Eno sets sails alight during festival

Brian Eno, the father of ambient music, is hoping his latest work will inspire
Sydneysiders to surrender.
The legendary music producer on Tuesday launched the Luminous music festival he is
curating at the Sydney Opera House, the sails of which form the canvas for his
ever-changing artwork, 77 Million Paintings.
The work is a sequence of patterns and shapes that are continually rearranged into
an infinite number of variations.
The images will be projected across the harbour onto Joern Utzon's masterpiece,
transforming it into an artists' canvas throughout the three-week Vivid Festival, of
which Luminous is one part.
Eno said there was no abstract or existential message in the work, he just hoped to
create a mesmerising image for ordinary people to enjoy.
"I think what I am most interested with this work is to create a situation where you
can experience some kind of surrender," he told reporters.
"Where you stop being you and stop thinking about you and your particular life and
existence and the laundry you didn't pick up and the coffee you wanted to get and
for a little while surrender to something."
Eno, a renowned musician and producer whose career spans four decade, was
commissioned by Events NSW to curate Luminous.
He rejected the notion that the festival was exclusive to art snobs.
"It is not an elitist festival, it is very cutting edge. The attitude of the
festival is not some sort of shake the bourgeois type of thing. It's not like that,"
he said.
The NSW government was criticised for commissioning Eno to curate the event
following Victoria's much-praised coup in securing a visit by Tiger Woods.
"I see. Tiger is popular as where I am elitist," Eno quipped.
"I have to say golf, as one of the human enterprises, is so opaque to me. I would
actually see it the other way around. But good on Tiger, let him roar on."
Eno played keyboards in Roxy Music and collaborated with David Bowie in the late
1970s, and went on to produce a number of U2 albums and Coldplay's award winning
album, Viva La Vida.
The minister assisting the Premier on the Arts, Virginia Judge, said $7 million was
invested by Events NSW into the Vivid festival and would provide a great economic
return for the state.
"The NSW government's investment in Vivid Sydney is expected to generate $10 million
in economic benefit," she said.
"It is one of the highlights on our new Master Events Calendar which is expected to
pump $500 million into the NSW economy."
Vivid Sydney begins on Tuesday and runs until June 14.