curiousaboutcreativity

[curiousaboutcreativity]

The thing about creativity and art to me

Up until earlier this year I had been writing my fiction novel. It was many, many years in the making and in the final year of it, I was able to focus on it so much, putting other things aside, finding satisfaction in it every single day and having many people admire my conviction to really go through with it.

Well, I finished it. I mean, as much as I could finish it. I finished it as much as I could before I let outside forces in on it: feedback, revision, consideration, plans, time passing. At this point I'm not sure that I'll ever be done with it.

The thing that was done though, was focus.

I couldn't focus on completing my story anymore - that was done. And then I struggled to focus on walking the path towards publication. Among the many reasons for that included my never being super sure that writing a book was actually my thing. I wrote "a book" because I needed to write this story that lived in my head for 1-2 decades. But I never felt certain, that a book was the way to express my voice.

And then I hired an editor who confirmed that notion, which was good, in one sense. They were direct and honest. And it made me face reality. I still see a lot of truth in what they said.

But what they also did was to shatter my little bit of self esteem and hope that I had for the story and my skills. While trying to keep a friendly tone, they conveyed that I must have never heard of "show, don't tell" and that I should start attending some workshops since apparently I hadn't understood anything about writing. My story isn't publishable and even if I rewrote the whole thing for a few more years, there may be no hope whatsoever that I could ever publish it. The reason I wasn't able to write an exposé isn't because I struggled with conveying my story clearly, it was because my story wasn't clear to begin with. It might be enough to give it to a few friends and family who appreciate it.

It was a very hopeless, defeating conversation and it made me feel stupid and naive. I do accept and appreciate the truth in those words, but there was a cruelty underneath that said "You don't know how it's supposed to be done. How dare you" - at least that's what I perceived.

And then in the following days and weeks and months I started to go within. To explore what I want and what my voice is. I shouldn't focus solely on facing my creativity outward but I can't help but want to put something out into the world after all these years of only having worked creatively for others.

But creativity really - that's what I'm coming to understand more than ever now - for me is a way to exist mindfully in this world. The joy comes from being present with the thing that was or is being created. I didn't think I would ever say this, but I found a profound sense of fascination, awe and inspiration in taking photos of flowers. It's become a meditation for me.

My macro lens truly is teaching me a thing or two about focus. About looking closely. About discovering more of what's already there. The camera has become a meditation tool for me and is showing me that for me creativity is mindfulness. Mindfulness is creativity. I don't need to achieve. Observing, often, is enough.

Depending on where the focus goes, completely new images can arise, new details come to light, literally. New sets of colours and textures. And then the next day, it can all be gone, wilted or a new flower may have blossomed that was only a green speck the day before.

It's all transient.

So, my mind has been scattered as fuck. I have a thousand ideas and I feel like I'm not getting anywhere with anything, as if I was stuck. And that's frustrating, to say the least.

But now, my mission for this season is to focus. Focus on the joy of mindful creativity. I have a new project for my story and I want to see if my voice comes through with this one. It's not going to be a book. I'm leaving the book behind. But as a wild creative multimedia scholar, freelancer and low key artist, I decided I'm going to not give a crap about how things are supposed to be done. I don't want to put my voice into a pre-arranged box that it can't fit into anyway. I'm exploring my own creative expression and I'm trying my darndest to stick with it and to leave the doubts by the wayside.

If any of this resonates with you, I would love to hear from you, your project and your experience. Let's fuel creativity.

#Mindfulness #creativity #art #macro photography #photography #meditation

[curiousaboutcreativity]

About breathing life into your work and loving what you do. 

Studio Ghibli Key Animator Makiko Futaki Passes Away at 58

Studio Ghibli animator Makiko Futaki passed away last Friday, 13th May, while being treated for an illness. She was 58. Her close relatives held a private funeral for her.

Futaki who worked on almost every Ghibli film from Nausicaa to When Marnie Was There was primarily a key animator and is said to have animated the iconic scene in 1988′s My Neighbour Totoro where Mei, Satsuki and the Totoro’s grow a giant camphor tree in their garden, so its safe to say she was pretty much a Studio Ghibli Legend. 

[curiousaboutcreativity]

[curiousaboutcreativity]

About AI and creativity

I feel like we’re at this weird intersection right now, where on one hand we have humans creating a ton of the same stuff to be consumed consumed consumed. More lofi tracks that sound almost the same but different enough. More TV shows that give a bit of variety to the same tropes. More books. More everything, but with many of these things (not all) it’s really about quantity and AI can do that.  So if the audience is fine with some track by Drake and The Weeknd because it sounds good, AI can do that. The sign at the intersection points towards product in one direction and creative expression in the other direction. As consumers what’s more important to us? I wonder if we get more and more of everything digitally, if it may make us tune out more often and instead fuel a movement towards silence or if we will just keep on diving deeper into consumption.  Just a thought. What do you think?

#ai #creativity #art #media #creative expression

[curiousaboutcreativity]

I’m not big on fan fiction, but I’m reblogging this because 1) Henry Jenkins and 2) such a good point. 

💥🙌👏

#jenkins #writing #fanfiction #quote

[curiousaboutcreativity]

Random Access Character

Project from GLKT generates surreal walking characters made with random objects and can save your results in GIF format:

Random Access Character is a procedural character generator.

It lets you generate an infinite number of different characters, made from various objects and textures.  Morphology, colors, movements, patterns are mixed together to create a unique blend and generate a unique character every time.

You can save an animated GIF of your favorite find, that will be upoaded to imgur. You can then share your encounter to the world !

It is available for PC, Mac and Linux here

GLKT have a tumblr blog @glkitty here

[curiousaboutcreativity]

video//code//meditations (+music) #viennalove #AEexperiments #extendscript #studiolilum #soundstripe #generative

#generative #studiolilum #soundstripe #extendscript #viennalove #aeexperiments

[curiousaboutcreativity]

Appreciation post for the fantastic colour schemes and lighting in the new Blade Runner 2049 film.

[curiousaboutcreativity]

#Motion Graphics #Conference #Design

[curiousaboutcreativity]

For @aldouscyriaclazar #AEexperiments #studiolilum #fallenangels #wongkarwai #generative #extendscript #soundstripe

#wongkarwai #extendscript #soundstripe #aeexperiments #studiolilum #generative #fallenangels

[curiousaboutcreativity]

Interesting edit and graphics

#motion graphics #editing #facebook video #interview video #there is no such thing as a ruffalo

[curiousaboutcreativity]

Sunny days in Vienna #viennalove #AEexperiments #extendscript #studiolilum #generative (hier: Mozartplatz)

#generative #aeexperiments #extendscript #viennalove #studiolilum

[curiousaboutcreativity]

#music video #square video #social media video #logo animation

[curiousaboutcreativity]

Messages on pagers #AEexperiments #studiolilum #extendscript #generative #wongkarwai #chungkingexpress #soundstripe

#studiolilum #aeexperiments #generative #chungkingexpress #extendscript #wongkarwai #soundstripe

[curiousaboutcreativity]

Excited to write generative code again #AEexperiments #studiolilum #extendscript

#aeexperiments #extendscript #studiolilum

[curiousaboutcreativity]

If you need anything, take it. #generative #AEexperiments #studiolilum #extendscript

#aeexperiments #generative #studiolilum #extendscript

[curiousaboutcreativity]

The concept of information as viewed in theoretical physics through statistical mechanics and thermodynamics, and its implications and connections with evolutionary biology. An interesting reading:

How Life (and Death) Spring From Disorder (via WIRED -original story from Quanta Magazine)

Biological systems don’t defy physical laws, of course—but neither do they seem to be predicted by them. In contrast, they are goal-directed: survive and reproduce. We can say that they have a purpose—or what philosophers have traditionally called a teleology—that guides their behavior.

By the same token, physics now lets us predict, starting from the state of the universe a billionth of a second after the Big Bang, what it looks like today. But no one imagines that the appearance of the first primitive cells on Earth led predictably to the human race. Laws do not, it seems, dictate the course of evolution.

–

David Kaplan explains how the law of increasing entropy could drive random bits of matter into the stable, orderly structures of life.

#randomness