[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

“The patterns are simple, but followed together, they make for a whole that is wiser than the sum of its parts. Go for a walk; cultivate hunches; write everything down, but keep your folders messy; embrace serendipity; make generative mistakes; take on multiple hobbies; frequent coffeehouses and other liquid networks; follow the links; let others… Continue reading

“Why are the Sun sessions Elvis’s best? It’s the spontaneity. That short echo. They’ve got a little Nebraska in them. Those records, they’re pretty closely connected in some strange metaphysical way. I suppose their relationship would be in the characters but also, without a doubt, in the sound. It’s a dissociative sound. It’s the sound… Continue reading

“Today everything is available at all times. All you have to do is have a subscription to Spotify…Nothing is special anymore. So one has to actually make some kind of pact with oneself to get back to that very very personal relationship with one work, or with just a group of very valuable pieces. Because… Continue reading

“But what makes music perhaps uniquely effective as ideology is what might be called its double nature. On the one hand it is, obviously, a human artefact, something that people make and that calls on a range of culture specific social practices and technologies. But at the same time we experience music as if it… Continue reading

“To create a dynamic, balanced composition in either 2D or 3D, make a strong initial design decision that is dynamic and unbalanced; then follow it with a secondary dynamic move that counterpoints the first move. Think of a counterpoint as a sort of aesthetic rebuttal: it is similar to but not quite the same as… Continue reading