EveryIcon

Starting Time October 25, 2007, 4:20:00 PM nyc time
(c)1997 John F. Simon, Jr - http://www.numeral.com

I bought it somewhat on a whim. Considering I’d thought about buying a copy ever since I first noticed it, in around 1998, I suppose it cannot be considered an impulse buy. I like how he is still selling it simply, inexpensively, digitally. I like the idea of an “unlimited edition.” I have #158 in a series of infinity!

some text:

Given: A 32 X 32 Grid

Allowed: Any element of the grid 
              to be black or white

Shown: Every Icon

Can a machine produce every possible image? 
What are the limits of this kind of automation? 
Is it possible to practice image making by exploring 
all of image-space using a computer rather 
than by recording from the world around us? 
What does it mean that one may discover visual imagery 
so detached from "nature"?


Every Icon progresses by counting. Starting with an image
where every grid element is white, the software displays 
combinations of black and white elements, proceeding toward 
an image where every element is black. In contrast to presenting 
a single image as an intentional sign, Every Icon presents all possibilities.


The grid contains all possible images. Any change in the starting
conditions, such as the size of the grid or the color of the element,
determines an entirely different set of possible images. 
When Every Icon begins, the image changes rapidly. Yet the progression
of the elements across the grid seems to take longer and longer. 
How long until recognizable images appear? Try several hundred trillion years.
The total number of black and white icons in a 32 X 32 grid is:
1.8 X 10308(a billion is 109). 
Though, for example, at a rate of 100 icons per second (on a typical desktop computer), 
it will take only 1.36 years to display all variations of the first line of the grid, 
the second line takes an exponentially longer 5.85 billion years to complete.


While Every Icon is resolved conceptually, it is unresolvable in practice. 
In some ways the theoretical possibilities outdistance 
the time scales of both evolution and imagination. 
It posits a representational system where computational 
promise is intricately linked to extraordinary duration and momentary sensation.

When I look at it I am reminded that digital art can be simple. When I am feeling bogged down with complexity it can be refreshing to learn from this work. That the primacy of the idea is what it’s all about. That no matter how complex the image, on a computer screen its all just pixels (but what pixels where?) and within that arrangement of pixels lies boundless possibility. It just takes time. And as one practises one does the same things over and over but progress occurs, the image shifts.