electricgecko

A general creative principle to generate something from nothing:

1. Pitch an idea into the void. It is important to make it simple, almost laughably so.
2. Next, turn this idea into physical reality, make it as real as your abilities permit.
3. You will have to find many detail solutions to retain the idea’s overall integrity. These solutions will warp and compress the idea, adding complexity and interest to it.
4. Once finished, you will have created something non-evident, if not elegant.

When looking for serenity, at night, beyond all complexity and improvisation, I reach for my Basic Channel records. They restore a sense of order, of imprenetable softness, of calm momentum. I remember all my directions and how to move forward. Rules as materia prima.

Es ist äußerst wichtig, dass Regeln bestehen; ausgedachte Regeln, frei erfundene Regeln, Regeln, die ihre Verhältnisse erklärbar machen. Es ist ebenso wichtig, dass die Regeln jederzeit ignorierbar sind, im Interesse der Smoothness, damit es voran geht und wir hier gemeinsam zu etwas kommen. Zu wissen, wann die Regel unverrückbar gilt und wann sie ignoriert werden muss, ist kulturelle Belesenheit und Empathie.

We keep mining ever more detailed aspects of things previously mined for cultural distinction¹, new aspects of spent references, the bottoms of all barrels. Fringes of fringes, fractals upon fractals.

1. The Farm at Black Mountain College, nothing against this book, I’m sure it’s quite interesting. ↩