The Struggle

28.10.2021

I've really struggled to get into this project. There's been a lot going on at home, and the divide between the college and home, all the lectures being online have been difficult for me. During my BA the course went online due to Covid, but by that time we were into the end of the course, into our personal practices, so all the theory type lectures has finished. So al we really did online was tutorials, this really suited me with what was going on at home, and my practice thrived because of it. But I'm really struggling with sitting down and listening to a lecture from home, and for all these reasons, motivation has been low.

So I've spent some time away from this work, trying to figure out in my head where I'm at, which in some sense contradicts the whole idea of the thought experiment, but I think this time has really helped me put my thoughts in a place I'm happy with..

I thought my brain worked in a way that was kind of opposite to the thought experiment, I thought that what my brain was doing all these years was coming up with an idea and pretty quickly coming up with an outcome, and that's where I would head. And so for this experiment I've really been trying to work in this new way of starting at a starting point, making connections and going from there onto the next thing, developing ideas as I go..

And it was working for a while, until I got caught up with myself, and entangled within my own thoughts. See, what I think I've discovered is that my brain does work in this thought experiment kind of way, but, without me knowing, I've trained my brain to do it a lot faster than I've been trying to do it during this thought experiment.

So let me explain, When I was a kid I loved playing with plasticine, and I had this wooden serving tray, which had sides that I would use as a base, and in this tray I would create miniature worlds in plasticine, buildings, castles, space ports, whatever inspired me that day. I would be watching a TV show set in the wild west, and in turn my tray would turn quickly into a western set, with cowboys, horses and when it was at a playable stage a story would develop instantly, quickly sculpting tiny characters as I went through the story as and when I needed them. Yet these stories would never end, because I'd watch an advert, or a family member would say something, or I'd see a certain toy in the room, anything would switch my mind, and before I even knew it my western scene had turned into a youth club, or a forest, or a stage for the worlds greatest rock band. This would continue all day, create a world and a story, getting bored, inspired and creating a new one. This was my creative training.

I was just playing, but through this play I was training my brain to think creatively, and quickly.

So I believe that when I attempted to adopt the thought experiment style of creativity, my mind was working as it always has, working fast, making even myself believe that I'm not working through the ideas, when actually I have been doing this, but there's no time to record this evidence, so slowing the process down just meant that by the time I'd get back to my shed to create something or act out an experiment, it had already developed way past where it last was, just in my head through the everyday thoughts I had. So going back and recording my findings has been difficult.

Anyway...

Here's a basic breakdown of what has happened through this process..

I cast some animal face parts in latex, but have never used them, my ideas evolved before I had a chance to pull them out of the molds.

I listened to an audiobook called 'The art of creative thinking' by Rod Judkins. This was an incredible book filled with stories and ideas of creative thinking, and how people use creative thinking in both creative and non creative jobs. this was an incredibly enlightening book for me.

Which reminded me of a Netflix show I watched a while back called 'The Creative Brain' I found it, and it has one day left on Netflix before they took it off, so I re watched it. A fact from the show really stood out to me. Inmates who enrol on creative courses during their rehabilitation are 80% less likely to re-offend. Creativity is helping to rid the world of crime. Imagine if people were taught creativity before offending!? Like in schools.

I began thinking a lot about all the ideas in the book and the show and thought about how I could utilize them, and have been writing down creative experiment ideas since, in line with the thought experiments experiments, the little experiment suggestions in this book got me thinking about loads of other creative experiments.

These ideas culminated into a space where all these experiments would take place.

-A laboratory.

So I painted my walls, and made a set for these experiments to take place;

A creative laboratory that tests its subjects through creative experimentation, and ultimately 'cures' their creative block. kind of like what I hit in the middle of this experiment.

Which has landed me to where I am today...