” paradigm if you like. [3] Specifically, throughout the documentary Eno discusses his fascination with the complexity theory and nature, and how he applies what he notices in nature in his creative process. The metaphor of “gardening,” and there’s much of Eno in the garden footage in the film, works well to describe his approach. Setting a set of rules, Eno creates a potential for self-organization and the rise of complexity in his art-in-making. Rather than acting as an “architect,” setting up a composition, just as a concrete building, he attempts to “plant” the “seeds” of further evolution of a piece. He’s sculpting a music piece or art to the extent necessary for future autonomous generations – somewhat seeing his pieces as the open systems that may be affected by listeners, performers, and other actors – in a way that may be generative and provide surprising results.
首先要注意的是构图过程。由于现在一位具有类似影响的实验作曲家正在写一本关于命题音乐的书，重新发明轮子，我想强调的是，这本书中的理论内容已经以其他音乐家的方法为基础，绝不是一个“发明。”如果你愿意的话，布莱恩·伊诺（Brian Eno）正在以“命题”范式工作。 [3] 具体来说，伊诺在整部纪录片中讨论了他对复杂性理论和自然的迷恋，以及他如何在创作过程中应用他在自然界中注意到的东西。 “园艺”的比喻，以及电影中花园镜头中的大量伊诺，都很好地描述了他的方法。伊诺制定了一套规则，创造了自组织的潜力，并在他的艺术创作中增加了复杂性。他并没有像混凝土建筑那样充当“建筑师”，搭建一个构图，而是试图“种植”作品进一步演变的“种子”。他正在将音乐作品或艺术作品塑造到未来自主世代所需的程度——某种程度上将他的作品视为可能受到听众、表演者和其他演员影响的开放系统——以一种可能具有创造性并提供令人惊讶的结果的方式。
Secondly, Eno talks a lot about creating environments of exploration, (the “propositional music” theorist stamps the same idea), and making the atmospheres of sound. This focus on the atmosphere and the soundscape illustrates that the film is missing the important parts of Eno’s musical genealogy. It would be more than helpful to draw a connection between Eno’s view and the thoughts of J. Cage, J. Attali, and R. M. Schafer – to name a few theorists of sound art and acoustic ecology.[4]
其次，伊诺谈论了很多关于创造探索环境（“命题音乐”理论家也认同同样的想法）以及营造声音氛围。这种对气氛和音景的关注表明，这部电影遗漏了伊诺音乐谱系的重要部分。将 Eno 的观点与 J. Cage、J. Attali 和 RM Schafer（仅举几位声音艺术和声学生态学理论家）的思想联系起来将非常有帮助。 [4]
Speaking of imaginary landscapes, [5] Eno develops his thoughts about ambient music using the same ideas and elements as the beloved pioneers of minimalism. Eno goes on to talk about his experience of watching the Apollo mission in 1969 and the impact it had on him. That experience motivated his decision to create music for the film “For All Mankind” (1989), [6] and the work on the soundtrack led to the conceptualization of the ambient. The artist was interested in “stillness”, almost close to nothingness – the absence of sound, and he tried to work with it creating a “floating” quality of sound – inspired by his observation of nature, (imitating rivers flowing), and the flow of the spaceship. He describes the kind of listening enabled by ambiance as “watching the auditory system in operation,” thus demonstrating his intuitive comprehension of the “brain “seeing” patterns.” By that, I think, he means what neuroscientists call evoked potentials. [7] This line of reflection proceeds with Eno acknowledging the influence of cybernetics, in particular, reading the article of W.S. McCullough et al. “What the Frog’s Eye Tells the Frog’s Brain” (1959). Eno sees that in perception of the world and the art forms we are basically “filtering” landscape, based on our past experience or other circumstances.
Thirdly and lastly, I can’t avoid mentioning the keyword to Eno’s work – SURRENDER. As Eno theorizes, we, humans, seem to enjoy most the moments of surrender, somewhat a dissolution of ego, (hippies used the same phrasing), in something greater than oneself. The experience of surrender may occur to us in four kinds of situations, according to Eno: religion, sex, drugs, and art. Listening to music in a group situation, as he points out, we approach that kind of dissolution of self and the sense of unity with a whole. He calls it tele-pathy, referring to the synchrony in feeling with other people, the capacity to approach their emotional state without a direct interaction. For some evolutionary reason, Eno meditates, we enjoy what he calls “surrender” more than anything, and he sees his practice of artmaking as “creating situations where people can have feelings.” The concept of surrender is also well applied to thinking of human interaction with nature. Eno suggests that just as in the relationship of humans with their environment, unless taking a strategy of conquer & exploit, through art we can enjoy uncertainty and confusion – emerging out of the interaction of complex systems, [8] and one of Eno’s creative goals is to share this appreciation of uncertainty with his audience.
Concluding, even if you are a great fan knowing close to all about Brian Eno, I think the film fulfills the mission of summoning the thinking of Eno, and his understanding of his own creativity. Given that Eno is an original thinker worth keeping an eye on, whether you like his music or not, the film is undoubtedly informative and inspiring. Check it out if the screening comes to your town. For the schedule refer to the director’s page.
最后，即使你是一个非常了解布莱恩·伊诺的粉丝，我认为这部电影也完成了唤起伊诺的思考以及他对自己创造力的理解的使命。鉴于伊诺是一位值得关注的原创思想家，无论你是否喜欢他的音乐，这部电影无疑内容丰富且鼓舞人心。看看放映是否来到你所在的城镇。有关时间表，请参阅导演页面。
Written by Anastasia Chernysheva, a PhD. student at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and a Visiting Graduate Researcher at UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music.
由博士阿纳斯塔西娅·切尔尼舍娃撰写。伊利诺伊大学厄巴纳-香槟分校的学生和加州大学洛杉矶分校赫伯阿尔珀特音乐学院的访问研究生研究员。
References: 参考：
[1] Wright, R. (1960). From system to software: Computer programming and the death of constructivist art. White Heat Cold Logic: British Computer Art, 1980, 119-139.
[1] 赖特，R. (1960)。从系统到软件：计算机编程和建构主义艺术的消亡。白热冷逻辑：英国计算机艺术，1980，119-139 。
[2] Potter, K. (2016). Mapping early minimalism. In The Ashgate research companion to minimalist and postminimalist music (pp. 19-37). Routledge.
[2] 波特，K. (2016)。映射早期的极简主义。在《阿什盖特》中，极简主义和后极简主义音乐的研究伴侣（第 19-37 页）。劳特利奇。
[3] Rosenboom, D. (2003). Propositional music from extended musical interface with the human nervous system. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 999(1), 263-271.
[3] 罗森布姆，D. (2003)。来自与人类神经系统的扩展音乐接口的命题音乐。纽约科学院年鉴，999 (1), 263-271。
[4] Bartle, B. K. (1977). The tuning of the world. Journal of Research in Music Education, 25(4), 291-293.
[4] 巴图，BK (1977)。世界的调音。音乐教育研究杂志，25 (4), 291-293。
[5] Cage, J. (2012). Silence: lectures and writings. Wesleyan University Press.
[5]凯奇，J.（2012）。沉默：演讲和写作。卫斯理大学出版社。
[6] Eno, B., Lanois, D., Eno, R., & Reinert, A. (1983). Apollo: atmospheres and soundtracks. Virgin.
[6] Eno, B.、Lanois, D.、Eno, R. 和 Reinert, A. (1983)。阿波罗：气氛和配乐。处女。
[7] Sutton, Samuel, Patricia Tueting, Joseph Zubin, and E. Roy John. “Information delivery and the sensory evoked potential.” Science 155, no. 3768 (1967): 1436-1439.
[7] 塞缪尔·萨顿、帕特里夏·图廷、约瑟夫·祖宾和 E.·罗伊·约翰。 “信息传递和感官诱发电位。”科学155，没有。 3768（1967）：1436-1439。
[8] related terms are systems dynamics and chaos theory.
[8]相关术语是系统动力学和混沌理论。
