ROCHESTER, N.Y.- George Eastman House, the world’s oldest photography museum, continues its commitment to displaying new media this fall with a digital display by musician and artist David Byrne, best known for his band Talking Heads. Byrne has created Trees, Tombstones, & Bullet Points, which includes an animated PowerPoint presentation, corporate sign series, and tree drawings, on view at Eastman House Oct. 2 through Nov. 28.

Byrne will visit George Eastman House Friday, Oct. 1. This public event will begin at 5:30 p.m. in the Dryden Theatre, followed by a preview of his exhibition and a booksigning.

Byrne’s 20-minute PowerPoint display treats visitors to psychedelic graphics, satirical charts, and morphing photographs. Byrne, who was trained as a fine artist, has developed an animated presentation unlike any seen at a corporate sales conference. PowerPoint’s slick graphics and pre-designed templates can make even the blandest lecture look good, but it has never been considered as a tool for creative expression. Until now.

The project began “as a joke,” explains Byrne. “But then the work took on a life of its own as I realized I could create pieces that were moving, despite the limitations of the medium.” The exhibition is accompanied by a 96-page book and DVD, available in the Eastman House Store.

Here’s how The New York Times in 2003 reviewed Byrne’s artwork: “Mr. Byrne subjects PowerPoint’s characteristic graphic templates to a radical metamorphosis. Arrows that curve out of their trajectory and into psychedelic rainbow-colored curlicues, surreal charts that satirize postmodern posturing, typographical compositions that present absurd abstractions with straight-faced conviction and deadpan photographs of the most humdrum of everyday objects all morph into one another with the steady pacing of corporate sales conference . . . Eventually, the obsessive nature of the process yields unexpectedly beautiful results.”

Eastman House launched its ongoing new-media showcase in May, with the exhibition Storytelling: Contemporary Approaches to New Media. The Eastman House’s next new-media display follows in late October, with Within the Stone by Apple Computer pioneer Bill Atkinson, who invented the pull-down menu and the mouse. Within the Stone, which realizes the full potential of digital printing, will be on view Oct. 23 through Jan. 9, 2005. The display will feature the fine art of color photography by showcasing his high-resolution images of sliced, polished stones from around the world, revealing abstract, painterly qualities. The images are printed on the large-format Epson Stylus Pro 9600 using custom software the artist developed. Atkinson will visit George Eastman House Oct. 24 and 25 for a public workshop, lecture, and booksigning.