As Bruce Sterling put it in Beyond Cyberpunk!: “Inspiration knows no baud rate.” I’ve been thinking a lot about the nature of creativity recently. Last weekend, I went to this year’s Art-o-Matic, an amazing everyone-can-play art orgy held in DC most every year. It’s a great event that I always look forward to. But I’m always struck at how derivative, and well, BORING much of the art is. Now, I’m a firm believer in creativity being our God-given right and responsibility, and that we don’t serve that impulse nearly enough. So I don’t want to harsh anybody’s creative mellow. If it feels good, DO IT!. But in being creative, so many seem intent on painting inside the lines, parroting what others have done. If it were up to me, art school’s major job would be beating all of the rout and mimicry out of students.
The brilliance of beginner’s mind (in the Zen sense) can be seen in the website Miranda July did for her new short story collection, No One Belongs Here More Than You. The entire site is written on the white tops of her kitchen appliances in dry-erase marker. It’s one of the coolest, most refreshing sites I’ve seen in a while. And it just goes to show you how right Chairman Brucie was.
[Via Boing Boing]
