Lee Wochner: Writer. Director. Writing instructor. Thinker about things.


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Brian Eno? There’s an app for that.

Two months ago I wrote about Brian Eno’s work with music and art generated randomly by computers. At that time, “Bloom,” his iPhone app that allows one to do similar work on a small scale (and on a smaller screen:  your iPhone), had been out for a while and was a hot download from the App Store. Eno mentioned that the next iteration, “Trope,” had been released on iTunes that weekend, but what he failed to mention (or did not know) was that it was available on the U.K. iTunes, but not on the U.S.

At some point since then, it’s been released here. And so, here’s a brief video that shows the application in action. I haven’t downloaded this yet, but I probably will. How much iPhone “Risk” can one play before needing something new to play with? Moreover, I remain mesmerized with Eno’s work all of which, to credit Rich Roesberg with the point, descends from John Cage.

What’s remarkable here is the degree to which smartphones are revolutionizing our work, our play, and our lives. This tiny device smaller than my hand has most of the technological power I so desperately craved when I was 12: the power to write, or draw, or record, and then distribute that artistic creation freely anywhere in the world. No one younger than 40 can imagine what it was like for homegrown artists 35 years ago to have to choose between the bad options of hand copying, mimeograph, carbon paper, or 25-cents-a-page Xerox copying. None of them was suitable.

2 Responses to “Brian Eno? There’s an app for that.”

  1. Uncle Rich Says:

    I LIKE IT. IMAGINE WHAT WE’LL HAVE TO PLAY AND CREATE WITH IN A YEAR, OR FIVE OR TEN.

  2. Joe Says:

    Emo Phillips, is there an APP for THAT?

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