Friday, March 16, 2012

1:10:100

Living in a college town has some really great advantages, including free talks by neat people. I recently got to see the guys from eepy bird, of "coke and mentos" fame, give a talk. One of them was the son of two mathematics professors, so it was kind of like getting a glimpse into Sofia's potential future, or half of it anyways, since she only has one math-professor-parent. It was timely because I have been struggling with a desire to nourish creativity lately, but not feeling like I have all the tools or environment to do so. While the presentation didn't answer my questions from my recent blog post on the topic, it was still really encouraging. Also, considering Emily's recent realization that her dream is to do something creative, I thought at least my Lobster might enjoy some process encouragement, so I have to share. 

You can essentially see the exact talk I saw in this 7 minute "1-10-100" youtube video. This is their explanation of the creative process that they believe anyone can execute. As I discussed in a recent post, creativity [and this process they discuss here] is something that can be applied in so many different contexts - be it math, writing, juggling, or coke explosions. I'll just splice in some of my own thoughts and a few examples they shared that aren't included in the video. 

"1-10-100"
Experiment one: Just start with something that piques your interest. For these guys it was putting mentos into a bottle of coke. As they went through their talk, I found it helpful to consider a couple possibilities for what my experiment 1 might be, so that I could apply their advice as I considered where it could go. I have a few seeds of potential writing ideas in the back of my mind. I've wanted to write for ages but have just never known about what. It seems like there have been so many good books already produced, it's hard to think what more there is for me to contribute. But there are tons of things that pique my curiosity, so I started to think about two of those as they went through the rest of the presentation.

I'll pause for a minute while you come up with a potential experiment one for yourself.

...

Ok . . . Once you have an experiment one, you just test it out. Drop that mentos in the bottle, draft up a little 500 word essay, start to jot down a proof, run some numbers, put together a spreadsheet or a sketch. To get from experiment one to experiment ten, just apply variation. Play. See what all you can do with your experiment one - come at it from different angles, get wacky, get bold, explore. Explore alot.

For the sake of this post, I'll tell you about one idea I have, which is writing about cooking. On one side of my family, I have one cousin who is a chef and owns/runs three restaurants. On the other side, I have a cousin who is an actual and very accomplished food writer. So there seems to be a familial value and theme coming at me from every angle. I've started to play around with that in my cooking with zoe series here on this blog. I've just been playing around with the idea in various ways. 

After you play around for a while, and you invest time into it, you can eventually formulate a sketch like a skit or an article or an outline that is quick and dirty, but is a rough picture of something really cool. This is Experiment Ten. They point out that most people stop here. With their experiment ten, people thought it was cool and told them to post on youtube. 

Emily tells me this cooking with zoe post was the best thing I'd ever written. Thanks, Pyg! I think it was probably my experiment ten. And while it was cool, here's the thing about making something great, don't stop at experiment ten, because you're not done until you have something "unforgettable."

They give 4 charges for getting from experiment ten to Experiment 100.
1) Be obsessive. Become the expert. Really put in the time and explore your object of curiosity more than anyone ever has before. Example: Theo Jensen: Animaris Rhinoceros. This guy got curious and became an expert on sculptures powered by the wind. Check out this crazy video of one of his pieces:


2) Be stubborn. If you have a gut intuition that you want to see something come to fruition, keep at it even when it doesn't seem to be working. Find creative ways to get around blockades. I felt like they discussed all kinds of neat and crazy possibilities they explored and had to let go of - so I think there must be an art to stubbornly pursuing something with neat potential, and knowing when something simply isn't working out and needs to be scrapped or edited out or let go of. This point probably troubled me because I really have trouble editing down, in case the length of my posts hadn't already made that painfully obvious to my regular readers!
 
3) Be extreme. Scale up. Quantity can change quality, break away from the pack and discover something new. They talked about how it was cool to see mentos dropped into 10 bottles of coke, but what about 100? I've thought about the trickiness of quantity before through this blog. And it counter-intuitive to me to admit that there is value in greater quantity, but I see what they mean about something great becoming something grand in this way. I think this is maybe just a trickier point for me to understand how to apply to my own creative project. Thoughts, Lobsters?

4) Limit yourself. This was my favorite point. I'm from Texas, Lobsters. You know, where everything is bigger? And yet these guys beautifully illustrated how powerful it is to limit yourself, to think inside the box. 

A trippy math fact I learned from my husband, did you know that some infinities are greater than others? I'll give you a minute to try to wrap your mind around that . . . tough,  I know, we'll just move on. So some infinities are greater, and in fact, the infinity of numbers between zero and one [1/2 or 0.5 being right in the middle of that list of numbers] is greater than the infinity from zero to infinity on the number line? I'm probably not stating that precisely, Manny will have to leave a comment with a more eloquent statement. But I've always found that truth to be so beautiful. It provides a metaphor for how there is greater depth in drilling down than in blowing up and out. And that's what they seem to be trying to get at here, that Creativity flourishes with rules

The examples they provided were so great:

a) This artist, Peter Callesen, explores creating sculptures with nothing but one sheet of A4 white paper. Here's just one sculpture, check out his website to see a whole series. Petercallesen.com.
 

Or in another medium, how about this guy Matt who traveled around the world and took video of himself doing one very simple and silly dance:


I cry every single time I watch that video. Every. Single. Time. 

This was so helpful because I realized if I limit myself to writing around cooking, I'll be forced to go deep into all that that means to me, and hit on some more beautiful stuff, which I think I began to do with my experiment 10, but I have a long way to go. 

One of the key points they make in the presentation is that they did not wake up one day and execute experiment 100 out of the blue. It was a diligent process from one to one hundred. They say, and I leave you with this charge: 

"Don't worry about genius, just get down to business."

What might your experiment one be? Have you ever gotten to an "experiment ten," or an "experiment one hundred"? How did you get there? Did these principles apply to your process? 

3 comments:

  1. Related to the creative process, this post reminded me of a fun blog I came across a long while back. http://playathomemom3.blogspot.com/
    Basically, a group of moms blog about creative play with their children. They use light tables, sensory materials, science experiments, and such. Megan and Paul were older when I discovered the blog but now that JT is entering his toddler years, I'm going to revisit it for ideas.

    I struggle with creativity too. I used to identify myself as an artist (painter) but if I were honest with myself, I haven't created any "masterpieces" since high school and maybe college. Yeah, it's been a while. This is a subject I often revisit in my personal reflections.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks, Kristen! This blog looks so neat!

    I feel similarly about both writing and photography, characteristics/skills I have always thought of as being core to myself, but just are not as true as I'd like them to be. I was encouraged by the talk in how accessible they made it sound - that you don't have to crank out that masterpiece today, you just have to start exploring your craft and be disciplined to stick with it. Now, exploring the craft while chasing after a toddler [or a toddler plus 2 others as the case may be] is a challenge all in itself!

    ReplyDelete
  3. holy monkey, that moving sculpture is trippy. i think i'd pee my pants if i saw it in person.

    ReplyDelete