InfiniVision is a television or computer screen that displays all past, present and future images ever drawn, painted, photographed, typed, printed, handwritten, seen, or even imagined by everyone ever born and everyone yet to be born!
No images were ever scanned into InfiniVision to make this possible. Instead, InfiniVision is programmed to methodically display every possible combination of colored dots, without regard to what image is formed by each combination.
By deconstructing images into their individual pixels, in a novel and rather mind-bending way InfiniVision enables us to reexamine our views about many important social issues, including the increasing difficulty of protecting intellectual property, our limits on free speech, the shifting roles of artists and writers in the shadow of increasingly intelligent machines, the meaning of art, and the mortality of our species.
Close your eyes. Imagine a computer screen with two large color dots on it.
Imagine a computer program rapidly changing the two colors to show every
possible combination of colors – red/blue, green/blue, black/blue, blue/black,
blue/blue, blue/red, etc, until every combination of two colors has been shown.
You know that is possible. Now imagine the same program displaying all possible
combinations using three color dots instead of two. No problem – it just takes longer to
finish. Now imagine the program doing the very same thing with the hundreds of
tiny pinpoint-sized color dots that make up a computer screen. Imagine them all
twinkling through every possible combination, and thus displaying every possible
image. Now open your eyes and watch InfiniVision!
By definition there is no image you can scan onto a computer screen that
InfiniVision will not eventually display on its own. This is because any image
you could scan onto a computer screen is simply one arrangement of tiny color
dots, and the computer software that drives the InfiniVision screen is
programmed to show every possible combination of these tiny color dots,
regardless of what image each combination of dots creates. Consequently, no
images were ever scanned into InfiniVision. It simply steps rapidly through
every possible combination of color dots, thus displaying every possible image.
Unlike the proverbial
million monkeys
at their typewriters who may by chance
write Shakespeare someday, given enough time InfiniVision will generate every
possible – every conceivable – every inconceivable image ever created, seen or imagined
– with absolute certainty. InfiniVision does not rely on chance. Although the
InfiniVision screen twinkles wildly from image to image, the underlying software
program is artfully designed to display the images in an interesting, somewhat mesmerizing, manner while still assuring that every possible image will be
displayed, and that no image will be displayed more than once. InfiniVision is
like the million monkey thought experiment, but with a guarantee of certain
success.
InfiniVision is the opposite of the blank canvas. It is a canvas with every possible image on it. We've come to accept that
"Less is More."
Will InfiniVision prove that "More is More,"
"More is Less"
or that "All is Nothing?"
InfiniVision not only displays every painting that
Van Gogh
ever painted, but
every work he would have painted had he lived to be 100. Every future photograph
of you, including one depicting you reading the next sentence. Every painting of
the masters born a thousand years from now. In fact, InfiniVision even reveals
every masterpiece that human artists will never create. Yes, the Lost Works of
Man, on display now with InfiniVision.
Believe it! It is undeniable! InfiniVision will display every possible and every
imaginable image. Listen in over the years as people watch InfiniVision:
"Hey! There's a shot back at earth from the center of
our galaxy hundreds
of light-years away."
"Ah, the Mona Lisa... Oh no, Mona Lisa vomiting."
"So that's how they built
Stonehenge!"
InfiniVision will display every painting, drawing and photograph. Every
trademark, trade secret, and classified government document. Every handwritten
love letter ever poured from the heart, including those you never sent. Every
image ever seen or imagined by any person in all of the past and all of the
future. Watch InfiniVision – See it all!
The "Age of Infinism" may be upon us. A Nihilist age where creating, appropriating or protecting any image is pointless! If switched on, will InfiniVision christen Art's Sunset Era? An age when artists, photographers, and writers can just sit back with the rest of society as art becomes merely the next spectator sport – bumpered with commercials and beamed onto tubes everywhere. Will the masses weep over emotionally moving paintings and sonnets as they appear for the first time ever, only to disappear a few seconds later? Cheering the beautiful images, while booing the vulgar, between gobbles of greasy snack food? "I want my iTV!"
Will art's ultimate medium be reduced to InfiniVision's electrons on glass? A spray of ones and zeroes cranked out by a cold machine? Or, can art be only the process and expression of the human soul? Stay tuned!
Unfortunately, InfiniVision is no sage. In order to reveal the unimaginable, the future, the secrets of the universe, it has been programmed to, well, to use a phrase, "let it all hang out." When InfiniVision, which is, after all, only a machine, steps through every possible combination of tiny color dots it has no way of recognizing the image formed by each combination. It can't tell a masterpiece from a grisly crime-scene photo, the blueprints for world peace from a random collection of dots. Consequently, there is no way for it to skip over the unpleasant combinations, or even the unlawful combinations, of dots that comprise pictures deemed obscene by local community standards. It can't even skip over the nonsensical combinations, or the images we won't be able to understand for thousands of years, in order to present all the interesting images first. Because of this inability to censor itself, if we plug in InfiniVision it will be forced to display every horrible, sinful, and unlawful image along with every beautiful, moral, and lawful one.
So the question is... Should we close our eyes to every work of art that will ever be created, and every unimaginable work of art that humankind will never create, because our laws declare that arranging color dots in certain ways is a crime punishable by imprisonment? Or that certain combinations of dots may form images that tempt us to sin or to think sinful thoughts?
Furthermore, because InfiniVision displays all images, it will display every imaginable obscene image, including all illegal pornographic images. Each obscene image will also be shown branded with, and thereby tainting, every corporate logo from American Express to Disney to Wal-Mart.
In fact, your own face will be displayed in countless images endorsing InfiniVision and freedom of speech, and also in countless images condemning InfiniVision as a demonic Dionysian device that cannot be permitted by society and must be destroyed.
Perhaps InfiniVision will prove Nietzsche's point that the unwelcome, problematic sides of existence cannot be abolished, and that these negative experiences are essential to experiencing their contrasting opposites, whether joy, love, or beauty.
Regardless of the fact that InfiniVision displays every possible image, when questioned in front of a jury by a prosecutor holding up an obscene and illegal pornographic image, the artist cannot deny that given enough time the objectionable image will be displayed by InfiniVision with absolute certainty, or that the image will also be displayed with the faces of each of the jurors taking part in every conceivable variation of the disgusting act. Indeed, InfiniVision could be framed by the press and prosecutors in a very negative light – "Leading tonight's news, a controversial artist has created a computer screen that displays every possible obscene image including all those already on the internet! He calls it art and thinks his work should be available to those interested in seeing it! Prosecutors, however, ..."
Current copyright law grants you a copyright to any work you independently create, regardless of whether someone else has already copyrighted the same work. The famous US Federal Appellate Court Judge Learned Hand once explained this principle in the case of Sheldon v. Metro-Goldwyn Pictures Corp, 81 F.2d 49,54 (2d Cir., 1936). "If by some magic a man who had never known it were to compose anew Keats' Ode on a Grecian Urn, he would be an 'author', and, if he copyrighted it, others might not copy that poem, though they might of course copy Keats's."
Consequently, InfiniVision becomes a copyright holder on every image it generates, because it does so completely independently and without copying any other works. So, for example, once InfiniVision generates sketches of Mickey Mouse, InfiniVision will have the same copyrights to those sketches of Mickey as Disney does!
To provide additional revenue to InfiniVision Corporation, while the world watches the first InfiniVision screen, a second copy of InfiniVision will be running on a massively parallel supercomputer to rapidly copyright every possible image, allowing InfiniVision Corporation to own the legal copyright to every image, including every image already copyrighted by others, and every possible sentence of text in every language – until, of course, Congress closes this loophole in the copyright law.
For those of us who eventually meet
God in heaven, we may be able to see God's face as some visual image. If this is
so, even that image, the very Face of God, will be displayed by InfiniVision!
Or, perhaps God has no single face, but rather a face of infinite images – a
divine light twinkling forth all answers of the universe. If so, InfiniVision
will eventually display them all!
Since InfiniVision displays every possible image, it displays every page of the
Hebrew Scriptures,
the
gospel,
and the
Koran
translated into every language,
including those not yet spoken. The dharma of
Buddhism,
handwritten in its
original
Prakrit,
pictorial histories of
voodoo
and
Santería,
the sheet music
and verse of every sacred hymn, chant and
canticle.
The words of every silent
prayer and
kaddish.
InfiniVision will grace us with every revelation of truth and tempt us with
every satanic lie, leaving us to find the way. Is InfiniVision the genesis of
some new prophetic idol to be placed on an altar and greeted with a
Benedictus,
or the first girder of a high-speed digital electronic
Tower of Babel?
And if God indeed sees everything, then by allowing humankind as a whole to see
everything too, does InfiniVision somehow allow humankind as a whole to see
through God's eyes? Will even posing such a question bring lynch mobs with raised torches in hand to burn this nickelodeon
of
Zeus,
or will InfiniVision draw peaceful throngs searching for a new form of
communion? Pass the plate!
Although each image that InfiniVision generates can be seen for several seconds, the individual pixels on the InfiniVision screen twinkle rapidly at a rate much faster than a viewer's conscious mind can perceive. So for each image that is consciously enjoyed for several seconds, the viewer's subconscious mind is presented with thousands more.
Like the rich
subliminal information
in the flicker of a candle or fireplace that dances faster than the
conscious mind can perceive, InfiniVision's images, too, are displayed much
faster than a viewer's conscious mind can register, likewise massaging the
subconscious and primitive mind with thousands of fleeting images. Like a flame
gazed upon during a religious ceremony, given time, InfiniVision's soothing
twinkle becomes an electronic
Rorschach
kaleidoscope, relaxing and focusing meditative introspection.
Knowing that InfiniVision displays every possible image, people will not be able
to deny that every question, every answer to every question, and every image
from their destinies, will shimmer from this twinkling canvas. Perhaps, like the
ancient
oracle of Delphi,
InfiniVision's twinkling light will help spark the
inner light of its onlookers, helping them find their own answers, their own
meaning.
Although many of the images displayed by InfiniVision are nonsensical to the
conscious mind, early viewers of InfiniVision, especially children who haven't
yet sealed closed their primitive minds, report fleeting forms and feelings –
a unicorn, the sun, a dream, running, blankness.
Will psychiatrists step aside for InfiniTherapy as souls flock to the shrine of
InfiniVision to find themselves? Will people escape their existential vacuums by
finding purpose in volunteering as members of the 'round-the-clock worldwide
InfiniVision witness – in their responsibility for identifying the profound
images as they crystallize, in their experiencing the glorious images as they
pass, or in their suffering through the river of unrecognizable and confounding
images?
Or, will we find that InfiniVision is as ultimately meaningless as our own lives? Just a distraction of twinkling shapes and thoughts that lead us nowhere? An abstract New Age mobile dancing in a digital breeze for us to gaze at as we all stroll toward the cliff?
The dark green InfiniVision computer system,
known as Deep Green, and the underlying software program have been placed
into the legal entity and sponsor of this
conceptual art,
InfiniVision Corporation,
to handle the proceeds, litigation, and legal defense of the art.
InfiniVision Corporation also plans to periodically administer a contest to allow the
winning artist, computer programmer, or creative team to substitute their computer program for
the previous InfiniVision program so that the style of the constantly changing
screen can be upgraded. The winning program must, of course, also assure
that it will generate every possible image, without duplicating any images
already generated by any prior version of the InfiniVision program.
The screen resolution and number of colors in InfiniVision's palette have been selected to ensure that all images in that resolution and palette will be displayed before the probable end of the universe, which in itself remains the subject of some controversy. For now, until the artist's interviews of leading astronomers and cosmologists are completed, he has chosen to program InfiniVision to finish displaying all possible images sometime after cosmological decade 100 (the year 1 with 100 zeroes after it). This is the time following the Black Hole Era when leading cosmologists predict the universe will be composed of electromagnetic radiation and particles including electrons, positrons, and neutrinos.
If it becomes apparent that the collective consciousness of the human race cannot somehow evolve and exist in some electromagnetic form in this foreseeable environment, then likely the winning programs selected in the perennial ten-year InfiniVision programming contest to replace the InfiniVision program will reduce the resolution or color palette appropriately to ensure all images are displayed before the last of human consciousness expires.
Similarly, the resolution and color palette might be increased should InfiniVision become wildly popular and billions of people have their own personal InfiniVision screens allowing the task of showing all possible images to be distributed across many screens. The contest also ensures that the latest version of the InfiniVision program always addresses the evolving issues of the day, such as being Y2T (Year 2 Trillion) compliant, or showing colors in new portions of the light spectrum that, as the human eye evolves, we may someday be able to see with the naked eye.
Since InfiniVision allows representatives from humankind to see every possible image imaginable only if it is kept running like an eternal flame, the artist is hopeful that as humankind anticipates various bumps in the road ahead, such as the collision of our own Milky Way galaxy with the nearby Andromeda galaxy in about 5 billion years, InfiniVision will be brought along as we colonize other planets to ensure the continuation of the human race.
Likewise, the artist is relying on humankind's ingenuity to overcome the discomforts imposed by our universe after the current Stelliferous (star filled) Era ends and all stars have exhausted their hydrogen fuel (too chilly for humans who haven't adapted by evolving to higher forms) and on through the Degenerate Era and the Black Hole Era when the last remaining Black Holes evaporate from Hawking radiation and, hopefully, the collective human consciousness can be copied into some electromagnetic form to roam the universe and watch InfiniVision TV. In fact, the blueprints for the very time and space travel devices needed by humankind to survive will be revealed by InfiniVision! Unfortunately, they will be displayed among countless blueprints for every conceivable flawed contraption.
Boast a far more inclusive collection than the Louvre, the Guggenheim, the Getty, and all the rest combined. Secure the controversial collection that people are talking about. All of the future, all of the past, and all that would never have been, were it not for... InfiniVision.
The artist has been legally blind from birth due
to an accidental
massive overdose of pure oxygen
immediately after birth.
His blindness,
retrolental fibroplasia,
has never been correctable by glasses or surgery. Despite his
interest in art during childhood he was always told he could never create a work
of art that would interest sighted people. He was given a white cane by
the state and advised to work in their closed-workshop where they could pay him
lower than the minimum wage on a piecemeal basis for sewing mops by hand in
their sweatshop.
Instead, he persevered – turning away the handouts.
He could never see the blackboards in school, the overhead projectors, not even
the blue ink on white paper used in hand-outs and tests, and so he taught
himself by reading books on his own – arduously, with his nose actually
pressed against the pages. And now, after decades of work as an independent scientist and scholar,
he is president and chief technical officer of
InfiniVision Corporation,
this artwork's sponsor.
Because InfiniVision.TV will display every possible image with absolute certainty, including those deemed illegal by local community standards, lawyers have suggested that InfiniVision's images not be beamed out uncensored over the internet. They fear the artist might become subject to civil suits or criminal prosecution in countless jurisdictions where such images do not comply with local community standards, citing the 1995 arrest warrant issued in Harlingen, Texas against syndicated New York radio personality Howard Stern for broadcasting his disparaging remarks about Tejano singer Selena into their small town where such remarks are not tolerated. And as more than one celebrity has discovered, crossing a US border checkpoint when you have a warrant outstanding, even in some small faraway city, can cause you to be detained and transported, in custody, to the court of jurisdiction for trial.
Being legally blind, the artist finds all of this quite puzzling – that simply arranging a group of color dots in certain ways is illegal and punishable by imprisonment, even though the images were not formed by putting people in harm's way, such as during the filming of a snuff film.
InfiniVision is an offering to those blessed with the gift of sight, from a legally blind artist unable to even appreciate the images that InfiniVision displays. Ironically, the society of sighted have created laws that may prohibit them from opening their eyes to InfiniVision because of the illegal arrangements of dots it unavoidably forms. Regrettably, they may never receive the gift this artist has created for them. And once again he is being told he cannot create art for the sighted. And so, a blind artist offers the world InfiniVision. But will the sighted world allow itself to look?
This website and the image generating program known as InfiniVision.TV, and all images, text, animations, video or other content either generated by the program or otherwise made available through broadcast on the conceptual artwork channel of InfiniVision.TV or exhibited during live performance or installation, are copyrighted © 1987-2020 by InfiniVision Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
This conceptual artwork channel of InfiniVision.TV (including any of its associated broadcasts) are provided for entertainment and discussion purposes only. No reliance should be made upon the information provided herein. The views expressed here and in any broadcasts or exhibitions associated with this conceptual artwork are those of the artist and author, Johnny Grace, and not necessarily those of InfiniVision Corporation or its affiliates.
All other programming content and broadcasts of InfiniVision Television are independent of this conceptual artwork and are owned, controlled and copyrighted by InfiniVision Corporation and/or its affiliates.
InfiniVision®
is a registered trademark of InfiniVision Corporation.
InfiniVision TV™
InfiniVision Television™
PanoCam™
InfiniCam™
The InfiniVision Channel™
iTV™ and
InfiniVision Satellite Services™
are trademarks of InfiniVision Corporation.
All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
To arrange an exhibition in your museum or gallery:
Email us at:
InfiniVision Exhibitions
Or visit our Corporate web site:
www.InfiniVision.com
InfiniVision consists of a standard computer monitor (which can be replaced with a large plasma flat-screen or data-grade video projector for viewing by larger audiences), the Deep Green computer (the size of an ordinary PC, concealable up to 200 feet from the screen), the WebCam camera (mounted above the InfiniVision screen), which feeds the internet with the facial expressions of those watching in fascination, and a pair of audio speakers, which play the soothing sounds of deep breathing (for those interested in meditating to InfiniVision) along with a softly-spoken looped narrative explanation condensed from this paper.
Place InfiniVision anywhere you wish – in a dimmed room, auditorium or chapel, in your main reception foyer, on a video billboard for those waiting in line to enter your museum. Or, make an unforgettable splash by beaming InfiniVision onto Time Square's JumboTron!
The artist would also be pleased to participate in the opening and other activities to promote the exhibition and to enhance understanding and appreciation of this work.
Oh yes, one other optional installation item for your museum to think about – a local government willing to allow InfiniVision to be legally plugged in. If one cannot be found, the electrical line cord could simply be draped over the InfiniVision screen, plug dangling, with a sign reading "Sorry, Your Laws Do Not Permit You To See This."
If you live in a country that does not allow you to see the images or words that InfiniVision will display, please urge your government to allow the free expression of ideas, images and words so you can watch InfiniVision.
Many countries will detain and imprison those who create, exhibit or distribute images or words that the government deems unlawful – even in the United States, a great country admired and esteemed for promoting freedom. For example, in the United States the First Amendment to the United States Constitution reads:
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."
Notice, in particular, the words:
"Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech."
This does not seem to say:
"no law, except if people might be offended by the speech, or the speech does not meet local community standards, or if the speech is in cyberspace and available to those requesting it over the internet, or if the speech is being made available to informed consenting adults visiting a museum for the express purpose of seeing the speech."
However, despite the seemingly clear wording of the First Amendment, today in the United States someone exhibiting InfiniVision to an interested party, via the internet, a museum, or otherwise, can be prosecuted and imprisoned for the images and words that InfiniVision generates, or will eventually generate sometime in the future!
If you would like the freedom to express your ideas, any and all of them, or would simply like to be able to see any and all of the expressions of others, or even the expressions of a computer program such as InfiniVision, click over to some of the organizations listed below and help your government to one day allow you the freedom (without limitation or imprisonment) of speech.
•
Electronic Frontier Foundation
•
Center for Democracy and Technology
•
American Civil Liberties Union
•
The Freedom Forum
And if you have children accessing the internet, you can protect their young minds by automatically censoring what they see on the net, while consenting adults enjoy the privilege of communicating freely, by using one of the following:
•
NetNanny
•
CyberPatrol
•
SafeSurf
•
AOL
Parental Controls
Click over to Amazon.com from this link and we'll receive a small commission on your purchase – at no extra cost to you! Being a patron-of-the-arts has never been so easy.
And if you want to preview a tiny fraction of the artistic images InfiniVision displays, just leaf through practically any book on art, such as The Art Book.
Purchase a pair of our InfiniVision Sunglasses – They're awesome, trendy, and one-of-a-kind! What a great way to support this artwork, and they're still only $50 per pair.
Our "Free InfiniVision" T-Shirts are $15 each, while a limited supply of the also-popular "Ban InfiniVision" T-shirts are available for $25. Take your pick – No hard feelings!
Attend one of the InfiniVision Performance Art stage shows where the artist interacts with multimedia elements including screens displaying censored InfiniVision feeds. Catch the winter InfiniVision stage shows in Santa Monica, and the summer shows in San Francisco.
And, be watching for InfiniVision TV to return to the air once the censorship issues can be worked out. But, until then, thanks again to all of you supporting InfiniVision.
Copyright (c) InfiniVision Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
This site is not intended for distribution to, or use by, any person or entity in
any jurisdiction or country where such use would be contrary to local law.