A few months ago I saw an amazing art installation in the basement of Selfridges (I have such postmodern Saturday afternoons) - Brian Eno’s 77 Million Paintings. Like you, my first thought was “Brian Eno may be a genius but even he can’t do 77 Million Paintings… or can he?”. Well, he has - sort of. He actually painted about 300, then used software to merge and blend them at random, to create a shifting kaleidoscope, inevitably accompanied by his signature ambient music.

OK that description doesn’t sound too mind-blowing and even this YouTube video doesn’t do it justice - but when you see the paintings blown up on massive screens in a cathedral-dark space and you feel the deep notes vibrating through your body, it’s a genuinely mesmerising experience. As if stained glass windows had come to life.

One of the most impressive things about it was the slowness with which the images changed, so that the transformation was barely discernible. I would stare at an image, waiting for it to change, convinced that nothing was happening, then suddenly realise I was looking at a different picture. I had the feeling that at last I was looking at what computer-generated imagery should be capable of - not in terms of dazzling fireworks, but subtlety and suggestion.

So it was great to come across this post on the Bad Banana Blog, informing me that 77 Million Paintings is available as a DVD and software CD - so I can (ahem) install the installation in my living room and experience something of the (ahem) ambience of the original. And so can you - Amazon links on the 77 Million Paintings site.

Thanks to Roger for introducing me to the Bad Banana Blog which looks terrific - written by Tim Siedel, Creative Director of Fusebox, who have won so many awards they’ve given up entering them. A man who obviously knows his creative onions, well worth reading.

(Photos courtesy Mrs WT.)

Technorati Tags: 77 million paintings, Eno

I’m off to the PSFK conference on Friday - if you’re going and fancy meeting up, send me an e-mail.

Today was the prize draw for the spare Ball of Whacks sent to me by its creator, Roger von Oech. The commenters’ names went in the hat this afternoon, and the name drawn out by the independent adjudicator was… Katie Konrath. Congratulations Katie, the Ball of Whacks will be winging its way to you very shortly.

Thanks to everyone who shared their experience of the physical world and creativity in the comments on my Ball of Whacks post. Judging from your comments and blogs/sites you’re all doing interesting creative things. Here are the links for others to check out, in order of commenting:

Susanne

Ms Blog KX

Nina

Katie Konrath

Rosanne

Carolyn Manning

Finally thanks to Roger von Oech for providing the inspirational Ball of Whacks.

There’s a Ball of Whacks created by Roger von Oech up for grabs on Wishful Thinking this week. To enter the draw you just need to add a comment on my Ball of Whacks post about the effect of the physical world on your creativity. I’ll choose the winner at random and send the ball out next week. There are only 2 entries so far so the odds are looking pretty good… Comments by high noon on Saturday please.

Edit: we now have a winner.

Looks like I gave the Creative Links feature the kiss of death back in February when I rashly promised to do it every week. Sorry about that - one of the pitfalls of enthusiasm. I’ll start doing it again as an occasional feature and see how it goes - hopefully a natural rhythm will emerge…

Dan Brodnitz is compiling a terrific series of interviews with artists at Conversations about Creativity. Interviewees so far include a painter (James Warren Perry), a poet (Bob Holman), a dancer (Natalie Marrone), a musician (John Coulton) and the inimitable Ze Frank. Under the heading ‘Working artists share what works’, the interviews provide fascinating insights into the creative process. I particularly like the way Dan seems to be deliberately covering a wide range of creative disciplines, so that the common themes (and differences) can emerge. If you like Wishful Thinking, you’ll love these.

I enthused about Darren Rowse’s Problogger in my piece about blogging for creatives - he’s recently written a good series on creativity, including 5 Ways to Enhance Your Creativity, How to Be a More Creative Blogger, and 9 Attitudes of Highly Creative People.

One site I should have included in my list of good blogs by creatives is David Airey’s Creative Design - a superb example of how to market yourself as a freelance creative, and full of good advice for creating and improving your blog. Unsurprisingly, it also looks great.

Spread the Word have alerted me to their upcoming course Urban Bloggers - run by poet Karen McCarthy it aims “to improve your writing across all media by using the blog as an interactive space to enrich the creative process”. With the emphasis on creative writing, it looks like a refreshing alternative to blogging as a business tool. I’ve heard good things about Spread the Word from other sources and it looks like they have a great range of writing courses lined up for the summer.

Deb Khan is on a roll at Creative Inspiration, with some good stuff about creativity and culture. I feel at home on a blog that has no qualms about mixing football and opera. And even the great Seth has paid a visit, showing he’s not completely allergic to comments. Deb is just as charming in person and she’s doing some really interesting work around creativity.

That’s all for this ‘week’. If you’re hungry for more creativity links you can always subscribe to my del.icio.us creativity bookmarks…

One of the nice things about blogging is you never know what’s going to happen next. Like the day I received an e-mail out of the blue from Roger von Oech.

I first came across Roger’s work about 10 years ago, when I read A Whack on the Side of the Head, a mind-bending book on creative thinking that became an instant favourite, and which I’ve since plundered many times for ideas to use with clients. Along with his follow-up A Kick in the Seat of the Pants, it’s had a significant influence on my creative writing and coaching. Roger is one of the first authors I turn to when I’m looking for inspiration, or when I’m recommending books to clients.

So you can imagine my surprise when I checked my e-mail one day to see the name ‘Roger von Oech’ in the ‘From’ field. At first I thought there was something wrong with my e-mail software, or that it was the work of an ingenious spammer. But the e-mail looked genuine enough - Roger said he’d noticed some traffic coming from my blog to his and had stopped by to check out the source. I’d forgotten that I’d added his blog to my blogroll, which explained the occasion of his visit - but I was still surprised and touched that such a distinguished author had made the effort to get in touch with me, and say nice things about my writing on creativity! It was a little surreal.

On reflection, it suggested a genuine curiosity and humility in the author, who said he was relatively new to blogging and checking things out. Over the next few weeks I noticed Roger’s comments springing up on my blog and others I was reading - he seemed to be throwing himself wholeheartedly into the blogging adventure, with all the enthusiasm for experimentation and learning that shines through his books.

A few days later, Roger asked for a shipping address and I was delighted to receive two of his new Ball of Whacks creativity toys. What is the Ball of Whacks? It’s hard to describe - I could begin by saying it’s a collection of magnetic plastic shapes that can be arranged to form a variety of polyhedra, but that would sound a little dry. Or I could say it’s a kind of three-dimensional puzzle or jigsaw, but that’s not quite accurate as there’s no ‘right answer’ to solve the puzzle, and you never arrive at a finished picture. There’s always another shape you can make out of it - whatever shape you assemble from the pieces, there’s always a temptation to start tinkering with it, to see what happens if you take something from the edges and put it in the centre, or vice versa… Read the rest of this entry »

I’m back online and happily ensconced in a new place. I’ll do my best to catch up with e-mails asap - please bear with me if you’re waiting for a reply.

It’s been a bit frustrating recently with the move and demands of the business not leaving as much time for blogging as I’d like, but rest assured there’s plenty of material on the way…

I’m moving this weekend so will be offline for a week (if I’m lucky). So obviously it will be difficult to post anything next week. If you need to get hold of me here’s how:

A couple of people have alerted me to the London Poetry Game, which will be played around the capital this weekend. I’m otherwise engaged so can’t join in - but I’m intrigued, and thought it might appeal to some of you… if you play, please let me know what it was like.

Thanks to Create KX for inviting me to speak at the British Library’s Business & IP Centre last night, about blogging for creative businesses. And thanks to everyone who came along to make it a really enjoyable evening. It was also a pleasure to meet fellow speaker Paul Caplan and hear his enthusiastic take on the live web.

As promised, here are the slides from the talk, some technical explanations of blogging tools and RSS, plus links to all the blogs I mentioned in the talk. Enjoy!

If you…

If you were at the talk the links below will take you to all the tools and sites I mentioned last night. You can also get all my future posts about creativity, coaching and the people factor in creative business, via RSS or e-mail.

If you weren’t at the talk, I hope the slides and links give you some food for thought.

If you run a creative business in the King’s Cross area of London, you should get in touch with Sian James and the team at Create KX, they’re working very hard to help people like you.

If you run a creative business within striking distance of the British Library, you should check out the Business & IP Centre, it’s a fantastic resource for entrepreneurs - lots of business books, journals, reports, research etc. And you can get a British Library reader’s ticket for free, and access the entire library.

OK I think that covers everyone, on with the links…

Slides from the presentation

Here are the slides from my presentation - you can also download them as a pdf from Slideshare.