Creative process, movimento ii

“the mediator between brain and muscle must be the heart”
Thea Von Harbou
(introduction to Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, from the novel of T. Von Harbou)

In creativity
Methods are bound to failure --- conceptualism is bound to failure --- intellectualism is bound to failure --- sentimentalism is bound to failure --- random emotional inspiration is bound to failure.
The first three approaches are completely strange to living signs, the seeds of creativity; what they propose can be extremely well-done but it is dead.
The last two approaches deform and exploit the living signs; the result is an emotional soup lacking in precision and pumping impulses and images instead of letting them come naturally.

Research is the key, but not systematic
(Fleming found penicillin but was not specifically looking for it; yet he did not hesitate to give his research a different direction as this last showed to be promising and interesting.)
Developing an idea, paying attention to when some living elements/signs appear; then listen to where and how these living elements spontaneously lead the research.

Keep the “searching” alive
-why “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon “ is a masterpiece and “Guernica” just a good painting-

Ex. When we sing a song for the first time, in the voice, beside the quality of the singing, there is a tension and a surprise; we try and feel the song, discover it, find it. If we don’t pay attention, after we learned it , we improve it more and more formally, we become skillful, but we take it for granted; that vibration, that hesitation of the first time must be kept alive; in it there are two elements : the fear of making a mistake (social and un-useful emotion) but also “the excitement of exploration and discovery.” (very creative element)

Introducing a “via negativa”
You can work by accumulation of signs = very formal result (ex. Traditional oriental theater and art)

You can work by proliferation of signs = mixed results, unpredictable (traditional western approach)

You can work by distillation of signs = consistent results (precision and spontaneity co-exist) thinner currents and inner sources are activated.
- get rid of everything that is: mental, intellectual, manipulated
- it’s not about yourself, it’s about art (music, painting, sculpting, etc.)
(ex. If you play an instrument what you do is about the music, not about yourself)

In the end, stripped to the bone, you’ll do the only thing that you simply cannot prevent yourself from doing---this is the connection, the sign.

There is a verticality between organicity and awareness;
The path between them is a creative one.

To be continued............ How to rediscover organicity and work on the signs.

By alessandro rolandi. Beijing