Al Jaffee on Creativity
Tolle Interviewreihe von OnCreativity.tv, unter anderem mit Al Jaffee (MAD-Mag, oben der erste von drei Teilen) oder Milton Glaser.
The Neuroscience of Bob Dylan
Der Guardian hat einen sehr schönen Auszug aus Jonah Lehrers Buch “Imagine: How Creativity works”, in dem er ein paar Sachen über Bob Dylans “Like a Rolling Stone” erzählt. Das Buch ist auf meiner Must-Read-List und der Song ist seit hundert Jahren das erste Mittel der Wahl um Sachen zu machen. Like a rolling stone.
Although Dylan’s creativity remained a constant – he wrote because he didn’t know what else to do – there were increasing signs that he was losing interest in creating music. The only talent he cared about was being ruined by fame. The breaking point probably came after a brief vacation in Portugal, where Dylan got a vicious case of food poisoning. The illness forced him to stay in bed for a week, giving the singer a rare chance to reflect. “I realised I was very drained,” Dylan would later confess. “I was playing a lot of songs I didn’t want to play. It’s very tiring having other people tell you how much they dig you if you yourself don’t dig you.”
Steal like an Artist
Vimeo Direktsteal, via Brain Pickings
Austin Kleon, dessen Arbeit ihr wahrscheinlich schonmal über seine Newspaper Blackout Poems, kennengelernt habt, hat ein neues Buch draußen: Steal like an Artist. Das Ding sieht mir aus, wie die Everything is a Remix-Reihe, nur ein bisschen verspielter. Das Buch hat außerdem einen schönen Trailer mit seinem Hund Milo: „I hate book trailers, so I made a cute dog video disguised as a book trailer“.
When I was asked to talk to students at a community college in upstate New York, I sat down and wrote a talk based on a list of 10 things I wished I’d heard when I was starting out:
1. Steal like an artist.
2. Don’t wait until you know who you are to get started.
3. Write the book you want to read.
4. Use your hands.
5. Side projects and hobbies are important.
6. The secret: do good work and share it with people.
7. Geography is no longer our master.
8. Be nice. (The world is a small town.)
9. Be boring. (It’s the only way to get work done.)
10. Creativity is subtraction.The text and slides from the talk “rocked the creative world” (GalleyCat) and went viral—since it’s been online, the original blog post has reached millions of readers.I’ve expanded the post into a book-length work stuffed full of brand-new writing and illustrations, published by Workman Publishing in February 2012.
Amazon-Partnerlink: Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told Me About the Creative Life
Punkt 9 ist übrigens einer der wichtigsten Punkte auf der Liste und außerdem mag ich diese Seite aus dem Buch sehr:
Don’t hug me, I’m scared
Ein seltsamer Kurzfilm vom This Is It Collective über Kreativität. „Green is not a creative Color.“
Burn: Create, Inspire and Stop at Nothing
[update] Ash Bolland schreibt mir: „Can you please take down the link to the burn-film and take it down from youtube! as it was not surpose to be released today! please help.“ Done.
Magic Mushrooms literally open your Mind
Eine einmalige hohe Dosis Pilze macht die Menschen langfristig offener und kreativer. Jetzt wird mir einiges klar…
A recent study found that most people treated with a single high dose of psilocybin, the active ingredient in psychoactive mushrooms, showed a long-lasting change in personality—namely, an increase in openness. One of five broad measures of temperament used by psychologists, this quality is generally defined as openness to new ideas or experiences, awareness of feelings in the self and others, and is strongly tied to creativity and aesthetic appreciation. This is one of the first studies to link a single treatment with a drug in a laboratory setting to a long-lasting change in personality.
Drug in Magic Mushrooms Linked to Long-Lasting Personality Change…for the Better
The Innovators Cookbook: Essentials for inventing what’s Next
(Youtube Direktinnovation, via Jason Kottke)
Schöner Trailer zu Steven Johnsons neuem Buch „The Innovators Cookbook: Essentials for Inventing What’s Next“. Im Trailer entwerfen sie erst die Typo für das Cover, drucken die dann auf einem 3D-Drucker aus und fotografieren das dann wieder ab. Sehr schöne Idee! Und wo wir grade bei Ideen sind: Steven Johnson war der, dessen Buchtrailer zu seinem vorangegangenen Buch schon vor einem Jahr gezeigt hatte. Das hieß: „Where good Ideas come from“ und dazu gab’s auch einen TED-Talk. Das Ideen-Buch fliegt noch ungelesen auf meinem Kindle rum, das hier habe ich mir grade noch dazu vorbestellt.
From bestselling author and Internet pioneer Steven Johnson, The Innovator’s Cookbook (on sale October 4, 2011) is an essential book for anyone interested in innovation: the key texts on the topic from a wide range of fields as well as interviews with successful, real-world innovators, prefaced with a new essay by Johnson that draws upon his own experiences as an entrepreneur and author.
Innovation is today’s buzzword for a reason. The need to push forward, find new paths and new ideas, in an ever-evolving world, is an essential part of business, of education, of politics, of our daily lives. Building on the success of Johnson’s Where Good Ideas Come From — one of the most acclaimed business books of 2010 — The Innovator’s Cookbook makes a major new contribution to this vital conversation.
Amazon-Partnerlink: The Innovator’s Cookbook: Essentials for Inventing What Is Next
Presspauseplay: A Film about Fear, Hope and Digital Culture – Complete Online
Presspauseplay, die Doku über Kreativität im Digitalen Zeitalter, ist seit gestern komplett online zu sehen. Oben die Youtube-Version, auf der Website gibt’s Downloads in HD. Zu Wort kommen unter anderem Seth Godin, Robyn, Bill Drummond von The KLF, Scott Belsky (Gründer von Behance), Anthony Volodkin (Gründer von The Hype Machine), Moby, David Weinberger (Cluetrain Manifesto), Hot Chip oder auch Sean Parker (Mitbegründer von Napster). Selbstredend ein Must Watch für jeden, der irgendwas digitales macht.
Überraschend übrigens der stellenweise sehr kritische Ton gegenüber Netzhypes und Mittelmäßkeit, was den Film ein ziemlich realistisches, ausgewogenes Bild des Status Quo zeigen lässt und das hebt ihn aus den tausend Filmen heraus, die mit großem Hurra lediglich die Möglichkeiten zeigen.
The digital revolution of the last decade has unleashed creativity and talent of people in an unprecedented way, unleashing unlimited creative opportunites. But does democratized culture mean better art, film, music and literature or is true talent instead flooded and drowned in the vast digital ocean of mass culture? Is it cultural democracy or mediocrity?
This is the question addressed by PressPausePlay, a documentary film containing interviews with some of the world’s most influential creators of the digital era.
Zusätzlich zum Standard-Download (in 1080 oder 720p) gibt’s auch noch einen interaktiven Player, der zusätzliche Infos zu den Interviewpartnern bietet.
Science: People reject Creativity
In einer Studie haben Wissenschaftler herausgefunden, dass, obwohl Menschen immer behaupten, sie würden Kreativität und Innovation vorziehen, sie dennoch genau darauf negativ reagieren. Die Studie ist mit nur 200 Teilnehmern am Experiment sicher nicht verallgemeinerbar, dennoch: spannend!
The studies’ findings include:
- Creative ideas are by definition novel, and novelty can trigger feelings of uncertainty that make most people uncomfortable.
- People dismiss creative ideas in favor of ideas that are purely practical — tried and true.
- Objective evidence shoring up the validity of a creative proposal does not motivate people to accept it.
- Anti-creativity bias is so subtle that people are unaware of it, which can interfere with their ability to recognize a creative idea.
Bookmarks for August 3rd: NYC Garbage Art, Hofmanns Potion, Spaceflight Psychology
Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared on Vimeo
Retro Future: Space Art Update
Spaceflight Psychology and the New ‘Right Stuff’ | Wired Science | Wired.com
AFP: Icelanders hand in draft of world’s first ‘web’ constitution
Princess Leia Costume Made of Duct Tape
Heather Holliday, Sword Swallower on Vimeo
LEGO Dragon Breathes Actual Fire | Geekosystem
“Space Night – Earth Views” 4-10 komplett online
NYC Garbage, Trashy Art In A Cube From New York City
Hacker stock art – Boing Boing
Mac ‘n’ Cheese on Vimeo: Mac 'n' Cheese is an animated short directed and created by four students at the Utrecht School of Arts in the Netherlands. This roughly two minute animation took about five months to make, and about a bajillion peanut butter sandwiches.Synopsis: When you find yourself running scared and running out of energy, there's only a few options left to outrun your opponent through the southern desert. Stopping at nothing, watch these two guys wear each other out and rip through boundaries hitherto unbroken.
Mona Lisa – 6,239 dot to dot drawing on the Behance Network: I created an A0 poster with dots numbered from 1 to 6,329 and took a time lapse video of myself linking them all up over 9 hours. Here's how it turned out.
The Mission to Get Osama Bin Laden : The New Yorker: What happened that night in Abbottabad.
Essential Mix by Paul Kalkbrenner (30.7.2011) [Mix,Download] | Dressed Like Machines: This Essential Mix is a live set of Kalkbrenner’s own productions and remixes, including tracks from his new album ‘Icke Wieder’.
Hofmann’s Potion (LSD documentary) – YouTube: The documentary delves into the little known early history of the world's most notorious psychedelic.Long before Timothy Leary urged a generation to "turn on, tune in and drop out," lysergic acid diethylamide, or LSD, was being used by researchers trying to understand the human mind. This documentary is a fascinating look at the story of "acid" before it hit the streets.Featuring interviews with many LSD pioneers, Hofmann's Potion is much more than a simple chronicle of the drug's early days. <br />
With thoughtful interviews, beautiful music and stunning cinematography, it is an invitation to look at LSD, and our world, with a more open, compassionate mind.
The Bible of Western War, Now Featuring Cartoon Animals | Danger Room | Wired.com: On War is Clausewitz’s attempt to distill warfare down to its enduring essentials. Its only equal is Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. If you’ve heard the phrase, “war is politics by other means,” you know the nickel version. If you want to go for the jackpot, stroll over to one of the war colleges or onto any military listserv to hear people debate Clausewitz’s relevance to their pet issue or dispute what he really said like he was Marshall McLuhan in Annie Hall.But if you’d like something in between, Fitzgerald’s Clausewitz for Kids blog is slowly recasting On War, section by section, into a lecture series in the Prussian forest, conducted by Hare Clausewitz (get it?), the intense-looking rabbit officer pictured above in Napoleonic-era regalia.
CINEMETRICS: cinemetrics is about measuring and visualizing movie data, in order to reveal the characteristics of films and to create a visual “fingerprint” for them. Information such as the editing structure, color, speech or motion are extracted, analyzed and transformed into graphic representations so that movies can be seen as a whole and easily interpreted or compared side by side.
Christian Groß — SMS to Paper Airplanes: The text messages were filtered and analyzed using PROCESSING. The sender was encoded by the direction of the paper airplane, the length of the message with its size and the amount of positive emotional words with the amounts of folds. Additionally the paper airplanes were divided in two types depending on the length of their text. Finally, the paper airplanes resulting from this construction plan were placed in the room depending on the time when they were sent, as well as their emotional value.
Chicago: The Ferris Bueller high school – YouTube: You can make a strong case for The Blues Brothers as the definitive Chicago film, but Ferris Bueller's Day Off almost seems like a 103-minute commercial from the Chicago Office Of Tourism. That was no accident. Director (and Chicagoan) John Hughes described the film as his "love letter" to the city. He wanted to capture "not just the architecture, but the spirit."
In Test Tube, Hint of Chemicals Coming Alive – NYTimes.com: SAN DIEGO — Here in a laboratory perched on the edge of the continent, researchers are trying to construct Life As We Don’t Know It in a thimbleful of liquid.
PressPausePlay: Doku über Kreativität im digitalen Zeitalter
(Youtube Direktplay, via We Like That)
Schöner Trailer zur kommenden Doku „PressPausePlay – A Film about Fear, Hope and Digital Culture“ mit unter anderem Bill Drummond von The KLF, Scott Belsky (Gründer von Behance), Seth Godin, Hot Chip, Moby, Lykke Li, Robyn, Anthony Volodkin (Gründer von The Hype Machine) oder Sean Parker (Mit-Gründer von Napster).. Der Film hat im März Premiere auf dem SXSW Festival, das Blog habe ich mir grade in den Reader gepackt, ich halte Euch auf dem Laufenden (sprich: Ich poste das Ding, sobald es online zu sehen ist.)
The digital revolution of the last decade has unleashed creativity and talent of people in an unprecedented way, unleashing unlimited creative opportunites.
But does democratized culture mean better art, film, music and literature or is true talent instead flooded and drowned in the vast digital ocean of mass culture? Is it cultural democracy or mediocrity?
This is the question addressed by PressPausePlay, a documentary film containing interviews with some of the world’s most influential creators of the digital era.
The film was shot globally between August 2009 – January 2011, covering more than 150 hours of interview footage with international creatives and thinkers – representing the state of digitized culture today.
Saul Bass’ Minidoku über Kreativität: Why Man Creates
(Youtube Direktsaul, via BoingBoing)
Jemand hat Saul Bass’ animierte und oscarprämierte Minidoku „Why Man Creates“ über den Prozess der Kreativität bei Youtube hochgeladen. Fängt ein bisschen altbacken an, wird aber besser, außerdem muss ich mir das für meine kleine Saul Bass-Sammlung hier reinkleben. Oben Teil 1, der zweite nach dem Klick, Snip von Wikipedia:
Why Man Creates is a 1968 animated short documentary film which discusses the nature of creativity. It was written by Saul Bass and Mayo Simon, and directed by Saul and Elaine Bass.
The movie won the Academy Award for Documentary Short Subject. An abbreviated version of it ran on the first-ever broadcast of CBS’ 60 Minutes, on September 24, 1968.
Why Man Creates focuses on the creative process and the different approaches taken to that process. It is divided into eight sections: The Edifice, Fooling Around, The Process, Judgment, A Parable, Digression, The Search, and The Mark.
Mini-Doku: Influencers
(Vimeo Direktideas, via Doobybrain)
Toll fotografierte Minidoku über Kreativität und Ideen und wie sie sich verbreiten. Ist mir zu Beginn etwas zu Fashion-lastig, das Thema wird allerdings nicht überstrapaziert. Snip von der Website zum Film:
INFLUENCERS is a short documentary that explores what it means to be an influencer and how trends and creativity become contagious today in music, fashion and entertainment.
The film attempts to understand the essence of influence, what makes a person influential without taking a statistical or metric approach.
Written and Directed by Paul Rojanathara and Davis Johnson, the film is a Polaroid snapshot of New York influential creatives (advertising, design, fashion and entertainment) who are shaping today’s pop culture.
“Influencers” belongs to the new generation of short films, webdocs, which combine the documentary style and the online experience.
Where good ideas come from
(Youtube Direktideas, via cpluv)
Das Promovideo zu Steven Johnsons Buch „Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation“ ist, so nehme ich schwer an, vom selben Zeichner und Animator gedreht, wie die RSA Animated-Clips, die ich hier schon mehrfach hatte.
Das Buch selbst klingt ebenfalls definitiv nach etwas, das ich unbedingt lesen muss:
Beginning with Charles Darwin’s first encounter with the teeming ecosystem of the coral reef and drawing connections to the intellectual hyperproductivity of modern megacities and to the instant success of YouTube, Johnson shows us that the question we need to ask is, What kind of environment fosters the development of good ideas? His answers are never less than revelatory, convincing, and inspiring as Johnson identifies the seven key principles to the genesis of such ideas, and traces them across time and disciplines.
Hier noch sein Vortrag auf der TED Konferenz über dasselbe Thema:
People often credit their ideas to individual “Eureka!” moments. But Steven Johnson shows how history tells a different story. His fascinating tour takes us from the “liquid networks” of London’s coffee houses to Charles Darwin’s long, slow hunch to today’s high-velocity web.
Vorher auf Nerdcore:
21st Century Enlightment, animated!
TED-Promo für Konferenz über Ideen rips off RSA Animate
Crisis of Capitalism, animated!
The Evolution of Empathy, animated!
Philip Zimbardos The Secret Powers of Time, animated!
The Creative Process of Chewbacca
Michael Heilemann von Binary Bonsai hat ein langes, ausführliches Posting über die Entstehungsgeschichte von Chewbacca.
Im Artikel nimmt er alle möglichen Puzzleteile vom Making of THX 1138, frühe Drehbuchentwürfe von Star Wars, erste Entwürfe Chewies von Ralph McQuarrie, Bruchstücke aus Interviews und fügt das alles zu einer superinteressanten Geschichte um den kreativen Prozess bei der Entstehungs des Charakters Chewbacca zusammen. Und alles läuft am Ende auf George Lucas’ Alaskan Malamute und auf einen Ripoff hinaus.
“I think I just ran over something back there, I think I ran over a wookie”. This is the first emergence of the word Wookiee as we know it today. And the small wookies in THX who lived in the shell of this environment became the large wookiee that we all know in Star Wars. […]
“And later on after the recording I asked Terry ‘What’s the Wookie?’ and he said ‘Oh that’s a friend of mine who lives in Texas, Ralph Wookie, and I just threw his name in there as I always want to stick it to him and thought he’d get a kick out of hearing his name in a film’. Little did Terry know what kind of thing he was creating, this off-hand phrase has since become a character that literally billions of people probably know about.”
