oblique strategies_ brian eno’s prompts for overcoming creative block, inspired by john cage _...

8/12/2019 Oblique Strategies_ Brian Enos Prompts for Overcoming Creative Block, Inspired by John Cage _ Brain Pickings

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Oblique Strategies: Brian Enos Prompts for OvercomingCreative Block, Inspired by John Cageby Maria Popova

If a thing can be said, it can be said simply.

Stop thinking about art works as objects, and start thinking about them as

triggers for experiences, ambient music pioneer Brian Eno wrote in his diary . It

is precisely this ethos that explains Enos medium-blind, experience-centric

creative impulse underpinning the visual arts career that he undertook in the

1960s, which developed in tandem with his growth as a musician. That is

precisely what Christopher Scoates , director of the University Art Museum at

California State University, explores with unprecedented depth and dimension

in Brian Eno: Visual Music ( public library ) a magnificent monograph

spanning more than four decades of Enos music projects and museum and

gallery installations, contextualized amidst a wealth of exhibition notes,

sketchbook pages, and other never-before-revealed archival materials.
http://www.worldcat.org/title/brian-eno-visual-music/oclc/829744360&referer=brief_resultshttp://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1452108498/braipick-20http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/05/15/happy-birthday-brian-eno-the-father-of-ambient-music-on-art/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/author/mpopova/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2014/01/22/brian-eno-visual-music-oblique-strategies/


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Brian Eno lecturing at the MoMA, 1990.

In a 2005 interview for the British Arts Council, Eno came to compare his work to that of John Cage :

John Cage made a choice at a certain point: he chose not to interfere with the music content anymore.But the approach I have chosen was different from his. I dont reject interference; I choose to interfere andguide. . . . The music systems designed by Cage are choice-free, he doesnt filter what comes out of his

mind; people have to accept them passively. But my approach is, although I dont interfere with thecompletion of a system, if the end result is not good, Ill ditch it and do something else. This is a fundamentaldifference between Cage and me. If you consider yourself to be an experimental musician, youll have toaccept that some of your experiments will fail. Though the failed works might be interesting too, they are not
http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/07/05/where-the-heart-beats-john-cage-kay-larson/http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1452108498/braipick-20


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Strategies on the song Sense of Doubt.

Oblique Strategies, 1974
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1452108498/braipick-20


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Eno first confronted this interweaving of music and visual art in his formal arts education, amidst the groundswell

of the avant-garde and the Fluxus movement with its bold proclamation that anything can be art and anyone can do

it. He empathically embraced this inclusive model of creativity in defiance to the specializations and constraints of

the traditional art world, asserting:

Art schools manage to balance themselves on the fence between telling you what to do step by step, andleaving you free to do what you want. Their orientation is basically towards the production of specialists, andtowards the provision of ambitions, of goals, and identities. The assumption of the correct identity painter,sculptor fattens you up for the market. The identity becomes a straightjacket; it becomes progressivelymore dangerous to step outside of it.


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'77 Million Paintings,' Sydney Opera House, 2009

Brian Eno: Visual Music is beautiful and compelling in its entirety. Complement it with the psychology of getting

unstuck and some of todays most celebrated writers, artists, and designers on how to break through your creative

block .

Im ages courtesy of Chron icle Boo ks
http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/10/01/breakthrough-alex-cornell/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/10/17/ok-plateau/http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1452108498/braipick-20http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1452108498/braipick-20

oblique strategies_ brian eno’s prompts for overcoming creative block, inspired by john cage _...

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