Is it painting or an action?

What was to go on the canvas was not a picture but an event.
The painter no longer approached his easel with an image in his mind; he went up to it
with material in his hand to do something to that other piece of material in front of him.
The image would be the result of this encounter.

Many of the painters were ‘Marxists’ (WPA unions, artists’ congresses); they had been
trying to paint Society. Others had been trying to paint Art (Cubism, Post-Impressionism)
—it amounts to the same thing.
The big moment came when it was decided to paint . . . just to PAINT. The gesture on the
canvas was a gesture of liberation, from Value—political, aesthetic, moral.
The American Action Painters
Harold Rosenberg
Following on from this approach,see this video below, it was written in processing using ultra violet light in the paint brush and touch pads in the color change pots. Interestingly some the brush strokes originated in flash which was adapted. The link to 'splatter' is here:
http://stamen.com/projects/splatter