The Experiments

I made a quick list of the creative games and experiments that could be played at the laboratory.

These are the experiments I thought of that could be performed live in a short time period, of what will probably be under a minute each.

But as well as these I've been accumulating ideas for creative experiments everywhere. From the Netflix show Abstract: the art of design, the glimpses into the designers creative processes shows the creative experiments and games they do to develop ideas. I've got a lot of ideas from the audio book I listened to early on called The art of creative thinking by Rod Judkins, a book full of stories from creative people in all walks of life and different jobs. And it's been interesting that since I've been thinking about these creative experiments it's made me think about other creative experiments that I have done in the past throughout my time in education, I've been incredibly lucky to have stumbled onto what I believe to be some of the most creative courses in the area, My Creative Media Production Diploma had a whole module on idea generation, which was basically a series of different group based games, where we'd draw pictures and explain them to the next person, who would attempt to draw what is being described, and so on until the whole class had drawn an image of the description, which would turn out that everyone's interpretation would be slightly different, and then we'd put the images together to make a very random, but oddly morphing and satisfying animation, I didn't understand these experiments at the time, I thought it was just something silly, like a team building exercise, but really they were trying to get us to think in a creative way, new ways of generating ideas through collaboration.

I then went onto do a sculpture degree where a great tutor did a life drawing lesson, but with a big difference, he sat us in a circle around the life model and had us collect an assortment of different materials and tools to draw with. A paint brush, charcoal, ink, paint, a feather a stick etc... and he read out a series of instructions whilst the model changed position every minute, then after a while, every 30 seconds, then 10 seconds, until she'd hold a pose for only 3 seconds. But with each pose came a set of instruction which felt like a game of twister at times, left hand brush with ink, right hand feather with paint... and this would change, even within a pose the instruction would change, using both hands at the same time, using our teeth to hold the brush or pencil, the feather between our toes. The lesson was called 'Eye Of The Heart', and it was intended to loosen up the participant, make the participant loose consciousness, just letting go and letting your strokes go where they go, not looking with your eyes but feeling with your heart. the lesson was incredibly intense and taught me about not being precious with my art and creations, that experimentation is important to development and finding a feeling within my practice.

Through to my current education where I'm currently undergoing the thought experiment, which has completely made sense of everything I've done in the past and given it all a brand new context, and it's very exciting.