The Adjacent Possible® Blog
The science of creativity, the art of the possible.Get weekly Art & Creativity Tips on the blog from Nancy Hillis
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Of Art, Patterns, & Memes
Psychology & Physics Nancy and I have a theory, highly biased, that everything in the human sphere of experience is rooted in some combination of psychology and physics. In a previous blog from 2020, we brought up a concept that combines the two, at least metaphorically. We believe there is reason to bring it up again, driven by a combination of factors. Aside: Almost anything interesting is driven by “a combination of factors,” or as they say in medicine, “multiply determined.”...
Take Your Art Somewhere New: The Adjacent Possible
Since every composition creates a new world unto itself, the process carves out a new world from all the worlds that might have been and perhaps still exist in the mind of the creator.
This is akin to how a sculptor like Michelangelo releases a figure from the stone. Bach knows how the fugue might have gone; Picasso knows how the brush stroke might have differed.
The unconscious world is much larger than the conscious one, a related and adjacent infinity, a greater world of possibility only the artist can perceive.
We have come full circle to find the unconscious, the creative, and the possible are all deeply connected. In that place lives Art.
Art & Liminal Experiences
In the human realm, Art is way up there. It was there long before the written word. Art not only survives liminal experiences, it can create them with its transformative power.
Art Finds A Way
Art precedes civilization by a great deal, cave paintings are three or four times older than the oldest human settlements. Perhaps Civilization is a byproduct of Art, not the other way around.
Creativity: Moving The Earth With Archimedes & Stravinsky
I believe the hardest aspect of moving the Earth in one’s life is not the act of finding a lever and pushing it, it is arranging to place your fulcrum somewhere, a kind of existential real estate play.
The composer Igor Stravinsky wrote a ballet, The Rite of Spring, which premiered in Paris in 1913, following successes of The Firebird and Petruschka in 1910 and 1912.
It was a radical departure from previous classical music, full of strange dissonances and even stranger rhythms. It provoked a “near-riot” and fistfights in the audience.
If Stravinsky had written nothing else, he’d be remembered for that.
Full Circle: From Shadows To Nuances
At that moment, I began to see the disparate strands of my life knit together. I had many opportunities afterwards to think about the relationship of surprise to transformation. The world thinks of things that you cannot.
The lights going out in the gallery made the lights go on in my brain. And this kind of surprise is not an uncommon thing, if only one is open to it.
Light & The Cycles Of Creativity
To be able to explore the labyrinth of the adjacent possible requires a cutting away, a removal of past encumbrances, a cleaning of the mud off of one’s existential boots so as to more easily walk on new paths.
Messages Of Art & The Adjacent Possible
We live in an age of such information overload that it is hard to imagine being limited to dots and dashes, but at the root of all communication is the tension between something and not-something: a dot or a dash, a zero or a one.
Cheryl Wilson Book Review: The Adjacent Possible
Each author contributes to a growing trust in the yet-becoming self. A truly original book that makes the perfect gift for any artist or to-be artist- Book Excellence Review.
The Language of Art & The Creative Code
We live in an age of such information overload that it is hard to imagine being limited to dots and dashes, but at the root of all communication is the tension between something and not-something: a dot or a dash, a zero or a one.
Art, Surprise & Artistic Process
Unlike the laws of physics, this process varies from person to person and artwork to artwork, each one creating a miniature new world with new laws, a cosmology of pigment and pattern.
The Inevitability Of Structure
But what if life is as inevitable as the fractal patterns on beaches or the creation of solar systems?
QUIZ: What's Your #1 Artist Archetype?
Some artists create amazing art with ease, while others struggle year after year to express themselves.
What's going on? Could it be about how you approach your art?
Take the Artist's Archetype Quiz and find out.
