I took a small break from
my residential work the other day, and simply asked myself “What if I took the
Lazarus Designs logo (in its metallic state) and transformed it”? The exercise
turned to be pure exploration of the creative moment. What happens if I do this…..what
does it look like when I do that….what if, what if, what if.
I read somewhere that when
the Who composed their songs, Peter Townsend and Roger Daltry pretty much knew
what the song was going to be about, and sound like. They composed their music
with a destination in mind. In contrast, The Rolling Stones would get together
and simply jam together, create and collaborate in the moment, and discover
their music through their process. Obviously, both approaches were successful,
but in my mind, the beauty of the Stones method was in the almost organic
growth of the music, In other words, the song, the rhythm and beat, and even
the lyrics, were discovered through the process of creation, and the
collaboration of the musicians and their instruments.
This exercise was very
much like a Stones jam session, and was immensely enjoyable! What I’ve learned,
and indeed I am struggling with are a couple of things. If intent is absent, then
is the result accidental? There is a collaboration that occurs between me, and
the program I use to create these compositions (products). At what point am I
merely relying on the tool to produce the composition? For example….I have
countless yellow rods in the composition, and they were inserted by me for the
simple reason that I wanted to contrast the fluidity of the LD, and suggest an
underlying component of rigidity, or construction. Through the rendering
process, I discovered that their reflections on the metal surface were much
more intriguing than the rods themselves. Am I simply exploiting the program to
produce content…..art without an artist, music without the musician?
The other thing I am struggling (considering) with is if you don't have a destination, how do you determine if the composition, the product, is finished? Does it matter? I can change the frame dimensions, alter the lighting source, change materials endlessly (which I have somewhat demonstrated in the images). If I were to use the music analogy again, at what time do I decide to go into the studio and cut an album?
In any case, I enjoy the
creations and all I can say is……Discovery through process and collaboration with
a machine .....”It’s a gas gas gaaaas”!!
RBP
8/15/14
