Don’t Play It Like the Flute An Article by Matthias Ott matthiasott.com Don’t play it like the flute. Play it as if it was the wind whistling through the desert dunes. No matter what you love to create, there is something to be learned from the way Hans Zimmer approached the Dune score. We are all striving to create work that is novel, innovative, memorable, and inspiring. To get there, however, we tend to focus on getting things right, on avoiding mistakes, on “being professional”. Yes, it is important to have the commitment, dedication, and attention to detail of a professional. But being right? That will only take you so far. What is much more important is to approach the problem in front of you with curiosity and an open mind. With an urge to explore what can be found beyond the ordinary, beyond the right way of doing things. If you want to create something that nobody has come up with yet, it is important that you try out all the crazy ideas others are afraid to try, that you build prototypes, improvise, and freely play with the materials and the technologies you have at hand. musiccreativitynoveltyexplorationcuriosity
Painting With the Web An Article by Matthias Ott matthiasott.com So much about [Gerhard Richter's painting process] reminds me of designing and building for the Web: The unpredictability, the peculiarities of the material, the improvisation, the bugs, the happy accidents. There is one crucial difference, though. By using static wireframes and static layouts, by separating design and development, we are often limiting our ability to have that creative dialogue with the Web and its materials. We are limiting our potential for playful exploration and for creating surprising and novel solutions. And, most importantly, we are limiting our ability to make conscious, well-informed decisions going forward. By adding more and more layers of abstraction, we are breaking the feedback loop of the creative process. A constant dialogueConstant reflection and refinement How do you know when your paintings are finished?Designing with code artwwwcreativityprocesscode
Japanese Death Poems A Book by Yoel Hoffman www.goodreads.com The haikuSpring snowAn entrance, an exitPoppiesCoolness will rise+4 More Graceful Exits: How Great Beings DiePoems of an Indian summerHe only who has lived with the beautiful deathpoetrynaturemelancholyzen
The haiku The haiku describes a single state or event. The time of the haiku is the present. The haiku refers to images connected to one of the four seasons, poetry
An entrance, an exit Empty-handed I entered the world Barefoot I leave it My coming, my going Two simple happenings That got entangled death
Coolness will rise When you have vanquished your selfhood, coolness will rise even from the fire. identity
The way of things It is when one forces principles on the world that one interferes with its natural workings. How things ought to be wisdomnature
Autumn breezes blow One day you are born you die the next – today, at twilight, autumn breezes blow. zen