William S. Burroughs and Bulletpointillism

Last week, I laid out an idea for “a whole new art form” called bulletpointillism. The idea is that you, the artist, make images by firing bullets into a canvas or template in a very controlled manner. The points would paint the picture, so to speak.

I had never seen such a thing before and so, after some Googling, I decided to lay claim to this one. Then I got an e-mail from Jesse Walker, all-pop-culture-knowing managing editor of Reason magazine. If anyone could make rubbish out of my claim to have thought up a new medium, it’s Walker. Instead, he pointed me to a Youtube video of a far more impressionistic precursor to my idea. Behold, William S. Burroughs’s shotgun paintings: