Random Music

The workings are the interesting bit

Four experiments from Johnny’s archive, described in words. Original sketchbook images are pending review.

Art & literaturePersonal artwork archive · circa 1992; account recorded 2026

Let the ink make a suggestion

Ink dribbled onto staves and interpreted as notes, noise and spoken words using a set of rules.

Johnny dribbled ink onto staves, then devised rules for reading the marks as notes, noise and spoken words. Tempo and 4/4 time stayed fixed. A legend recorded how to translate the marks: chance supplied the material, while the artist decided how to read it.

Read archive notes

Source details & what was checked

• Johnny Venables · circa 1992; account recorded 2026
  Johnny’s personal notebook and original photographs read and inspected. Date and degree-show context are the artist’s recollection. Recording recovery remains pending. These are his chance-composition experiments, not evidence of formal AI open-endedness.
  Random Music — Johnny Venables’ personal archive · In the source library

Art & literaturePersonal artwork archive · circa 1992; account recorded 2026

Burnt paper, drum patterns

Burnt paper over a drum-sound grid: burnt areas become hits, white areas and holes become rests, turning irregular patterns into rhythm.

Burnt paper sits over a grid with time across and drum sounds down. Brown or burnt areas become hits; white areas and holes become rests. The page names a Yamaha RX11. The material supplies an irregular pattern, and Johnny’s mapping turns that pattern into rhythm.

Read archive notes

Source details & what was checked

• Johnny Venables · circa 1992; account recorded 2026
  Johnny’s personal notebook and original photographs read and inspected. Date and degree-show context are the artist’s recollection. Recording recovery remains pending. These are his chance-composition experiments, not evidence of formal AI open-endedness.
  Random Music — Johnny Venables’ personal archive · In the source library

Art & literaturePersonal artwork archive · circa 1992; account recorded 2026

Reading photographs as a score

For Y.M.C.A., staves over found photographs turn eyes, noses and mouths into musical information; a coin toss changes which eyes are read.

For Y.M.C.A., Johnny placed staves over found photographs. Eyes, noses and mouths became musical information, while a coin toss changed which eyes he read. The notes call for guitar, keyboard, bass and cut-up vocals. The same face can produce different music when the mapping changes.

Read archive notes

Source details & what was checked

• Johnny Venables · circa 1992; account recorded 2026
  Johnny’s personal notebook and original photographs read and inspected. Date and degree-show context are the artist’s recollection. Recording recovery remains pending. These are his chance-composition experiments, not evidence of formal AI open-endedness.
  Random Music — Johnny Venables’ personal archive · In the source library

Art & literaturePersonal artwork archive · circa 1992; account recorded 2026

There was music in the barcodes, too

Barcodes joined found portraits and notation as material for a score; the surviving account leaves parts of the method unresolved.

Johnny’s archive records barcodes alongside found portraits and notation as another kind of material to read. The surviving record does not establish every rule of the original process; no reconstruction is presented here.

Read archive notes

Source details & what was checked

• Johnny Venables · circa 1992; account recorded 2026
  Johnny’s personal notebook and original photographs read and inspected. Date and degree-show context are the artist’s recollection. Recording recovery remains pending. These are his chance-composition experiments, not evidence of formal AI open-endedness.
  Random Music — Johnny Venables’ personal archive · In the source library

Archive notes

Artist and source: Johnny Venables, Random Music degree-show experiments, circa 1992. The date and context are Johnny’s recollection, recorded in his Room for the unexpected research notebook on 13 October 2026. Added to this collection at his request on 20 October 2026.

Original sketchbook photographs are withheld from this public edition pending image permissions. Found portraits and other source elements retain their respective rights. The illustrations shown here are original editorial motifs.

Johnny recalls making recordings to accompany these works and hopes to recover them. No recording is currently included or confirmed available.