CreativeTechnology

YMYI - Computational Aesthetics Exhibition (2008) from Joao Martinho Moura on Vimeo.

My Creative Manifesto Project

One of my ongoing projects is thinking about creative thinking. While I was a away in the dessert I did a lot of this; these are some of the things in my notebook. I suppose I'm starting to draft a bit of a manifesto as to how I think things need to be done; how people need to be inspired; when and where we need to incite polemics and constructive self criticism. Where we need to be starting from...

Adver-Storywriter: do you believe your own characters? do they conflict as real humans? would you give a flying fuck about them?

Adver-Writers: don't write lines, talk to me.

Art Directors: don't direct art, direct feelings and emotions. Drive me.

Adver-Conceptors: "I want to [insert idea description here]" - now ask do you really want this? - theoretically simple

Digital Creatives: Is the technology your toolkit, or are you putting spanners on plinths?

Digital Creatives: Are you in your comfort zone or the non conforming zone?

Digital Techs: Aren't you really creatives in disguise? Do you feel you have more to give?

Idea: Are you useful?

Content: How do you make me feel?

For me it's important not to intellectualise things when it comes to action. We can smoke pipes and stroke our beards as late into the night as we want, but ideas don't motivate people like feelings, wants and desires do. I have a great idea blah blah blah fucking long winded explanation. Does it really excite me? Why? How? now the big simple one: how will it make me feel?

On the thinking side, Flo sent this interesting article around Dare today, it inspired me to post my response; as these things have been playing on my mind for some time... Maybe these frustrations can be explained by the medium being so young, maybe not - to me it seems sometimes that we are ignoring what has come before in our race to invent "digital creativiy", to me it should be no different to being creative with any other medium.. humm... more thought required on the matter

On Drugs...

People often ask me if I have any opinions regarding what could be seen historically as a link between creative types, artists and what-not and alcohol/ drug abuse, unchecked hedonism and promiscuous disregard for some aspects of what would be considered clean living.

I have only this to say on the matter:

More Lynch

I'm addicted to this man.



But not because he talks in an informed way about creativity; I love him because he does bonkers things like this:

Just Do It, Tacheles in Berlin, Resolution and Poo

Everybody keeps asking me about new year resolutions. I thought I'd post here to say NO! I DON'T DO NEW YEAR RESOLUTIONS. I think they're a silly idea and they just make me feel bad when I break them: i.e. I don't like unresolved resolution.

Where was I?

Oh yes, flicking through some pages in my diary from a recent trip to Berlin, I realised that I do have less a resolution, more a new mantra:

JUST DO IT

I've never been a fan of Nike (tho I like what they do on the web); their 'swoosh', which seems to get in front of me at every opportunity: however while sipping a beer in the Kunsthaus Tacheles squat I suddenly realised the true inspirational genius of the thought. Judging from the scrawl in my notebook, the inner monologue went something like this:

JUST DO IT.
Do What?
IT
What's IT?

Well, look about you.

You're in an artists squat in the middle of a city which 60 years ago was raised entirely to the ground and has suffered countless oppressions since.

Looking around I am overwhelmed by colour, vibrancy, emotion, contrasting perspectives and freedom of expression. I don't like all the work, but I love the fact that the work is being produced in such an uncompromising, edgy non conformist way.

Indeed the one philosophy uniting entirely the work of the circumcised-cunt sculpture artist and the painter of the most beautiful landscapes of mournful morning sorrow is that of JUST DO IT. Say what is on your mind, make what needs to be made and it's not the final result, but the process which is of upmost importance. Learning through doing, through making, through getting off your arse and putting yourself up for scrutiny by following through your ideas and translating them into tangible works.

This is a lovely contrast to an adverworld where we are at times so intent on hammering the idea into such a refined state, that any form of palpable execution will only go to reveal the gulf between the purity of that idea and the harsh realities of budget, time lines and squeezed delivery dates. Here our world inevitably diminished the importance of process in favor of product; with no space left for happy accidents, serendipity or just plane fucking around until you get to somewhere that you like.

Tacheles for me felt like I had come home. It reminded me that I need to spend more of my own time in the JUST DO IT frame of mind, putting results as subordinate to process; putting aside thinking in favor of creative impulse.

So, we're back to the new year and my lack of resolutions. Well actually that's a lie - I have 6 things noted down here:



What was the last thing? Oh yes. JUST DO IT and Poo. Well the poo bit came from all that crazy Wurst that I ate in Berlin - as a warning really. If you go to Germany, don't eat more than one Wurst in a day (I had 4 on one day), as it gives you... how shall we say... akward poo. Poo made me think of a funny Gondry film on the same subject matter; now there's a man who has truly taken the JUST DO IT Philosophy, and run with it:

Malkovich 2.0

viao-john.com

Like Ewarwoowar, I try not to post much of the work that we do at Dare, in an effort to stay sane if nothing else. This site however is definitely worth a mention as to me it represents the good side of Web 2.0. It is a site to educate, to stir up ideas while asking for a well thought out response.

If only the Tube could have captured the essence of thinking before you upload as well as this small project. This project, of course stated it's claim in planet User Generated Content (a small moon orbiting Planet User Generated Crap) right from the start in that it was for Sony - a brand holding themselves high up.like.no.other in an otherwise over saturated technology market. Claridges, rather than McDonalds contributions please.

But beyond fast food video, there are still a large range of good video sites, quality controlled and vetted for the best which I still wouldn't think twice about sending my work too. However I took ages, with my mouse hovered over the submit button on this Malkovich site. Is it that I hold careful consideration of words as a higher art than the same of images? Or is it because I was hammered into writing with a fountain pen by my primary school teacher, while told there was no right or wrong in art class.

Who cares? The fact is that web is full of pictures of nudey girls, rude boy race-car videos, User Generated Idiocy and hastily designed pages. We are much less the land of flowing milk and honey for design as envisaged by the futurists, more like conurbation riddled with more back allies than Soho. Maybe it's time creators of 2.0 sites raised the bar in their briefs for quality over quantity of uploaded content. This is a site with a challenge I've enjoyed. Touché my friends.