William A. Brown

Monkeys & Typewriters: Images Generated by Digitally Mixing 544,000 Photographs

The works on this page were created by randomly mixing hundreds of thousands of photographs and public domain art works in a computer. The results are true aleatory works, a technique suggested by John Cage in the 1950s. Digital randomizing as a painting strategy is now possible as the painting workflow becomes digitized. This strategy, however, is truly mining low grade ore. There were only 10 interesting images after four years of diligent digital randomizing.

After using a rigorous randomizing strategy I came to my senses and realized I needed a more controlled strategy. By limiting myself to metallic materials I would have a much higher success rate. I gained a lot of respect for those infinite numbers of monkeys creating great works of literature. My success rate of .0005% (10 out of 544,00) makes a rigorous approach an impractical strategy.

The Metal Series Inspired by Randomizing Techniques

Metallic Modified Randomizing Strategy with Photoshop Effect.

All of these works are sold as NFTs with the buyer having the right to create oil paintings, prints, etc. Only one NFT is sold for each image.