The Furry Gamble - Part One

Over the coming months I plan to elaborate on a number of experiments that play with the idea of chance (or aleatoricism, if you like) and its role in the creative process. Usually when starting a creative endeavour, be it doing a doodle, writing a story, or putting together a piece of music, I'd begin with a fixed idea on how something is going to be, or a concept in which to work up from, rarely is something left to chance. But what if these decisions were already decided by the throw of a dice or a pick out of a hat?

My first experiment draws from Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt's Oblique Strategies - a set of cards with artistic directions, that encourage lateral thinking towards creative dilemmas - and The Wasp Factory from the novel of the same name by Iain Banks - a crude future telling device, in which a wasp is placed and forced to choose one of twelve trapdoors. Behind each trapdoor there's a deadly end for the wasp (fire, spider, being pissed on, etc.) and the way it dies has significant meaning to the Factory's maker, Frank.

Before you start, I don't intend to wizz on any wasps, but the thought of a creature making choices for me, well that could work couldn't it?

So without further ado here are the felines that are going to aid me in my first test, and the undisputed stars of this post: Bootsy Mann (Left) & Mousey Brown (Right)...

Yes they've got surnames, what of it?

Anyway, by merging the theme of the Oblique Strategies and running with the idea of my cats giving me creative direction, I came up with The Furry Gamble: A creative problem solving exercise which puts creative direction in the hands, or should I say, paws, of animals. The process involves placing a handful of treat enclosed envelopes, each with its own creative direction, in front of a co-operative critter and waiting to see which envelope it chooses.

The directions I picked for my first test are: make it ugly, make it pretty, make it simple, and make it complex. Why? Because they feel both broad enough to work with and specific enough to be constrained by.

As for the all important creative "dilemmas":

Dilemma a.) I plumped for the I-V-vi-IV chord progression, in a attempt to do something interesting with a common musical formula.

As my cats are helping me out, I figured for dilemma b.) I'd do a portrait of them. Which if I'm honest, doesn't sit easy as I personally find the idea of it a little too cute, and dare I say it, naff. But "Wou-Wou..." is about pushing myself into uneasy territory, so I guess it's the right thing to do.

And to prove chivalry isn't dead, the direction of dilemma a.) will be determined by Mouse, and dilemma b.) Bootsy. 

Right then, enough blather, it's experimentin' time...

That's that then. Do something pretty with the ol' I-V-vi-IV and do an ugly animal portrait... that shouldn't be too hard. 

Come back next week for the results, if you like.


- The Wormling

P.S. In case you enjoyed it, 'Sassafras' (the track on the vid) is now available as a free download from the 'Wou-Wou & The Wormling' SoundCloud page here, or if you're feeling lazy, at the bottom of this blog.