No two showings of Brian Eno documentary are the same. See it at the Kentucky Theatre

It is perhaps appropriate that a film documentary about Brian Eno, an artist whose music and artistic methodology has been consistently reinvented over the past 50-plus years, would itself be a continually changing project.

In the 2024 documentary “Eno,” which makes its Lexington debut with a single-evening screening June 5, director Gary Hustwit has created a work as unusual in design and intent as the musical innovations fashioned by the famed British artist, producer, activist, seven-time Grammy winner and Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Inductee the film audaciously portrays.

In utilizing what is termed “generative” software, the movie pulls from a vast selection of interviews and music to form shifting configurations that are unique to each time it is screened. In effect, “Eno” is a movie that can never be seen the same way twice.

As Alissa Wilkinson explained in a review for The New York Times following the film’s premiere last July, “The film runs on a code-based decision tree that forks every so often in a new path, created for software named Brain One (an anagram for Brian Eno). Brain One, programmed by the artist Brendan Dawes, generates a new version of the film on the fly every time the algorithm is run.”

“Dawes’s system selects from a database of 30 hours of new interviews with Eno and 500 hours of film from his personal archive and, following a system of rules set down by the filmmakers with code, creating a new film. According to the filmmakers, there are 52 quintillion (that is, 52 billion billion) possible combinations, which means the chances of Brain One generating two exact copies of “Eno” are so small as to be functionally zero,” Wilkinson said.

But there is another twist. “Eno” has also become something of a unifying project for theaters and arts organizations around the country. Lexington’s June 5 screening will be a joint presentation of the Singletary Center for the Arts and the Kentucky Theatre (it will be screened at the latter) that will include a Q-and-A session with longtime Lexington musician David Farris.

Similarly, Lexington will be one of at least a dozen cities around the country that will present “Eno” on June 5. The film is being screened as part of an ongoing Art House Day series at multiple theaters the first Thursday of every month.

“Every screening is a unique iteration for the film,” said Singletary Center director Matthew Gibson, who saw “Eno” in March as part the Big Ears Festival in Knoxville. “They recombine different elements, different scenes in a different order. It’s not at all a linear telling of Eno’s life. It’s much more about his creative process.”

A quick primer for anyone unfamiliar with Brian Eno: He introduced himself internationally in 1972 as the synthesizer voice for the British art rock ensemble Roxy Music, but left to pursue solo work the following year after two albums with the band.

An initial run of critically lauded records under his own name led to a dual career — one as a proponent of meditative, drone-style instrumental compositions that would eventually be labeled as “ambient” music and another as a high-profile record producer who helped oversee albums for Talking Heads, U2, Devo, Sinead O’Connor, Peter Gabriel and Coldplay, among many others.

He was also a key contributor to three successive studio albums that helped redefine David Bowie for the late 1970s — “Low,” “Heroes” and “Lodger.”

“His music as a solo artist and his work in Roxy Music provides some context for who he is in the film,” Gibson added. “But ‘Eno’ is more about who he is today and how he works.”

“Eno is an interesting character in that he is a kind of behind-the-scenes person and yet is involved with very high-profile projects,” said Farris, who has played in scores of Lexington bands over the past several decades, including his own, long-running Club Dub. “He straddles both worlds.

“It would be different if the guy was some kind of super virtuoso on a specific instrument, but that’s not his thing. I like his idea of being creative but having multiple avenues for that creativity to express himself and to be able to work with different people, as well.”

Hayward Wilkirson, director of the Kentucky Theatre, is including Thursday’s screening of “Eno” as part of the venue’s Art On Screen series. He saw the film at the Speed Art Museum in Louisville when it was screened last October.

“‘Eno’ is just straight-ahead art house cinema,” he said. “It’s fascinating. I knew who Brian Eno is, but I’m not someone who knew a ton about him. He comes across as such a fascinating guy and an extraordinarily likeable, sensitive person. It’s a wonderful film.”

For Gibson, presenting “Eno” serves as both an extension and reflection of programming for the Singletary that has recently dived into territory that favors creative discovery over mainstream familiarity.

Among the artists he has presented over the past two years at the Singletary are Chicago saxophonist/reed artist Ken Vandermark’s Edition Redux quartet, Indian sitar artist Ustad Shafaat Khan, the Mongolian/American folk-fusion based Tuvergen Band and Louisville indie-folk journeyman Bonnie “Prince” Billy.

“I had thought our programming season was done in April, but then this opportunity came up for ‘Eno,’” Gibson said. “All I could think was, ‘We’re not going to miss this. We’re going to tack on another event, even though the semester is done.’

“A lot of the stuff we’re presenting at the Singletary Center is not obvious in any way, but we’re trying to connect with folks in the community who are looking for something different, that have an open mind about art and artistic experiences. I’m really happy that, as a cultural institution, we can be a driver of that kind of programming, to bring in new possibilities,” Gibson said.

“When you already know what you want or what you’re going to get, you can still have great experiences. But the things that are most exciting to me come when there is that element of unknown and surprise.”

“Eno”

When: 7:40 p.m. June 5

Where: Kentucky Theatre, 214 E. Main

Tickets: $11 at kentuckytheatre.org.