Art That Makes Itself and other generative beginnings: Paul Brown interviewed by Bronaċ Ferran

Abstract

In an interview with Bronaċ Ferran, Paul Brown recalls his involvement with people and places formative in shaping important countercultures of the 1960s and his long-term interest in generative art processes. He describes his interests since childhood in art and technological thinking which was further inspired by the Cybernetic Serendipity exhibition at the ICA in 1968. Shortly before seeing this, he had left art school, discouraged by a tutor who, on seeing a system-based drawing he had made, told him he would never become an artist. This exit proved liberating as Brown swiftly went on to forge an autonomous route working on light-shows and other multimedia events particularly at The Blackie in Liverpool, which had links to Drury Lane Arts Lab and other centres of radical experimentation. He returned to college in the early 1970s to study art and computing which became the basis of his successful art career.