Any form of surveillance can be countered by an equal amount of creativity.
Any form of surveillance can be countered by an equal amount of creativity.
Many great scientists and artists started their dreams and passions as kids - being inspired or challenged by their environments, families, teachers and toys.
Today’s digital gimmicks are killers - they kill the imagination of kids, because they create PERFECT fantasy worlds. Our minds needs a vacuum too fill it with our own ideas. If we get overwhelmed with ’stuff’ we stay lazy and just consume …
If you can believe in enlightened pink elephants - you can believe in anything. Spirituality starts in your mind - if you mind can cope with incredible thoughts it can’t cope with incredible truths either.
Open your mind, expand your mind, cultivate your ability to think and imagine new possibilities … maybe then you get enlightened or trampled by an elephant on the way …
Yes, we are creatures ruled by time, rhythms and habits.
It start with our basic heart rate - the true rhythm of our lives.
The day & night pattern of our planet dictates our lifestyles, the need for sleep our awake times.
Our social life and whole society is built around rhythms, patterns, repeats and habits: work time, play time, quality time. We all have times and places for everything.
But there is the long time pattern of life itself: birth, life and death. We all sing and dance to that rhythm, either on a small human scale or cosmic one. Even suns and planets get born, have a life and burn out in the end. Even black holes end in another big bang.
Welcome to this Universe ruled by time, rhythms and patterns.
The true question is: do you design your own patterns of life or do you follow those patterns carved out for your by society, nature and other people’s expectations?
Time to rule your patterns, design your own patterns and enjoy time as long as it still ticks for you!
New Age gurus and motivational trainers seem obsessed to hammer positive thinking and the idea of always constructing win-win situations in everybody’s minds.
Loosing or failing is one of the best ways to learn something. So failing is actually the best way to become a master at anything. Failure teaches us a lot.
But more important is the ‘deconstruction’ of the dualism of winning and loosing. Once you get rid of of the cultural and social pressure and concept of ‘being a winner’ or ‘being a sore looser’ life gets MUCH easier.
Once you get rid of this judgmental concept in your psyche you can go with your flow and open up your mind for creativity and collaboration without a ‘winning’ end result. Creating something excellent is not the same as winning a trophy.
There is a huge difference between being declared brilliant and being brilliant …
I find it very disturbing how simple and often primitive people imagine heaven and hell. I think any eternal being would know something better …
The lack of imagination of eternal bliss sounds more like hell to me.
One thing I hate about modern movies, toys, books and video games is that they don’t leave any space for my imagination. I don’t need to see that scary monster - let my imagination create one. I don’t need to see a gazillion spaceships in every details - let my imagination create that spectacular. Don’t show and explain every bloody detail … leave that work to my imagination.
No surprise that so many modern kinds are so dumb, because they have no blanks to fill in, so their imagination isn’t challenged to do ANYTHING. The same applies to adults as well … because they simply fill in the blanks with money.
Imagination, association and creativity are skills that need constant training and input with great inspiration. No training, no skills = results in a dull mind.
In an old BBC interview one of the head honchos in the gaming industry predicts even more realistic games: more artificial intelligence and of course graphics.
Excuse me, but I am not interested.
I want to play something fantastic, not something real. Anyone who has played a realistic flight simulator knows that such a ‘game’ is no longer one. It’s more like work. Also those super realistic graphics - they are boring and not so important. Also more ‘intelligent’ enemies: if they were really intelligent, they would blow most gaming kids out of their shooters or strategy games. Computer would beat us anytime.
Give us better game IDEAS, more fantastic environments and characters. Not the same old killing over and over again. A well played and interesting story captivates any audience: Shakespeare didn’t have George Lucas ILM for special effects or even woman with silicon titts. Chess is without bloody effects and is still a great game around.
To RGB or CMYK - that’s the Question!
You are a person with many interests and many skills? You love art, you produce art - but you also live with a huge pile of creative guilt? Welcome to the club! It’s hard to be a digital artist, since your computer enables you to run amazing tools - which have been unthinkable twenty years ago. A creative powerhouse in one small box.
Wanna make a movie? No problem use Adobe Premiere or AfterEffects. Are you a graphics person? Your choice is vast and wide - Photoshop, Illustrator, FreeHand, Painter - to name but a few. Wanna go 3D and do amazing effects or animations. Once again the list boasts absolutely amazing tools like Lightwave, Maya, 3D Max.
Oh my - you are a creative person! Wow!
You make music and love to sample and tweak sounds? A small feat these days - cool software is cheaply available, even Star Wars was remixed on a simple PowerBook using everyday digital tools and even great modern musicians use the same Samplers, Synths and Sequencer like you do.
Not to forget our good old writing tools to produce anything ranging from articles or complete books! You can go from a simple solution like Microsoft Word up to publishing powerhouses like Quark or InDesign. And how about your own web page or weblog? I am sure you want to show the world what you are capable off, let’s buy Flash, Dreamweaver or GoLive?
You had enough? Fine.
More human than human - welcome to the new 3D art universe (image: Miles Estes)
Modern designer are rapped and pushed to be digital renaissance artists - nothing is impossible. Since the DTP revolution in the late 80’s smashed the old lines between technician and artist - we creative types have to be both today a Geek and a Michelangelo in one person.
Once it used to be enough to excel as a writer, painter or photographer - know you have to be you own typesetter, reproduction expert, scanner and editor etc. as well. But since this is the analog2digital (A2D) generation we love to have multiple choice - since we know how limited we felt with our old tools: clunky typewriter, tipex, letraset letters, dirty chemicals to develop slides, dangerous cutters, slow snailmail and mechanical copy processes to name a few. No surprise: we love absolute control and absolute choice.
Welcome to a mad artists world.
But it’s driving us mad. Instead being limited to a certain area of art or projects we suddenly find ourselves doing a thousand creative things all at once: writing articles & weblogs, drawing illustrations, retouching photos, programming web sites, layouting a new CV and looking for background music for our presentations.
Did you really think one huge monitor would be enough?!
So much to do, so little time and energy. And the web as a global showcase doesn’t make things easier. There is a constant stream of competition and inspiration to cope with. Have you seen those cool Japanese animations? This great Danish photographer? These old retro covers of some weird fashion magazine?
All these choices, ideas and doors waiting to be opened drive any creator mad. The total overflow of choice makes it hard to focus on just one project, just one set of skills, just one insanely great idea. A tough decision for anyone who loves to surf in possibilities.
Modern artists still want and need to be kissed by their Muses as well.
And we feel a lot of guilt of not pursuing all those ideas that pop up in our minds. The guilt of not pursuing another great business idea or product the world desperately needs. We get paralyzed by all the doors we could jump through and enjoy another adventure in creativeland. And this guilt sucks big time.
Anything else Sir? But there is an additional problem: business. Today’s clients and employers all want a young super geeks with a Maestro’s thirty years of experience and wide ranging skill set. But just one arty farty person please. We are on a tight budget these days.
Ah, when art was simple and computers limited. (Image: Andres Becerra)
So it’s really hard to say ‘I am just an illustrator’ or ‘I can only write good articles’, since you don’t want to cut yourself out of the market. So we learn and buy many different software packages, try to stay on top of a gazillion technologies, names and gizmos. But most of all, we lose the time, energy and focus to be masters of our trade - to be simply open, productive and creative.
Although art involves knowledge and craftsmanship as well, once again we should start to make distinctions between mastering expressive techniques and mastering production technologies.
There is a difference between animating something and writing a flash script. There is a difference between composing a great stream of words to entice your readers and operating a content management system. There is a difference between taking great pictures and layout an art book. Let artists be artists, technicians be technicians and geek’s … oh well …
*repost 2003-08-19*
Designers of these funny japan style action games must take serious drugs. Otherwise they are either mental disturbed or real geniuses. Anyway - I hardly play such games these days - I am an old fart now. But I sure as hell love game art and it’s wonderful creatures.
The style of some games reminds me of children books. I just hope that their tales would not only include fights and grabbing gold. But old fairy tales are actually pretty bloody as well. Some of the stuff written down by the Brothers Grimm is pure carnage - but it’s less graphical in style and certainly doesn’t repeat itself over and over again. But Fairy Tales also don’t push the High Score mentality either …
Almost every religion starts with the creation of the universe or the god(s) themselves: Jehova (Judaism), Ptah (egypt) or Brahma (Hinduism). Even the scientific view of the universe starts with creation: the big bang.
On a pure biological level we all posses the power to create new life by having sex. But even on a ‘personal’ cellular level we constantly recreate ourselfes and have ’sex’ by refreshing our body cells. Creation and Sex go hand in hand; every day and every second.
Many people say, that everything humans do has to do with sex and competition - even high art like literature or symphonies. I have to agree and disagree at the same time. YES, we all do and like art to some degree, because it’s the cosmic sex of creativity - but NO, we don’t just do it to compete for better chances in the genetic pool.
There is more to it.
Professor Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in his lecturing flow.
When you paint, write or just cook a great meal - and you are getting really deeply into it - you start to get into the Flow (here is a great book from Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi about it). The Concept of Flow is a mixture between meditation, ecstasy and total concentration (the same could be said about sex as well).
The Flow is the power wave you ride when you create something, it’s like pure ecstasy during sex.
Creativity is even more: it’s exploration, reflection, association and play at the same time. Creativity is also like a pregnancy - a seed in your psyche slowly evolves, you nourish it, you feel the growing pain and at some point you need to give birth to your idea. The analogy goes even further: sometimes idea get a life on their own - and no longer belongs to you, but to the world.
So if according to the Bible God has created us in his image, then it makes perfect sense that we love creating stuff and that we love sex, because it’s the ultimate act of creation.
The atheist point of view is actually very similar: no life without creation. The universe uses a lot of time to constantly create new planets, solar systems, elements and even life like us. The universe is very creative and never stops doing it …
Creativity arouses us humans in many ways, new and creative ideas can be very ’sexy’. Working on a new sculpture or painting can be very demanding, but also very sexy, erotic, intimate and breath taking.
It might sound perverse when you hear stories about artists like Picasso who sometimes masturbated while drawing - but I personally understand this perfectly. Artists need the Eros of Creativity, the electricity, the flow and exchange - either with art or another person as well - it’s their way of life.
Picasso’s sexual drive is often deemed central to his art, yet relatively few people have seen the myriad paintings, drawings, engravings and sculptures in which he portrays variations on the sex act. Even today, American museums would probably shy from showing what Gertrude Stein prudishly (or was it excitedly?) called Picasso’s ‘dirty side.’ ‘Picasso Érotique’, a new exhibition here, now lifts the curtain.
That said, it would be inaccurate to view the show as a display of naughty pictures, even though some steamy engravings were kept in a locked room when they were first exhibited here in 1968. Rather, “Picasso Érotique” offers fresh insight into his creative process, above all the evolving role that sex played in his life and imagination, from the curiosity of early manhood through the unbridled passion of his middle years to the voyeurism of old age. - from here.
That is also the reason why you will always find a higher percentage of gay, lesbian and bisexual people in artistic circles - not just because sex is ‘free & easy’ in these groups, but because artists often see and accept beauty in others without gender barriers - and they are less afraid to explore the flow/attraction. (side note: but art is never an excuse for screwing around, ok?!)
So it comes as no surprise that the Greek Gods had their nine muses to go out kiss and inspire artists from all disciplines.
We all create, we all have sex and we all are touched by beauty. These are universal principles, you find them in science as well as many (all?) religions.
The Eros of Creativity is no excuse for perversion and lack of responsibility - BUT it is the universes (God’s or Nature’s) invitation to explore, experiment and express ourselves without shame and dogmas.
*repost from 17. December 2003*
