Networked Knowledge and Combinatorial Creativity by Maria Popova Why creativity is like LEGO, or what Richard Dawkins has to do with Susan Sontag and Gandhi. In May, I had the pleasure of speaking at the wonderful Creative Mornings free lecture series masterminded by my studiomate Tina of Swiss Miss fame. I spoke about Networked Knowledge and Combinatorial Creativity, something at the heart of Brain Pickings and of increasing importance as we face our present information reality. These are pages from the most famous florilegium, completed by Thomas of Ireland in the 14th century. In talking about these medieval manuscripts, Adam Gopnik writes in The New Yorker: Our minds were altered less by books than by index slips.” Which is interesting, recognizing not only the absolute vale of content but also its relational value, the value not just of information itself but also of information architecture, not just of content but also of content curation. You may have heard this anecdote. Kind of LEGOs. And I like this last part. Do stuff.
John Cleese on the 5 Factors to Make Your Life More Creative by Maria Popova “Creativity is not a talent. It is a way of operating.” Much has been said about how creativity works, its secrets, its origins, and what we can do to optimize ourselves for it. Space (“You can’t become playful, and therefore creative, if you’re under your usual pressures.”)Time (“It’s not enough to create space; you have to create your space for a specific period of time.”)Time (“Giving your mind as long as possible to come up with something original,” and learning to tolerate the discomfort of pondering time and indecision.)Confidence (“Nothing will stop you being creative so effectively as the fear of making a mistake.”)Humor (“The main evolutionary significance of humor is that it gets us from the closed mode to the open mode quicker than anything else.”) A few more quotable nuggets of insight excerpted below the video. Creativity is not a talent. We need to be in the open mode when pondering a problem — but! Thanks, Simon Donating = Loving Share on Tumblr
NeuroKnitting | knitic by Varvara Guljajeva , Mar Canet , and Sebastian Mealla Special thanx to Sytse Wierenga! We have plotted brainwave activity into a knitted pattern. Using a wearable, non-invasive EEG headset, we recorded users’ affective states while listening to Bach’s “Goldberg Variations”, concretely the aria and its first seven variations. Why have we used music? Concerning the selected music, the first case study uses Bach’s Goldberg Variations as a stimuli for the users. The knitted garments picture the listener’s affective and cognitive states during the experiment. Neuro Knitting represents a novel way of personal, generative design and fabrication. More photos about the whole process here>> Authors This project is a collaboration between artist-duo Varvara Guljajeva( and Mar Canet( and MTG researcher Sebastian Mealla ( Together they had brainstorm this art project to demonstrate art and science collaboration.
Do It: 20 Years of Famous Artists' Irreverent Instructions for Art Anyone Can Make by Maria Popova “Art is something that you encounter and you know it’s in a different kind of space from the rest of your life, but is directly connected to it.” One afternoon in 1993, legendary art critic, curator, and interviewer extraordinaire Hans Ulrich Obrist — mind of great wisdom on matters as diverse as the relationship between patterns and chance and the trouble with “curation” itself — sat down in Paris’s Café Select with fellow co-conspirers Christian Boltanski and Bertrand Lavier, and the do it project was born: A series of instructional procedures by some of the greatest figures in contemporary art, designed for anyone to follow as a sort of DIY toolkit for creating boundary-expanding art. Over the twenty years that followed, manifestations of the project popped up in exhibitions around the world, from the most underground galleries to the most prestigious museums. RECIPE FOR BUCKY FULLER Skin but do not stone a peach. Sculptor Nairy Baghramian (2012): I. Start a rumor.
Not just a girl….. » Jaime Moore photography So my amazing daughter, Emma, turned 5 last month, and I had been searching everywhere for new-creative inspiration for her 5yr pictures. I noticed quite a pattern of so many young girls dressing up as beautiful Disney Princesses, no matter where I looked 95% of the “ideas” were the “How to’s” of how to dress your little girl like a Disney Princess. Now don’t get me wrong, I LOVE Disney Princesses, from their beautiful dresses, perfect hair, gorgeous voices and most with ideal love stories in the mix you can’t help but become entranced with the characters. But it got me thinking, they’re just characters, a writers tale of a princess (most before 1998)…an unrealistic fantasy for most girls (Yay Kate Middleton!). It started me thinking about all the REAL women for my daughter to know about and look up too, REAL women who without ever meeting Emma have changed her life for the better. *NEW* February 7, 2014 - We are so thankful and overwhelmed by such an amazing response.
15 Awesome Young Adult Book-Inspired Manicures Ever had the urge to paint your nails to match your favorite book? Check out these amazing nail art tributes to favorite young adult books. Becky at The Nail Art Hobby wears her The Fault in Our Stars pride. Callie was inspired by Will Grayson, will grayson for this set of nails. Rebecca at Rebecca Loves Nails is inspired by Ellen Hopkins’s Glass for her manicure. Amy at Adventures of a Nail Art Addict‘s fierce nails inspired by The Hunger Games. Vicky at Books Biscuits and Tea not only rocks the Divergent nail art, but she has a tutorial so you can get the look if you want it, too. Natalie at Books Etc shows off her fierce Shadow and Bone nails. Thuy at Nite Lite Book Reviews does an amazing job replicating the cover of Laura Buzo’s Love and Other Perishable Items. Jen has an entire Tumblr dedicated to bookish nail art called Pages and Polish. Reynje at WordChasing was inspired by the zombies in Courtney Summers’s This is Not a Test to zombify her nails. Some Beautiful Redemption nails.
Teach like Batman Laura Thomas at Edcamp Keene asked one of my absolutely favorite questions of the whole thing during her Becoming Badass session (coming soon to a bookshelf near you!): Who are your fictional role models? What are the things they do that help you become a better teacher? The very first name that came to my mind was Batman. While I think Spider-Man’s morality (“With great power must come…great responsibility!”) has always spoken to me, and he’s always been the most relatable superhero because of his essential humanity (amazing that I would identify with a nerd hiding something amazing, isn’t it?) However, in the very first Batman comic I ever purchased, Batman 400 (October 1986), Stephen King writes an introduction titled “Why I Chose Batman” that really gets to the heart of why Batman: Batman, however, was just a guy.A rich guy, yes.A strong guy, granted.A smart guy, you bet.But he couldn’t fly. Given that, how can we teach like Batman? Batman is the man with the plan. Like this:
The Boy with Tape on His Face - Fun and Filth Cabaret 2012: Day 4 ‘Fallen Princesses’: The Amazing Photos of Depressed Disney Royalty The show has been around for almost 20 years, and it’s come back from the dead more than once. This time, though, it’s returning without its creator. After a four-year hiatus, Aaron McGruder’s The Boondocks is coming back to television without Aaron McGruder. Set in the fictional suburb of Woodcrest, Maryland, The Boondocks is an Adult Swim animated adaptation based on McGruder’s long-running comic strip of the same name. Named after Black Panther co-founder Huey P. Called “the Garry Trudeau of the hip hop generation” by The Washington Post, McGruder’s Boondocks was “one of the biggest comic-strip launches ever” when it was nationally syndicated in 1999, but the funny pages were never McGruder’s first choice. While it angered fans to see the comic strip depart the funny pages, the animated version gained serious attention. As the world now knows, The Boondocks will be returning for a fourth season, but I will not be returning with it.
99 Life Hacks That Could Make Your Life Easier Zombie Engagement Photo Shoot Is Bloody Awesome Canadian bride- and groom-to-be Holly Young and Harlan Guthrie had seen zombie engagement photo shoots done before, but they were determined to take theirs to the next level. "There was another couple who did a zombie engagement shoot a few years back," Guthrie told The Huffington Post in an email. "We both had seen that but thought, 'If you're going to kill zombies, it has to be bloodier.' And that was a bit of the motivation behind doing it." Last month, the couple -- who is getting married in October -- rounded up their wedding party and headed to the Rouge Valley in Ontario for a good old-fashioned zombie beatdown. When asked why they opted for less-than-traditional engagement photos, Guthrie mentioned the couple's love of horror films and a desire to do something fun. "We wanted something that was out-of-the-box, but also expressed our humor and love," Guthrie said. Mission accomplished. Click through the slideshow below to see photos from their killer engagement shoot. [h/t Reddit]