The first rough cut from my video poetry collaboration with DJ Cue is up. The music was composed by DJ Cue (Bobby Cuevas) while I provided the visuals and recorded ambient audio. This was made possible thanks to Talenthouse.com and their Creative Invite collaboration platform. This is a rough cut, so it doesn’t include the poetry dialogue that I will eventually add (actually, I’m looking for a woman with a nice classic German accent to do some voice recording), but it’s a nice visual representation of what I’m trying to create. Video imagery includes the abandoned Bärenquell Brauerei in East Berlin, Barbara running through Zurich Bahnhofstrasse (shoot organized with Ethan Oelman), and also a quick look from a underground club night in Berlin, part of an Alternative Berlin night tour I did in the city. Thanks to everyone involved, now that I’ve setup my computers in my new apartment I can get back to shooting and creating on a more normal basis. Enjoy…
Talenthouse
Winner Announcement: Video Poetry Project
The grand video poetry creative invite experiment is going to the next level. I am pleased to announce that Bobby Cuevas is the winner. There were 15 entries from artists in different corners of the world submitting to the contest, and I had the opportunity to pick one to work with. Thank to everyone who submitted to the contest, it was truly an honor to see people creating music for the project, and using Talenthouse to connect us was excellent. The winner of the contest has the opportunity to work together with me on my next series of video poetry short films. I’ve never been in the position of choosing a contest winner, and in the end the choice was made on context.
Context
Judging creative work of others is a strange business, and in the end it comes down to tastes and context. There’s really no other honest way to do it. Something can be technically great but not be what you’re looking for. The context is the head of the person choosing, and isn’t something that can be predicted or necessarily designed for. This was one of the main lessons from the Professional Artists seminar I attended at the F&F Kunst schule in Zurich this summer. Art is bought in the gallery scene based on context. Is it new, does it fit with the gallery, is it maketable, does it create a reaction – and how does it do that in relaitonship to all the other art in the Zurich art world? Art doesn’t have value without context, and as the context changes, so does the value of the art.
Decisions Decisions
For the decision process, I mainly looked to see what the music would create in my head, and based off of how ambivalent or twisted those images were, I decided to go with that artist. I figured, the music which creates the strongest reaction in me is probably the best one to go with. This was a measure of how the work of the artists would match my work. There were a number of entries which were excellent, and I could imagine creating a movie with them, but just didn’t fit into the context of the project I have in my head. As an artist, the most important thing is to connect with people who like your work, that is the context in which you will be successful, and sometimes it just needs to be one or two people.
Bobby did a production called Coming Together, it starts with a cut from the song Come Together, and then drops into a drumming rhythm, it sort of bores into my head and remixing into a fluid menagerie that just mixes well with images of a Bratz doll 50 feet tall, walking through Detroit with a .50 Cal sniper rifle. It was the later part of the track that started pushing my neurons around. I could see a sort of blackness with interspiced flashes and a person walking down the street, the camera in my head did a pan and then a steadycam momevent around a guy’s face, then the scene was reversed in editing and then there was a robot fish crawling out of the ocean and started to walk.
So, I look forward to working with Bobby on a video poetry short film series. Thank you to Talenthouse, adambrioza, ybudman, lollyjean and everyone who submitted to the video poetry creative invite.
Bobby Cuevas
Voting Open! Collaborate On a Video Poetry Project
Voting is open on the video poetry creative invite at Talenthouse.com! To recap, I have a creative invite running on Talenthouse, where the winner will have the opportunity to work together with me on a video poetry series of short films. I wrote about the contest previously, and now this wonderful experiment in online collaboration and general creativity awesomeness is coming to an end. Well, the first part, then will come the video poetry series. For the contest, I provided some images of inspiration, including images of Bratz and War, and the participants then needed to create a music track to submit to the contest. The highest voted songs will get the first listens from me, and I’ll then work with the winner (whoever created the best mix in my mind) if they’re interested. For the video poetry part, I’ll create some poetry concepts and shoot the needed video, and the winner can have their music featured as a component of the final videos. It’s all very non-linear and experimental, but when you challenge people, excellent things always happen. The voting is open here on Talenthouse:
Voting Open: Collaborate with American Peyote on a poetry short film series
Gonzo Art Presentation
Today is the day I give a presentation on my art at the Rote Fabrik. It’s all part of the professional artist class from the F&F school in Zurich. We’ve focused on writing the artist statement, and today I give a 45 minute presentation of Gonzo Art. There are a number of seemingly unplanned for events which have lead up to the point of me trying to tell the story of my paintings, but for sure I wouldn’t be at this point if I hadn’t won the 1 Day of Art Copenhagen creative invite on Talenthouse. Copenhagen was a stronger marker in my life, and the kind folks from (t)here magazine gave me a creative spring-board to propel myself somewhere I wouldn’t gone otherwise. I like to think I do various forms of art, but this presentation is totally focused on the Gonzo Art concept. It borrows from the Gonzo journalism themes set down by Hunter S. Thompson, I interpret it in art as meaning that the idea goes from the sub-conscious mind of the artist to the world as quickly as possible. No digital, no editing, pure inspiration thrown down on the canvas. Below is my presentation on SlideShare, I’ll add a version with audio but these are the bare-bones of the beast. The final version will include videos showing how my paint lands on the canvas and how the final form of the works evolve (basically like the videos I created for my Lazy Art period). So, I’ve done Lazy Art, this has morphed into Gonzo Art, and for sure it’ll evolve into something else – but here’s the story so far.
Work With Me on a Video Poetry Project
Something went live the other day, a fine determined attempt at creative collaboration on a global scale. It’s called, Collaborate on a Video Poetry Film Series. It’s a creative invite on Talenthouse.com, that fabulous website that connects creators together and is the current website to be on for interesting collaboration opportunities. Essentially I’m looking for a person to work with on a video poetry series. From my side, I’ll provide the visuals and words and you provide the soundtrack. I’ll mix everything together and we’ll ride the wave of internet propaganda to stardom together. On the creative invite page on Talenthouse is the inspiration. There’s a video of my latest still images, and the idea is that DJ’s, producers, etc. can be inspired by that to submit a track that fits to the images. I’ll pick the music submission that best fits in my brain and then we’ll collaborate together on a series of video poetry short films. It doesn’t matter who or where you are in the world, this is an opportunity to connect and work together across cultural, economic, societal and internet boundaries.
Where did the idea for this come from? It was a pretty organic evolution of the internet, inspiration, and motivation. In 2010 I submitted some paintings to a Talenthouse Creative Invite. I won the invite, and then participated at 1 Day of Art Copenhagen with (t)here magazine, then I printed a card of my best painting from Copenhagen and sent it to Jennifer Chalbaud in Venezuela who then had a dream inspired by my Gonzo Art and she created a cool design for Mambo Surf Deluxe. I wrote a blog post about it all and then Talenthouse contacted me, seeing if I would be interested in running a community creative invite. I said hell yes, and here we are.
I like painting because it’s the unknown. I never know what will come when I stare down that big white canvas, and I have no idea what will happen with this creative invite, but soon I’m going to find out. When I create I often think like a movie maker, I hear the music in my ears and break paintings up into little movies in my head. That’s why I’m excited about the possibilities of this opportunity. It’s the possibility of meeting someone motivated to create great music to mix well with the art I’m creating. In this context the idea of video peotry films is just natural for me, it’s the natural evolution of art and video. If you’re a music maker, please check out the creative invite, and you have my deepest gratitude if you pass the word on to anyone you know who might be interested. Click here to visit the page on Talenthouse.com, and below is a video explaining the idea.
and here is the inspiration…
Talenthouse – Inspiration Around the Globe
I live in Switzerland, and here is a picture of Jennifer Chalbaud in Venezuela, holding a picture of my Gonzo Art painting. The internet is a fine and fabulous thing, but I grew up writing things with a pen, and that’s sometimes the best way to send a message. This isn’t always the case, my hand-writing can be horrible and near impossible to read. However, if I take my time the writing is coherent. Sometimes I’ll write a letter on the computer and then write it out by hand to send. In the instant message update world of Facebook and Twitter, I think it’s important to write by hand sometimes. Just like I think it’s important to sometimes paint with real brushes instead of only with the virtual ones in Photoshop. Words are sometimes more meaningful when you know that someone took the time to write them specifically just for you. Sharing words on Facebook and Twitter is fine, it’s fun to do and sometimes contributes to the over-throw of governments. Sharing written words is a dying form of communication, but it’s far more likely that you’ll be able to read a written letter you’ve saved in twenty years than find the random Tweets you’ve sent.
The Background
Sometime in the past I joined a website called Talenthouse.com and added some paintings to my portfolio. This was all fine and good, but then I applied to a Creative Invite competition, I won, and as a result spent a weekend in Copenhagen as a guest at Hotel Fox, doing paintings for (t)here magazine. This was an interesting time, but one of the cooler points of a place like Talenthouse, is that you meet interesting people you wouldn’t have met in any other way. One such person is Jennifer Chalbaud, a fashion designer from Venezuela. Around Christmas time in 2010 I decided I needed to stop just using Facebook and Twitter to send messages and decided to step back in time and write some cards or letters. To be dramatic, I told people I was protesting the instant update. I decided it would be best to get some of my photos/paintings printed, so I got cards made at moo.com, my favorite place for such things. I had five images printed, including a Bratz doll, an image from my ProtestLove series, and Gonzo Art (my masterpiece to date), produced in Copenhagen. I figured it would be best to send cards to people who want them, and I posted an update to Facebook/Twitter asking if anyone wanted me to send them a card. One of those who responded was Jennifer. She said she liked my Gonzo Art image so naturally I sent her one of those. In the card I basically said that it’s been cool getting to know about her and her work, and that it’s great to get to know people who you feel inspired by.
Sharing is Good
Eventually the Gonzo Art card worked its way through the global mail systems and ended up in her mailbox. Then Jennifer had a dream (this is how she described it). In her dream I was at a beach taking some portraits of a couple, and the couple had done some body paintings done in the style of my Gonzo Art. The idea for Gonzo Art was taken by me from from the writing style of the late Hunter S. Thompson, the idea being that the work is done fast and with a purpose. It should happen in the moment – without thinking, the hand writes what the mind perceives and it’s sent off to the printed without edits (of course, this never happened in reality). So, Jennifer followed that style for her inspiration and created a design for the Mambo Surfdeluxe contest on Facebook.
I’m a trained scientist and I naturally like to look for patterns in life. Patterns give people a certain reassurance, a slight feeling of being able to sort of tell the future by understanding the rules of the World and the rhythms that operate in the universe. Other people prefer total chaos. One of the surest patterns I know in this life is that sharing leads to good things. It worked when I was five and it works even better now. I shared my art on Talenthouse and had an awesome experience painting in Copenhagen. I shared some thoughts with Jennifer and sent her an image of my art and she was inspired to create something new of her own. She has shared this creation on the Mambo Surfdeluxe Facebook page, and it has been viewed by a number of different people, and I wonder what they have been inspired to do. Be inspired, create, share, repeat.
Check out more of Jennifer Chalbaud on Talenthouse, Facebook, and Twitter (@jennychalbaud)
Gonzo Kanto Speakers on Talenthouse
I was looking through my Facebook and saw that Jennifer Chalbaud, a designer I had met through Talenthouse had submitted to the Kanto AV speaker Creative Invite, and that it was ending in 6 hours. I had a vision for a second, and wondered what it would be like to combine Lazy Art IV and Gonzo Art in a speaker design. It seemed fitting, to take the art created from 1 Day of Art Copenhagen, and see how it would work when applied to product design. I got back to my place around 5:30pm and had until 7pm to submit my design. After screwing around with SketchUp and a dxf file in Adobe Illustrator for 30 minutes I decided to go back to what I know and started making layers and masking in Photoshop. The result might scare some people, but I would buy one.
I started off with a white Kanto speaker box from Talenthouse…it’s a nice simplistic design, speakers on the front, clean lines, contoured sides and curves, something very clean and sexy. At this point, one could go with a minimalistic design to complement the form of the product, or go in the opposite direction and create something that dominates, both in color and form. I decided on impulse to go with the latter approach, and in my mind grafted two paintings onto the Kanto…
My favorite painting from 1 Day of Art went on the front, using the lower section of the patinting, which includes passages of writing, and this flows upwards with the Basquiat-Alien inspired head. I wanted somthing else for the top though, and decided to go with Lazy Art IV, which is sort of a universe view, with lots of color combinations running into one another. The paintings are sort of inspired from music, visions in the head, so it made sense to combine them with a speaker design. The final design is on Talenthouse at…Design for limited edition Kanto speakers
1 Day of Art Reflections: Pondering Talent
Editor’s Note: This piece is inspired by ideas brought to light in the author’s mind while reflecting on his participation at 1 Day of Art Copenhagen for (t)here magazine. They are a reflection of these experiences and mean little else. My eternal gratitude goes to Talenthouse, (t)here Magazine, my supporters and Hotel Fox for the opportunity to paint in Copenhagen.
Find your audience (or allow them to find you), that’s all you’re really doing as an artist as I see it. Don’t trust in what people say you’re talented in, trust in what you love to do. It doesn’t matter if you can draw the most perfect head in history, because buyers and appreciators of feet photos won’t give a shit. Finding your audience and porn are what the internet is good for. There are many artists, writers, engineers and scientists who “got found” after they died, because their audience didn’t find them while they were alive. Imagine if they had stopped because they thought that no one cared, then we would know nothing of Syliva Plath, Ludwig Boltzmann, Emily Dickinson, and other great thinkers of recent history. During their lives, they probably didn’t know an audience for their work existed (then or in the future) – or maybe they didn’t care if anyone enjoyed it. That’s what I see Talenthouse and their Creative Invite as being really good for, a way to find and connect with your audience, those people who appreciate what you’re producing. In my case the audience was (t)here magazine. Really it was just a few people, but the Creative Invite made that happen. Motivation feeds creation, and when you know that somebody, somewhere cares about what you’re producing, that simple feeling can energize your mind in unpredictable ways. Connect audience to artists – easy to understand – simple to execute. But does any of this matter if there’s no talent at play to create things? What is talent and how do you harness that wonderful energy?
What is Talent?
Of course, when somebody says something about talent and creating cool things the following thought comes up, “but those people had talent for something, they were bound to be appreciated.” So now you might wonder, “what is talent, do I have it for something?” I can only rely my own experiences on this subject. I’ll switch now to an analogy on head and foot illustrations. See, I have been drawing heads for years now, mainly in class notes, but sometimes also on random pieces of paper at bars or in journals. There was and at present is no actual reason for these random head illustrations. I just do them because the smooth form of the random, anatomically incorrect head is something I like. However, until 1 Day of Art Copenhagen, I hadn’t found anyone, an audience let’s say, for pictures or illustrations of heads. This screaming head shown here (for example) I drew during a class on colloids sort of pissed off a chemical engineering professor at MSU, but only because he wasn’t the right audience for my work (and I wasn’t the right audience for his lecture). As an artist, there is no ambiguity about it, just do what you love and feel drawn to. That’s it, that’s what talent is. It is simply the motivation to do things other people aren’t motivated to do. For example, I’ve spent a lot of time playing musical instruments like the violin, saxophone, and trumpet, but I’m not a natural talent with these instruments because I’m not really motivated to play them. It’s fun to blow some air and produce some sounds and play with other people, but it’s not like I feel the energy of the world flowing through my body. In fact, I rather liked being the last chair in the band (four years in a row). I simply had no motivation to do more. I’m also not naturally talented as an engineer. Sure it’s fun to learn about materials science and mechanics and I do it well, but I could have studied anything for 10 years and become reasonably well at doing it (like playing the trumpet).
The Talent Myth
Humans like complicated scenarios, so we write a lot about talent and inspiration because we’d like to waste our time talking and discussing a complicated theory for how they relate to one another instead of creating something. Most people feel that they’re not really talented, and therefore, should simply just exist – without pushing themselves to create things that other people are not interested in. However, this is not the only option. Just do what you love and feel drawn to, that’s really all you need to do. Why? Because you’ll be naturally motivated to do it better than anyone else in the whole fucking world. That is actually a very real and distinct advantage you have over everyone else. This is an advantage you have over nearly everyone else in the entire world. Think about that, it’s not a small thing. If you try to trick yourself into being talented in something that you hate, and follow what other people love (as opposed to what you love), you’re setting yourself up for disappointment. For example, if you’re a head drawing lover, and you start to draw feet because you think people only like feet pictures, then you’re at a distinct disadvantage if you finally meet a head picture lover. They’ll be totally ignorant of your talent for drawing heads because all you’ll have to show them is a crappy collection of sub-par feet illustrations and maybe some photos.
Do What You Love
It was always irrelevant to everyone that I drew random heads. However, they made me happy, something about the perfect aerodynamic form that I like, but when I was staring at a blank canvas in the Diamonds room at Hotel Fox in Copenhagen, I realized that I needed to draw a large head. I didn’t ask why, I just did it. That was the starting point for a piece I now call GonzoArt – I. But think about it, if I had stopped drawing heads because I thought I’d never have an audience for them, then at that precise moment in time I would have been fucked – and might have possibly drawn a large boring foot, and the painting would now suck balls.
Talent can be considered inherent, but it’s not something you can quantify and say, this person has talent, they will be an awesome foot illustrator from their birth until their death. It’s just a desire to practice something with more motivation than the majority of the rest of the people in the world. Cameras, pens, video devices, paints, these are just tools you can use, but they should never be the defining factor in whatever it is you produce and then call art.
You are not talented or special. Now that you know you’re not talented you’re free to just go out and do whatever it is that makes you smile inside.
First Thoughts: Back From 1 Day of Art Copenhagen
Editor’s Note: This is just the beginning, 1 Day of Art has unleashed a strange cocktail of awareness in our poor author, and he now walks around calling himself, “The Engineer Formerly Know As” and won’t respond to inquires about F=ma. The authorities have been alerted.
It’s just over a week ago that I jumped on a SwissAir flight to Copenhagen and headed directly to Hotel Fox to participate in 1 Day of Art for (t)here magazine. The experience was simply amazing, an adventure in the truest sense of the word, and a time I’ll never forget. I had won this trip via a Creative Invite on Talenthouse.com, the social networking site for all manner of artists and creators. The plan was simple, to fly to Copenhagen to make some art for the magazine within the 24 hour time limit. I stayed in the Diamonds room at Hotel Fox, an establishment where every room in a piece of art, the perfect place to create in. I arrived at the hotel around 4pm, and met up with the (t)here magazine crew around 8pm with the other artists to chose our topics for the 24 hour creation madness. I drew a card from a deck of famous Danish figures, and on the back it said, “Artist’s Choice.” This meant I was free to do whatever I felt was right (or wrong), and I decided to choose nothing, placing my full faith in the process, sure that something coherent and good would create itself. All that was needed was to be the enabler of the energy flow.
I am not a religious man. I like to think of myself as spiritual, and believe that art is pure energy. Those who know of physics and electricity or have an appreciation for the dangerous forces of Nature can appreciate this analogy; you do not create or destroy matter, and energy can not be dominated, only diverted in one way or another. That’s what painting is for me, my body directing the energy of creation. No God need enter into the equation, because no sane God would have anything to do with such foolishness, but that’s another topic. I got my assignment at 8pm on Friday night, and had till 8pm Saturday to deliver. I stayed out most of Friday night, soaking up Copenhagen and avoiding prostitutes on the street. I crawled out of bed around 10 am and had an amazing breakfast in the hotel lobby. Jason, one of the (t)here magazine crew asked me if I’d started working and I said I was heading out to find some canvases. The night before I’d been given some directions to a store to buy supplies at, and around 11 am I began the hunt. As I was out I pulled out one of my Bratz dolls (the backup plan) and posed it next to a glass of beer waiting on the street, it seemed like the right thing to do.
I got back to the hotel around 12:30 with three of the most expensive canvases I’ve ever bought. Fine linen things stretched over solid wood frames, perfect for propping up in the hotel bathroom for a proper splatter fest. I had brought a rolling MountainSmith bag filled with creation implements with me to the hotel. Among the mayhem, a set of Manga markers – a Christmas gift from my ex-girlfriend. I’d never really used them before, but knew they’d be essential for the trip. I then removed my T-shirt, assembled paints, and began the process. For the next 4-5 hours I filled each white canvas with color and shapes. I wrote with paint pens, colored with Manga markers, and added layers of latex on top because it felt right and good to do. By 6pm they were done, and I’d documented the whole process with my A900 DSLR. I’m not a dramatic person, and dislike it when people use over-used taglines like, “once in a lifetime” and “life changing” or “turning point.” However, 1 Day of Art Copenhagen feels like a once in a lifetime life changing turning point for me. It was the first time I’d really just sort of let go and executed an art project. For sure, there were many points leading up to this day, but it’s the apex, which we remember and remark upon.
Time to Jet: Paints Packed for Copenhagen
This weekend I’m heading to 1 Day of Art in Copenhagen and I’m sort of freaking out. To recap, I won the 1 Day of Art Creative Invite offered on Talenthouse, sponsored by (t)here magazine and Hotel Fox. The point of the adventure is to create a body of art in 24 hours for the magazine. There are only a few things I know for sure, floating around in my conscious brain, I have a flight to Copenhagen and a confirmation at Hotel Fox, all else is basically a mystery. When I asked what I should bring along, I was informed,
“bring what you need to create. camera. paint spray paint glue sticky notes paper sketch books”
Naturally I have most of these things on hand, but shopping for paints is ten time more fun than shopping for shoes, so I headed to the stores to pick up some paints and accessories for the trip, but now my heads are filled with adrenaline and sort of freaking out. You can’t think too much here, because you don’t know what’s coming. What will the Assignment be? We must prepare ourselves for anything, the future is a blank page and I’m walking into it with a curious anticipation I’ve never felt before. I have no game plan when it comes to art. I like the moment of creation to be unconnected from planning and science. I don’t plan out paintings, I don’t imagine how colors should connect with shapes, I just let myself fall into a trance state and let it all flow out. So it’s sort of hard to know what to take along. However, I’ve accepted the flight ticket and will now enjoy the ride.
My take-with list includes:
- Various tubes of latex paint, rollers, sponge brushes
- Paint and Manga markers
- Sony A900, Sony F58 flashes, Orbis ring flash adapter
- A head full of nervous anticipation
I don’t want to come off as a kindergarten-hack painter in Copenhagen, but I guess the best way to deal with these emotional insecurities is with a healthy cocktail of unearned confidence and a generous quantity of “just be yourself.” I was picked based on the Lazy Art I submitted, so logically I just have to do what I was doing before, and resist the urge to rewatch Basquiat and attempt to play myself off as some nouveau uber-awesome creative artist, because at the end of the day, I’m nothing more glamorous than a Doktor of Science. I should be prepared for anything. However, the airline has a baggage limit, and you’re always improvising with what you have anyways, no matter how much stuff you bring along to an event or setup in a laboratory. Whatever I create at 1 Day of Art it’ll probably have some elements of illustration, painting (color throwing) and writing. I can’t really separate these things, they all come up in the process and it seems like a natural thing to combine them all. I’m uber excited to see what happens in Copenhagen, a city I’ve never been to and an environment I’ve never experienced before, it’s primed to be an awesome time and I’m still in awe that it’s happening.
Heading to 1 Day of Art in Copenhagen
Strange and interesting opportunities come to those that seek them out. That’s the a sequence of words which come into mine when I pondered the email I had received from Talenthouse, stating in clear and unclutterd language that my Lazy Art submission had won me a trip to Copenhagen to participate in the 1 Day of Art event from (t)here Magazine.
Talenthouse is a social-networking website for creatives. I joined it a year or so ago, and eventually started adding to my online portfolio. It has a slick interface and is designed to be a very socially-oriented website. It’s like Flickr with the visual feeling of DeviantArt and something that no other website I know of offers, the opportunity to submit work to Creative Invites. It’s like this, a company organizes an invite, users submit their work, the sponsor picks the winners, and in my case, it means a flight to Copenhagen and a free license to go crazy creating art for an issue of (t)here magazine.
I submitted three pieces from my Lazy Art collection of 1mx1m paintings. These are graffiti inspired splatter feats of madness I do in my apartment from time to time. I started painting because it’s more fun than playing on Photoshop, and a billion times more interesting than screwing around on Facebook or watching MTV. Getting to do this in Copenhagen is sort of like a weird dream sequence. I don’t know what will happen there, but I’m heading into the future with an open mind and soul filled with desire to experience the unknown.
The premise of 1 Day of Art Copenhagen is straight forward. I fly to Copenhagen, there’s a bunch of other artists, photographers, etc. who will be there as well. We blindly pick an editorial assignment, and then have 24 hours to create a body of work on that mysterious subject. Here’s the official out line of events from (t)here magazine:
On October 1, 2010, artists of all disciplines will gather in COPENHAGEN for a one day creative event – 1 DAY OF ART. In this premier (t)here magazine concept – photographers, writers, visual artists, designers, and musicians will participate in an undisclosed editorial assignment. Our participants will gather in one location where they will randomly draw their assigned subject. Their subsequent content must be executed in one day, and executed within the city limits of Copenhagen. All files and relevant materials are due 24 hours later
The results will be published in (t)here Volume 13, due for release in SPRING 2011.
To be honest, this is balls to the wall scary for me because I don’t have any clue what’s coming, and I run the risk of making a fool of myself on the world stage. It’s also barrel-of-monkies fun, the type of trip I was born to go on. When fear and the thought of falling on my face creep up my spine, I look inward to setting my mind. I look at it like mountaineering. No sane person can head into the mountains without thinking they could die. Or, I think that’s the only responsible way to mountaineer. This sort of mindset keeps your senses alert and sharp, even when you’ve been out for 10 hours and your legs are shaking on the rock edge of a long ridge. You keep going because there’s no other option, and that’s my mindset for Copenhagen, head into the adventure without much of a plan, but all the disrespect for failure my sarcastic personality can muster.
There are a few things – philosophies if you will, that work for me in life. It starts with accepting that I may die on each mountaineering trip, welcoming that I’ll probably fail at whatever I start out doing, and believing that that inevitable failure means absolutely nothing. This method has served me well so far in life. It means I’ll try nearly anything, including walking into a cloud of tear gas, just to see what it will feel like (it’s like cooking too many onions in a kitchen with the window closed) and even if I do screw up along the way, I’m not blocked from going forward and living an interesting life. I know this comes off as sounding a little arrogant, but I’m a vented Doktor of Science, and assure you that I’m the first to admit when I’m spewing nonsense from my lips.
I would like to officially thank Talenthouse, (t)here Magazine, and Hotel Fox for making this adventure possible. I don’t know what will happen next, but my senses are alert, and I’m geared in the head to find out what will materialize from this interesting course of events.