Sensibilities 2: cooperative creation, the magic of a "scenius", and the month of April
Welcome back to Sensibilities! We are now just three months away from the start of the Puget Sound Workshop Workshop -- and as always, we wanted to compile some of the far-ranging resources, ideas, and inspirations that have been bouncing around in our heads lately, in the hopes that they pique your interest, jumpstart your creativity, or simply add a little intrigue to your day. If something here inspires you or your thinking about your workshop, we'd love to hear about it!
This month, we were inspired by the concept of "scenius," a word coined by musician & artist Brian Eno to talk about the fact that individual works of genius are hardly ever actually achieved alone. Instead, they almost always arise from a passionate, interconnected "scene" of people. As he puts it:
"What really happened was that there was sometimes very fertile scenes involving lots and lots of people – some of them artists, some of them collectors, some of them curators, thinkers, theorists, people who were fashionable and knew what the hip things were – all sorts of people who created a kind of ecology of talent. And out of that ecology arose some wonderful work. [...] So I came up with this word “scenius” – and scenius is the intelligence of a whole… operation or group of people. And I think that’s a more useful way to think about culture, actually. I think that – let’s forget the idea of “genius” for a little while, let’s think about the whole ecology of ideas that give rise to good new thoughts and good new work."
Without further ado!
1 is some wisdom from renowned theatre director and teacher Anne Bogart about seeking balance in how we perceive the world, and the fruitfulness of imagining others complexly. She writes,
"An accumulation of the recent loss of both my parents combined with a problematic love relationship seemed to put a damper on the experience of living fully and differentiating the quality and sensation of one moment from the next. Perhaps to protect myself from the pain of experience, I allowed my life to become dominated by the epistemological rather than the ontological, the objective rather than the subjective. I had lost the creative balance between the two possible states of being. Sitting on the train, traveling north, I felt how my existence is degraded when it lacks regular exposure to a wide range of aesthetic experiences. This insight helped me to begin to re-establish a balance between the two states of being."
(From "The creative balance between two possible states of being," on her excellent, excellent blog.)
2 is the creative ethos and assignments of master cartoonist & teacher Lynda Barry. Her Tumblr is a treasure trove of heartfelt doodles, creative assignments, and inspiring ways of looking at the world around you a little differently.
(The illustrated syllabi she creates for her classes are particularly wonderful, but the full archive is also worth combing through!)
3 is a transcontinental, time-traveling duet!
On YouTube, a "collab video" is a tried-and-true format. In its most basic form, two or more content creators, either with comparable audiences and/or a personal connection, meet up and film videos together that they'll then post and promote on their individual channels. Last fall, Dodie Clark (UK) and Jon Cozart (US), two professional YouTubers/musicians with millions of subscribers between them (and quite a significant shared audience), took this simple concept, stretched it through space and time, and created something utterly magical.
On October 6th, Jon Cozart posted a video titled Tourist: A Love Song from Paris:
On October 16th, Dodie Clark posted a video titled a non love song from nashville:
And then: nothing. For a month (i.e. an internet eternity). Then, on November 16th, they published the finale: what would be, in any other context, a collab video like any other. Enjoy:
4 is the truly epic saga of Brother Orange. Months after his iPhone was stolen, Buzzfeed editor Matt Stopera discovered photos of a stranger posing with orange trees on his camera roll. Somehow, his stolen phone, since shipped off to China and resold, was still connected with his iCloud. Once Weibo, China’s equivalent to Twitter, got ahold of the story, the search was on: to find Brother Orange, as the stranger was quickly dubbed, figure out who he was, and to bring these two improbably connected strangers together.
5 is this unbelievable digital tapestry that sprang to life over 72 hours earlier this month. On April 1st, the blank canvas of r/Place was made public to the world. Redditors were invited to place one pixel of any color they chose, anywhere on the field. However, they would have to wait several minutes before being able to place another pixel -- and so, what started as a bunch of individual, highly random dots grew and evolved as Redditors banded together and strategized. This image, the result of their incredible efforts, is a time-lapse of r/Place, from its creation through to its final form:
Like any collaboration, getting from blank page to full realization had plenty of false starts, dead ends, and communication difficulties. (made even more complicated, of course, by the fact that the participants were hundreds of thousands of more-or-less anonymous strangers contributing from all over the world).
(For the history of r/Place as it started, changed, and evolved, check out Sudoscript's beautiful analysis.)
6 is the art-sparking archive of Learning to Love You More. From Jenna: "For the 7 years during which Learning to Love You More was active, Miranda July & Harrell Fletcher posted creative assignments online that anyone could complete. They were generally quirky assignments that got at something true. ALL of the completed responses were posted on the website. In this way, the project was premised on the belief that everyone's ideas have value." (And all of the assignments and responses are still online, if you find yourself in need of some creative inspiration!)
7 is the undeniable groove and utter joy of Tank and the Bangas! When Jenna, Karee, and I were discussing this month's themes, Tank and the Bangas sprang near-instantaneously to our respective minds. The winners of this years's NPR Tiny Desk Concert, Tank and the Bangas are a band from New Orleans that defies expectation or classification. Settle in for seven people completely, joyously in sync -- and creating some truly stellar music besides:
see you next month!
:) Devan
(The Puget Sound Workshop Workshop is a summer camp where everyone's a teacher and everyone's a student. For more information or to get started on registration, please click here!)
