Almost everyone has heard about Brian Eno: musician, composer, producer, singer and visual artist. He started his career in London in 1971 as a member in the glam band Roxy Music, although he left two years later due to differences with lead singer Brian Ferry. He started then to work on electronic music albums with a high component of experimentation. In 1973 published No pussyfooting together with Robert Fripp, in which they used a double tape and delay recording system. His composing methods created him the necessity to look for new graphic notation systems, like some classic composers had done before during the 20th century. In 1972 Eno was a prominent member of the Portsmouth Sinfonia orchestra at the Portsmouth Art School, playing together with others among whom where Gavin Bryars or Michael Nyman.

However, the name Brian Eno is tied to a genre: ambient. To him is attributed paternity of term and concept itself: music not to just be listened to, but to "modify perfecption of the surroundings". Although the idea of background music was previous (the term musique d'ameublement was used by Eric Satie in 1917), it is Eno who makes it popular: his album Discreet music (1975) is considered a genre fundational milestone, which was followed by the famous 'Ambient' series: Music for airports (Ambient 1), The plateaux of mirror (Ambient 2), Day of Radiance (Ambient 3) and On Land (Ambient 4).Equally influential was My life in the bush of ghosts (1981), in which Eno collaborated with David Byrne.

He showed also very early interest in experimenting with light and images, creating his first video-instalations already in 1978. Through them he expands his personal style, combining music and images in audiovisual structures exposed all over the world, from Londres to Tokyo and New York.

It is not possible to understand this multimedia instalations without knowing about the 'generative music' concept. In 1996 Eno cooperated with the SSEYO company to develop the 'Koan' generative music system: a software that allows the musician to adjust 150 musical and sonic parameters from which a computer generates sounds randomly.

And so we get to 77 millions paintings. In this installation (the first 'version' is from 2006), Eno applies the principles of generative music both to the music and the image. More than 300 images are sequentally and randomly projected on 12 screens in a romboid configuration. The number of possible combinations reach said 77 millions. At the pace set, a visitor should wait for 450 years to be sure that they have seen the same combination twice...

It is a simple idea, like the concept of ambient itself, but if anything characterizes Eno's production is his ability to wrap the simple in a deep thought. When in the exhibition hall, we do not have any control over what we watch or listen to. What is more, considering the high number possible combinations, even the moment chosen to assist to the exhibition makes each visit a unique and once-in-a-lifetime experience. Even for Eno himself: in the 'generative creation' the artist only 'plants a seed', without knowing the specific results that would produce. His artwork is never concluded (although, nonsensically, it actually is finished, since it is in its nature to exist unfinished). In sume, with a simple idea (generating random combinations of images and sounds) Eno redefines the concepts of artist and spectator at the same time.

The slow cadence of 77 millions paintings could be explained as a criticism to our current society's desire for instant satisfaction. There is nothing instant in this piece of work. A great deal of patience is asked for, almost requiered to the visitor, for nothing happens quickly. In fact, at moments it seems as if nothing happens at all. The transitions from one visual configuration to the next are indiscernible. Now they are a diamond, without noticing they are a toy windmill and you don't know how but now they are a flower. And it keeps going ad infinitum: we must accept that there is no beginning nor an ending. It is an eternal continous and every second we are in front of a different and ultimate artwork which is now, but was not before and is not going to be anymore.

Facing the desire to freeze time that brought the 20th century with the invention of photography and fonographic medias, Brian Eno wonders if our descendants in the future would ask to us: "do you really listened to the same thing over an over again?".