[EDITED FROM THE E-MAIL EXCHANGE ARRANGING THE TALK]
Brian: I would be interested to do something with you, and now I'm wondering what it might be. Strangely, it's always much harder when someone generously says "talk about anything you like" - because you then have the responsibility of wondering what on earth that might be. I must add also that I'm a little timid about talking to a very specialized and, I'm sure, highly intelligent group about anything even approaching their own discipline. So, though I work with computers a lot and have strong and occasionally iconoclastic feelings about them, I can't really imagine there's anything much I could say on the subject that would be news to such an audience.
At the moment I'm in a making rather than a theorizing phase - which is to say I don't have a new, current talk in my mind to be adapted to your circumstances. It might turn out that this is therefore not the most ideal time for me to do this....but perhaps you have an idea. I'm a good improviser.
Dennis: Our students will soon be out there trying to create the future (in the sense that Stewart Brand wrote about the MIT Media Lab folks). We tend to be a nerdy, technologically-oriented lot with relatively little understanding of art and design. I read and learned from your book, A Year with Swollen Appendices. In your narrative it was not the "theorizing" that was captivating, but the laying out of the "doing" with occasional reflections about theory and society. Perhaps a similar approach could be the framework for a talk.
You might approach this audience by explaining a bit about who you are and what you are trying to accomplish artistically and intellectually. You certainly should talk about your relationship with computers, good and bad. I would expect your iconoclastic feelings to show and to see computers relegated to their proper status--tools--and not elevated to any god-like status or role.
Personally, I would like to hear you talk about how you see the process of "doing". How will art and design fare in an increasingly automated and computer based world? An informal, improvised, off-hand talk along these lines would be completely appropriate.
Brian: My talk won't be a very highly structured talk, but in the past I've done OK by the seat of my pants, so I don't mind trying again. Hope those pants can still take it...
I've found that a dialogue with the audience often produces more surprises than the talk. I'm not doing the lazy-speakers trick of saying "Let's just have questions", but I'd like have think of a way that the questions can start earlier, or be more integrated.
I did a talk in Paris a couple of months ago where I invited people (before the talk started) to submit questions on paper and then used those as the basis for my talk. I had them laid out before me and just used them as a skeleton around which i could build the flesh of the talk. The good part was that I could just ignore the questions that weren't pointing anywhere interesting. It was a successful format - in that it gave me the reassurance that at least ONE person wanted to know what I was talking about, and that it led the talk into some interesting tangents which I probably wouldn't have gone down otherwise.
About the speaker:
Brian Eno is an artist, composer, musician, and author. He was born in 1948 in Woodbridge, Suffolk. His father was a postman; his mother a Belgian immigrant. He grew up in Woodbridge where much of his extended family still resides. He is the product of a Catholic grammar school and the Ipswitch Art School. He holds a diploma in Fine Art from the Winchester School of Art.
In 1969 he moved to London, joined Roxy Music and began making and producing records. In the late 1970's, he again began doing visual arts, making installations utilizing light, video, slides, sound, and an occasional computer. His book, A Year With Swollen Appendices, his diary for 1995, is a fascinating read. [-dra]
Contact information:
Brian Eno