Finding The Answers Through Your Work

Art that you made when you were “just screwing around” may contain the clues to finding greater joy in the creative process.

“No microphones, recording devices or audio signals were used in the creation of these songs” — liner note from Cages’ 1 EP.

Sometimes work has to be waaaaaaay in the rear view for you to get comfortable with it. In 2004 I was using an app called BladeEnc to convert AIFF’s of tapes into MP3’s. I noticed that the app didn’t seem to distinguish between audio and everything else on my computer so I decided to see if it could encode stuff like PDF’s — it could. At first I was just getting these second-long hisses of static but once I started running a broader spectrum of files I’d occasionally strike gold and get these wild noise compositions with rich tones and hard-panning that would be anywhere from 19 seconds to 20 minutes. I made a bunch of these for awhile and curated a batch of them to make an album but then I sat on it. I just couldn’t commit to it (and I’ll get to the whys of that in a moment). In 2008 I ended up packaging them as two releases under the moniker of Cages but the truth is that I was probably more motivated by the need to make new work for my graphic design portfolio than my desire to get my art out into the world (i.e., even after screenprinting covers and packaging CD’s I still sat on it).

Cages 1 EP (2008, Hardisty-Disk / Remastered 2020, Select Narcotics. Cover by the MVA Studio.)

***

Something I’ve figured out over the last few years is there are a number of conditions that need to be met in order for me to do creative work (outside of graphic design). These 10 guidelines apply to music, photography, drawing, whatever. Bear in mind that they create an environment for me to be productive — they are not rules or a philosophy:

The tool has to be small, clean and mobile. Fits in my pocket is best, in my bag is the runner-up. Should be able to use it in the car or on a park bench.
The tool has to be “stupid”. It should be the opposite of whatever would be considered the “right” tool for the job. Smartphone cameras instead of SLR’s, iMovie instead of Premier, Auxy instead of Ableton, crayons not charcoal…
The subject has to be stupid. Meaning that there’s no pressure to have smart or conceptual ideas. Photographs of trash, collages made from stickers, drawings on press-sheets
The outcome needs to be “good enough”. The tool needs to be capable of inspiring a “Whoa, what’s that?” response. I like stupid tools because they’re easy and cheap not because they’re lo-fi.
The process needs to reduce as much decision-making as possible. Starting with existing materials like a press sheet or a predefined method so that the origin point helps to guide the process (doesn’t apply to HALIFAX. Yet.).
Focus on quantity over quality. I’m most interested in methods that result in a volume of work that I can then just select the best stuff from the results. I view quality not as an attribute of a piece but the result of being engaged in the process and being enough of a fan that I trust my taste when I like something.
The activity needs to be so fun that it’s rewarding even when it doesn’t result in useable work. Any creative work that I do should look and feel like play. This also eliminates the need for inspiration because it puts art-making on the same level as playing video games or just hanging out.
Have no goals in the beginning. The more I can visualize an outcome the less likely I am to actually do the work. Once I have a basic understanding of the tool and method then I try to focus on pragmatic “deliverables” — a song, an EP, a drawing, a zine.
Fix mistakes but don’t do revisions. I identify things that bug me and fix them but I try to suppress any thoughts of “Is this good enough?”. I have rarely regretted releasing things but I often regret sitting on work because of self-doubt.
And, most importantly forget any preconceptions of what an artist is or does. Most of my creative life was hampered by limited beliefs about the nature of art and creative people.

One thing I’ve realized is that all of this has always been true for me. I can look back at various periods in my life and see how different projects succeeded or failed by how they aligned with this list.

***

This past year I went through old hard-drives looking for the Cages material. Revisiting it made me realize I had a much more positive view of the project than when I was making it. The biggest difference between now and then is that I wasn’t fully onboard with my personal “10 Commandments of Creativity”. At the time I could feel that the project was working at an intuitive level but I couldn’t own it intellectually. Here’s how I was aligned with the list back in the mid-00’s:

Small, clean and mobile toll: This was pre-smartphone but I was working on a laptop and using source material from the laptop or transferring files from work.
The tool has to be “stupid”: I was using a freeware app (that had to run Mac OS “Classic Mode”) that only had one job: convert audio files to MP3’s. I started running Adobe Illustrator files through it and thus misusing it turned it into a creative tool.
The subject has to be stupid: My first job out of school was with a friend doing production for a promo products company, basically slapping logos on beer cozies and pencils. One of the things we used to trip out on was how the guy who worked there before us would design catalogs in Photoshop. He’d have like 30 two-page spreads in separate files and each one would be hundreds of megabytes (adjusted for Photoshop inflation, they’d probably 2 gigabytes each now). So while we were doing the inane work of putting bank logos on stress balls I’d run this guy’s files through my MP3 encoder and 20–30 minutes later we’d listen to the results which would be amazing. I started hunting through the archives looking for the ugliest, most over-designed things that I could find. I don’t know if it gets any stupider than that.
“Good enough” outcomes: At the time I was listening to a lot of harsh noise — in particular the cut-up/gestural John Wiese stuff — and the first things that came out of running files through BladeEnc were boring and short but once I hit something interesting it sounded like what I dug in noise: high-contrast, rich tones, and unexpected hard-panning.
Reduce decision-making: There was almost no decisions to be made — just throw files into the app and see what happens. I think the only “creative” choice was what bit-depth to set the conversion to and I may have even killed that choice by always using the same setting. Later I’d sift through the results and pick out the most interesting pieces and rename them according to track length.
Quantity over quality: This is my favorite kind of work because you need quantity to get quality.
Needs to be fun regardless of outcome: Yep.
No goals or aspirations: I had no notions of doing a “project”. It was just a funny thing to do that yielded interesting results.
Fix mistakes but don’t do revisions. This ties into limiting decisions but I like the idea of embracing whatever the song has to offer. So if a track is dynamic and violent for 15 seconds and then it’s just the same tone for the next 3 minutes I wouldn’t edit it at all (so long as the tones were interesting).
Forget preconceptions of what an artist is or does: This is the piece that was missing. I didn’t commit to the project because it violated SO many of my preconceived notions of what made something “real art”. Actually I could just talk about the opposite of all the preceding rules:
- Music is made using proper tools (in a focused environment like a studio) that you have an expertise in such as instruments and software. Experimental music should definitely use custom software or tools that do what you want them to.
- if you’re going to use something “stupid” as the source for your art then you need to have a strong rationale for doing so (meaning that using it becomes a commentary on some aspect of art or culture. “This is dope” would not be a strong rationale.)
- Musicians, DJ’s, producers all do some form of writing, designing and performing music. I was just noticing something and not even giving it any kind of a finish. I didn’t even know how to generate these sounds or make the songs any other way.
- Art should be hard. This was easy so therefore it can’t possibly be good.
- Art is the accumulation of your decisions. What does it mean if I’m trying to avoid decisions but also not interested in Conceptual Art?

So what I noticed in reviewing this work is that it hit all the right cues when I initially made it and now that I’m willing to embrace that something can be easy with no rationale or conceptual rigor; that sound can communicate nothing besides it’s own existence; and that sometimes you just get lucky; now I can truly own the results.

I don’t think everyone should hold the same values in regards to making work but I do believe that if you’re feeling stuck or thinking that “Making Art” and “Joyless Existence” are one in the same then you should look back across your creative activities and find those moments where things were easy, fun, maybe even funny, and ask yourself “What is it that I believe that doesn’t allow me to make THIS my work?”. I think there’s often some idea about tools, content, or maybe the time you think should be invested to make something of value that is keeping you from working in the way that would be best for you.

***

So with no further ado, here is Cages 1. Created September–October, 2004; Released August 2008; Remastered by myself in January 2020 to soften some of the more ear-piercing tones.

And, lastly, I found a batch of the 2008 original CDr with screenprinted covers and put them in the shop.