Tools of Creativity
October 15, 2007
Ray Kurzweil of The Atlantic writes:
The means of creativity have now been democratized. For example, anyone with an inexpensive high-definition video camera and a personal computer can create a high-quality, full-length motion picture. A musician in her dorm room commands the resources once available only in a multimillion-dollar recording studio. Just a few years ago, a couple of students at Stanford University wrote some software on their personal computers that revolutionized Web searches and became the basis of a company now worth $150 billion. Individuals now have the tools to break new ground in every field.
And Nicholas Carr adds a healthy dose of cynicism:
Yep. Just as the invention of the pencil made it possible for anyone to write a high-quality novel. And just as that power saw down in my cellar makes it possible for me to build a high-quality chest of drawers.
There is a great deal of truth in both points of views. The class of creative tools impacted by Moore’s Law are becoming very affordable. Creativity, however, is not often limited by cost of the tools. The example of using a HD video camera and a PC to create a motion picture is unfortunately a bad one. Movie creation is a team sport. The creation of a movie is multi-disciplinary and seems more like a large scale engineering project than a creative exercise for one person. The cost savings of HD video and inexpensive non-linear editing are small in the overall cost of creating a movie.
As with all discussions about creative art, we lump creativity and craftsmanship together. In my view, the “democratization” of creative tools impacts two important dimensions:
- The tools allow creative individuals to accelerate their mastery of craftsmanship.
- The low cost allows more individuals to explore a variety of creative mediums.
What has changed in the dorm room musician’s case is the mastery of music production (a craft) not his or her ability to compose (a creative art). HD video and non-linear editing does the same for video production (a craft). Digital SLRs and photo quality ink jet printers have allowed photographers to create gallery quality prints. The tools help the artist spend less time and cost on the nitty gritty and focus more on the creative aspects of their work.
Creativity, however, is something that requires aptitude, passion, and practice. The advancement of the creative tools allow an individual to explore a specific discipline easily. The advances in video technology will do more to help develop/render budding movie makers than it will to allow more movie flowers to bloom.
I’m not sure if the “democratization” metaphor is a good one but I think it is hard to dispute that the new tools of creativity are changing the artistic landscape.
Online Graphic Novel: The Right Number
July 1, 2007
Scott McCloud, author of Understanding Comics, has released the first two parts of his incomplete three-part graphic novel The Right Number. In his book Understanding Comics McCloud explores the fundamental elements of what we think of as comic books but also come in the form of “graphic novels” which are essentially adult stories told in comic book format. McCloud’s hero in the graphic novel world is Will Eisner who wrote the first exploration of the art form in his book Comics & Sequential Art.
It is hard to define the medium and The Right Number makes it more complicated since it is not a book but a Flash based presentation. It is “Sequential Art” which is a set of sequential frames containing graphics and sometimes text used to tell a story.
The Right Number is a story, regardless of the presentation format. Judging by how bothered I am about not yet being able to read the conclusion, I think it is potentially a great story.
The Language of Images
April 29, 2007
Michael Reichmann has a new article up on his site The Luminous Landscape named Learning the Language of our Art which begins by describing a documentary about a remote tribe found on the Amazon.
They had no experience of seeing flat two dimensional representations of realty. Their culture had no experience with painting, and not even drawing existed in their society. So, when shown the film they simply could not figure out what it was they were looking at. It was light and colour and shapes and patterns, but that’s all.
And concludes the following.
What this addresses is that the comprehension of visual images is a form of language, and just like all human language it needs to be learned.
I think the interpretation of the remote tribe’s reaction to the movie projector was wrong. What they had issue with was this strange technology and trying to determine if it posed any kind of new danger. The idea that they had to learn to recognize two-dimensional images is wrong.
I think what we have learned most about our study of remote hunter-gatherer tribes is that the conclusions drawn by the observers is just as whacked as the native’s interpretation of the unknown technology (probably more so).
So is the comprehension of visual images something that has to be learned? No way (in my opinion).
Art, Craft, and “Pearls Before Breakfast”
April 13, 2007
The Washington Post ran a little psychological experiment described in their article Pearls Before Breakfast. They had world renowned violinist Joshua Bell play at a Washington Metro station to see what the reaction would be. It turns out that the reaction was next to nil and the article is a lengthy examination of how this could be.
I’m sure some people are disgusted with humanity at this point but, for me, the results point out two important points about art. First, art is 50% aesthetic and 50% social. It is the social part that is the kicker. Second, we often confuse craftsmanship with art.
I wish I could listen to recordings of all the music Bell played but I could only find Chacone (Johann Sebastian Bach) played by violinist Hyman Bress. The article includes a short video clip with Bell playing “Chaconne”. Bell describes the piece as:
…not just one of the greatest pieces of music ever written, but one of the greatest achievements of any man in history. It’s a spiritually powerful piece, emotionally powerful, structurally perfect. Plus, it was written for a solo violin, so I won’t be cheating with some half-assed version.
For me, Chaconne is all about craftsmanship. It is a piece meant to challenge and ultimately show off a talented violinist. Like a great deal of music written for a solo violinist with accompaniment (I’m thinking piano or string quartet) it does not have a melody you find yourself humming as you walk away. This style of music often mimics conversations between people, with swings in emotion, tempo, and intensity. Like the multi-million dollar Stradivarius that Bell plays, it represents the best a craft has to offer.
The music itself does not fill me with emotion, at least not the way Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata consistently does. You recognize the sound of emotion in the music but it does not convey emotion. The emotion that you might feel comes from the realization that you are witnessing the best of the best perform his craft. It is the social part of art that kicks in. You have to know who Joshua Bell is and be able to recognize his superior talent before the social “wow” factor appears.
If Chaconne is representative of all the music Bell played then I’m not surprised by the results of the experiment. In a context free environment like a train/subway station you need to select music that conveys a powerful emotion, not music that sounds like it is played by someone experiencing powerful emotions.
Alex’s New Gallery Design
March 15, 2007
Alex Wilson has created a unique photo gallery design that allows you to explore his fine art nude photography images. On his blog Alex mentions:
Feedback is welcome, send me an email or post a comment. I sort of expect this will be a love-or-hate thing with most people since it is different than the usual gallery paradigm. It will be interesting to see the reactions to it.
When you select an image category you can navigate through the selected set using the thumbnails at the top or you can explore related images presented on the side. Very cool.
Muted Magnificence
March 7, 2007
This is an ode to muted magnificence. Sometimes it is simple images that work best. Muted colors, simple composition, and uninspiring subject matter. Nothing pops, nothing stands out, everything is muted, yet overall the image just feels right. Calming. Soothing. Magnificent in its own muted way.
Print On Demand
March 6, 2007
Tom Slee continues his critique of Chris Anderson’s book “The Long Tail” with his post on chapter 6 The New Markets. Near the end of the post Tom has this to say about print-on-demand.
Inventory on Demand [94-96] is yet more Amazon smoke and mirrors. By this time it is really getting silly. Anderson talks about Amazon’s big commitment to print on demand publishing as a way of selling all those niche books. But while he notes that “the potential of print-on-demand is extraordinary” [96] he doesn’t give any real-world numbers.
I think print-on-demand is one of the best examples of The Long Tail in action (or on the verge of action). Blurb and Lulu are two print on demand companies that ultimately service niche markets. This type of printing is very appealing to amateur photographers, for instance. The following article provides an overview of Private Photographic Book Publishing. The article describes an entry level cost of about $10,000 for one hundred books using traditional printing. Print-on-demand changes the equation.
There is an adoption lag for any new technology or service and I’m sure that print-on-demand will reach a tipping point within the next few years. Forget the type of book that Amazon sells. Publish-on-demand tackles the market of books without ISBN numbers and sales figures in the 10’s. Right now when I go on a diving vacation, the resort or dive operator normally offers a video of your week for about $75. I suspect that these operators will soon offer a print-on-demand book which you can put on the shelf beside your wedding book and the book of your kids’ terrible twos.
That reminds me, I need to start planning my first annual garden book. RAD’s Garden 2007 :-)
Another Social Phenomena Passes Me By
February 28, 2007
Apparently, rap music is dead or dying. Who knew. This reminds me of when the TV show Friends was coming to an end and I had never seen a single episode. Social phenomena seem to pass me by. Do they make summary compilations for people like me? Three decades of rap for the out-of-touch and clueless.
Photography’s Second Gift: Motion Blur
February 5, 2007
I previously talked about Photography’s First Gift: Depth of Field. Photography’s second gift is Motion Blur and it to is an emergent property of the underlying technology. Normally, we associate Motion Blur with missed shots that are out of focus but the effect can also be used to add an aesthetic quality to an image.
Motion blur can be the result of the camera moving or the subject moving during the exposure. Some of the abstract images I have previously posted are the result of the camera moving. Others, like fast moving water, are the result of the subject moving. When part of an image is sharp but another part is blurred it gives the sense of motion. It IS motion. Our mind’s eye instinctively knows this.
Again this is apparent in films…. the kind from Hollywood. There is an aesthetic quality to motion film that is hard to create with video. This aesthetic quality is not lost when viewing a movie transferred to DVD so its a property of how the image is captured rather than how it is displayed. It is not resolution. It is a side-effect of the frame rate. Movies are captured at 24 frames per second while video is captured at 30 frames per second. The key to 24 fps is not some magic frequency but that the exposure time can be long enough (approaching 1/24 of a second) to show motion blur in part of the image. Its hard to recognize but our minds do process it. If your DVD player has the ability to step frame by frame then you can see the blurry part of the frame wherever there is motion.
The next time you see a beautiful image of a waterfall there is a very good chance that part of the aesthetic quality is due to Photography’s Second Gift: Motion Blur.
Photography’s First Gift: Depth of Field
February 4, 2007
I believe photography has given us two gifts. The first gift is Depth of Field. This was not an intentional gift but more of an emergent property of the technology. I think its impact on aesthetic art and our understanding of how the mind’s eye interprets art has been profound.
Depth of Field has given photographers (both still and motion) an invaluable tool. It allows the photographer to create an image and say “this part HERE is important”. But its more than just a hint. Your brain will not allow you to look away from HERE for more than a split second. Its pure coercion.
Depth of Field is an important tool in movie making. When two characters in the same frame are having a conversation, the focus moves back and forth between the characters. Not only can you better identify that Character A is talking, but the director can mix it up to get a specific effect… focus on Character B’s reaction to what Character A is saying, for instance.
This property, however, is an attribute of the specific tools used. Depth of field is used extensively in motion film and almost never on television because of the technical differences of the cameras typically used for each format (I’m guessing this is till the case, I haven’t had cable TV in a while). In the same way, one of the key differences between SLRs and point-and-shooot digital still cameras is the ability of SLRs to produce shallow depth of field and digital point-and-shoots to easily create large/long? depth of field for macro shots.
I guess every painter has to choose their paint, brush, and canvas. Depth of Field is one more tool that can be used to great affect.
I will discuss Photography’s Second Gift tomorrow.
Abstract Expressionism
February 3, 2007
I haven’t seen the movie “Pollock” about American painter Jackson Pollock who was known for “abstract expressionism” or “action painting”. I will probably watch it on DVD some day. I like to take abstract photographs. I think they look cool. A sort of action painting with light.
It would be presumptuous to call my abstract images expressionism though. I’m more surprised than anyone when some of my abstract shots turn out well. Is that expressionism? I recognize the conditions that may lead to a good abstract image but I don’t have a clue what it will look like. Every shot is a surprise. Can a glimmer of hope be construed as expressive?
Regardless of my emotional state when I pressed the shutter or whether mercury was in retrograde at the time, there is an aesthetic to this image that is captivating yet elusive. I wish I could put my finger on why.
Cold Compassion
January 26, 2007
It was intensely cold outside last night, about -25 celsius (-13F). This image, in my mind, represents that cold well. It is an abstract winter shot taken about a year ago. I don’t think it was particularly cold that day, that is, I did not have to experience intense cold in order to create an image that conveys intense cold (at least subjectively to me).
In a LensWork podcast named Photography as Personally Expressive Art, Brooks Jensen said:
Art is particularly and keenly involved in the expression of human emotion.
Brooks goes on to say the following:
…but if photography is art, its not about what is in front of you, its about what is inside of you.
I think this statement feels right and we want it to be true but I think it represents a misconception. The misconception is that art springs forth from the emotions felt by the artist. The distinction I make is that the work of art conveys an emotion but it does not have to represent what the artist felt at the time the art was created.
I think this misconception goes beyond the age old “What is Art?” debate and applies to everyday topics. Solutions to problems are often judged by how well the proposed solution expresses the anger or compassion people feel towards the problem.
This, I believe, is why so many people have problems with the suggestions of economists on many social issues. If you are against public housing or raising the minimum wage then you lack compassion towards the poor or the needy. The economist is focused on outcomes while the general population is focused on the emotional value of the proposed solution.
I think there is something to be said for Cold Compassion.
