“The Gas sound is literally spliced together out of small samples from classical records, which Voigt subjected to processes of ‘zoom, loop and alienation’. The music’s provenance is instantly audible from the rainfall-like hiss of aged vinyl, the discernibly orchestral sonorities of the grave cellos and tingling violins. There’s a marvelous irony to the fact… Continue reading

“Unpredictability is a defining hallmark of complex systems. Unpredictability is also the source of all the extraordinary capacities for unbridled creativity in complex systems. Its implications are profound.” “With just the right, low level of randomness, sometimes referred to as quenched disorder, the system blooms with the ability to explore what Stuart Kauffman calls the… Continue reading

“Instinct and intuition. What drives the basic mental operations that are involved with creating? In other words, what is the source of our ‘agile, inspired imaginations’? Primarily our instincts and intuitions. Instinct is the more primal of the two. It comprises thought and behavioral impulses that we share with other members of our herd (or… Continue reading

“The hand carries the load of value through lived experience. And experience cannot be automated.” “Few artists like to admit to painting by the numbers. Nobody wants to seem ordinary. The occasional visibility of artifice—portable, explainable, documented, transferable, automated—therefore tends to startle or repulse audiences acculturated into the privilege of exceptional human genius.” “The hypothesis… Continue reading

[On the art of Agnes Martin] “They’re consistently sized, most of them six-foot squares of canvas, and as simple and gentle as any artwork ever made, yet with an inner strength. Each canvas is covered with repeating patterns in soft, pale colors; some are grids drawn with a ruler in pencil, others vertical or horizontal… Continue reading

“Where do you put a form? It will move all around, bellow out and shrink, and sometimes it winds up where it was in the first place. But at the end it feels different, and it had to make the voyage. I am a moralist and cannot accept what has not been paid for, or… Continue reading

“I want to talk instead about what has been called ‘microcreativity,’ those small everyday ideas that are crucial to making any progress in a scientific context. For me an idea is an unexpected thought–one that is surprising and by no means banal” (98). “Formulating thoughts through words is extremely important; words are powerful–they link together… Continue reading

“Cultural work holds great attraction by promising self-expression and a sense of self-worth and the industry is never short of aspirants, who ensure a reserve army of labor that suppresses wages. Distinction is elusive, however, and the market, which is not so much free as moulded by corporate interests, imposes its own standards and norms,… Continue reading