The Play of Characters

Who puts words in a character's mouth? It seems simple, right? The author. But who puts the words in your mouth? Another self-evident answer? Not really. It seems like there's a single "you" inside who is responsible for all of your words, thoughts, feelings and actions. There is is obviously a single brain and body behind it all. But within that one system there are many identities, moods, desires and emotions that vary from hour to hour and from context to context. Some of them are fairly consistent, while others may vary wildly and even be in conflict with each other. Some are driven by deeply held beliefs or habits. Others are reflexive reactions. 

So what's my point? Mostly that there is deep mystery at the heart of both who we are and how we create. And that if we pay attention when you are channeling the voices of fictional characters, it may shed some light on what's behind our own words, thoughts and feelings as we move through daily life. Sometimes they are the result of conscious thought. Other times they emerge from the subconscious. 

In any case, I'm still working somewhat diligently on the novel and decided to revisit some old images, videos and posts from the past six years here. This comic of Botgirl and the Dummy is one of my favorites.

The Push and Pull of Mediums on Creative Expression

This is a video sketch of a dream sequence for Jess as she undergoes her superpower medical procedure. It was pretty easy to put together, given the way Plotagon allows you to quickly flip characters while keeping the same dialogue. It's not quite baked, but you get the idea. I hope to have time over the weekend to flesh it out.

Each medium and platform has its own push and pull moving users to actualize their ideas in certain ways. Even text, whose grammar and natural syntax put all but the most innovative (or illiterate) writers into a fairly narrow box of expressive form.

I guess this can be taken a step closer to home and view the human brain and senses as also shaping the way we express and receive creative works. For instance, there are limitations in our ability to perceive the visible and audio spectrums. And cultural metaphors and story forms are so ingrained into our psyches that we usually end up conforming to some preexisting template.

Some of my favorite artists and writers tend to repeat forms and themes over the course of multiple works. Part of this is because they simply enjoy a particular motif, but I believe that there are also subconscious factors at play ranging from psychological issues they're subconsciously attempting to work through, to limitations in vision or craft. And for successful creatives, there's also the fear of alienating their audience and losing the associated money and fame.

For those of us creating on an amateur level, there may be less skill in our craft, but certainly more freedom to experiment without repercussion. As always, I encourage those of you who don't typically create to pick some medium and dig in. If you stick with it, it's likely to unlock creative potential that was probably buried in grade school after someone's criticism of your finger paint work became the final straw that pushed you away from artistic expression.

The Age of the Amateur

When I take the time to think about it, I am awed by the way technology has empowered amateur creativity. Just a few of decades ago, the ability to craft a creative work and share it with a large number of people was limited to a handful of professionals and media companies. Today, anyone with a smart phone, tablet or computer can create anything from a short video on Snapchat to a full blown animated work with Plotagon, and share it instantly worldwide with a few taps or clicks.

Whether a work is viewed by a few dozen or a few million, the ease of creation and sharing has motivated millions of people to creative expression they wouldn't otherwise have realized. The widespread activity of continuous creative expression is in the process of producing a psychological and cultural shift of historic proportion, the impact of which will only reveal itself over decades. The ubiquitous use of smartphones and social sharing is subtly shifting humanity to what can fairly labeled as psychological cyborgs, because neurologically, the tools we commonly used are experienced as being part of our own bodies.

The continued evolution of creative mobile technologies will eventually result in a renaissance of imaginative expression that will expand from our personal lives and popular media to just about every segment of the business world. Like the strength and endurance we build working out is carried into our lives outside the gym, the exercise of our creativity in living rooms and coffee houses carries over into our working lives. On a personal level, the last five years of personal creative work has certainly revolutionized my own professional work.

That said, throw away all of my world-change speculation and the Age of the Amateur is still amazing. Beyond the shear joy of creativity, it gives the average Joe and Jane access to experiences that were once the sole domain of professional authors and artists. Although the quality of the works we create may pale in comparison, the psychological insight and growth we experience is equivalent.

I am continuously surprised and delighted by the doors new platforms open for creative expression. Beyond music, my tech-fueled creative life was born in 2008 with my introduction to both Second Life and the iPhone. Second Life allowed me to free my imagination from the constraints of the physical world and my wallet name identity. The iPhone freed me to create and share, with increasingly sophisticated tools, at any time and in any place.

This is still being realized through my latest amateur project, the Life With Jess video series. For instance, I didn't see this new huge plot twist coming. I woke up yesterday morning and there it was. Like it had been planned from the start. So Life With Jess Episode 17 turns out to be the concluding video in the first story arc and sets up a whole new life for my favorite little narcissist.

The Death of My Wit

Reports of the death of my wit have been greatly exaggerated. Well, maybe not greatly. Sometimes it’s hard to tell. Audience feedback can be confusing. Like I was really smug about this one dude complementing me on being pithy, until I realized he had a bad lisp. Awkward, right?

There is nothing free of cliché. There is nothing completely clichéd. So I need to keep digging deeper or shut the hell up. I shouldn't take pride in the inspiration behind my art. It's a gift. My wee contribution is just in the doing.

As my Muse says, "Go create something little monkey! Yes! you can. When? Now. Why? Because something inside you is longing to be born." I just hope it's not an alien trying to eat its way out of my liver.

P.S. The image on the left is from the Getty Open Content Collection, an amazing resource of more than 10,000 images from the J. Paul Getty Museum and the Getty Research Institute.

One evokes fear. The other delight.

One reason I love mobile creative apps is that they entice me to learn the messages of their mediums. Not in a culture changing McLuhanesque sense, but in the way they speak to me in collaborative play. I'm usually surprised by what emerges. It is only in retrospect that I figure out how we got there and what lessons might be be applied to future projects.

Here are a couple of videos created with with WaveCamera and VJAM. I didn't have anything particular in mind when I started. Each emerged through iterations of improvisation with each app. The first ended up evoking fear. The second delight.

From Prospecting to Mining

I've been an inspiration addict, obsessively scanning the inner and outer streams, sifting through panful after panful of sludge for a few grains of gold. But I long to trade in my prospector's pan for a miner's pick, shovel and headlamp. Not to dig a hundred shallow holes, but to tunnel through the depths in holy quest for the Mother Lode.

Truth Hurts

WARNING: You are smaller than you appear to be in the mirror of your ego.

Humility has been haunting me. It's this week's Single Frame Stories prompt. Strange thing is, my initial reaction was a yawn. No spark. No inspiration. Nothing. It's not an issue I've thought about much before outside of the Buddhist concept of Bodhicitta. Nor one that particularly bothered me in other people. But since I was committed to the process, I plugged on.

My first go was a typical snarky comic on social network celebrity, poking fun at both my own occasionally Klout-inflated sense of worth and our culture's obsession with celebrity. Cheap shots both.

The challenge's obligation was fulfilled. I could move on to juicier issues. But I woke up the next morning with humility on my mind. A half dozen threads of thought were dancing just beyond reach. I turned to The Church of the Blank Page, opened up Tweetr and started transcribing. I didn't much like what came out:

"I understand humility like I know juggling. I like the idea, but never practiced enough to keep going for more than a minute at a time."

I experience the world as if I'm the center of the universe. The importance of my personal interests are vastly inflated. The edge of my wit seems razor sharp and perfectly on target, while my concern for others ebbs and flows on a whim. I know it's not real, but that's how it feels. The world that I see revolves around me.



The next dagger was even more painful, because it attacked the illusion that my constant creative expression was an enlightening activity:

"I often misuse my creativity as a defense mechanism to shield myself from intimate engagement with life."

Fuck! Where did that come from? Truth hurts.

There nothing wrong with quick and witty sketches. Or satire. Or naughty fun. But living on junk food isn't healthy. It doesn't nourish. Its pleasure is short. It stunts healthy growth. It makes you fat. It deadens the senses. My infatuation with wit is undermining my quest for wisdom. Looks like I'm in for a contemplative holiday weekend.

A Heart Headed Woman - A Brief Appreciation of Whiskey Monday

"If you take your heart out of the equation, you're left with your brain. I don't think so well with my brain." Whiskey Monday

That line sums up what I love about Whiskey Monday. No matter how smart and funny, her writing and visual works are always grounded in deep authentic feeling. Her creative expression is a beautiful marriage of head and heart which transforms her very personal joys and challenges into art that speaks to universal experience. 

Whiskey is a constant source of inspiration for me, not only through the evolving originality of her work, but  also in the artistry of her life. When her mother suffered a brain trauma and her sister was diagnosed with cancer, Whiskey turned her life upside down to care for them full time, along with a young niece and her own two teen daughters. Although many people give lip service to "grist to the mill," Whiskey embodies the ideal through transformative writing and art.

I could go on and on, but I'll stop here and invite you to go to the source and see her blog, photostream and twitter feed.

Here (with permission) are a couple of my favorite images:

Critique Redux

A single frame remake of a multi-frame comic I made during a 2009 Second Life art controversy.

Perception and value judgement is a dance between the viewer and the object of contemplation. The challenge as a creator is to resist getting caught up in either praise or criticism, and to embrace, express and evolve one's personal vision. Unless you're mostly in it for money. Or ego. Or masochism.  Or simple encouragement. Any or all of those reasons are fine. The trick is to use feedback in a manner that supports rather than sabotages your aims.

I Learned Everything I Know About Critique From Reality Shows

My entry for this week's Single Frame Stories Challenge. The topic is "critique." 

If you ever wonder whether people can have a grossly distorted perception of their own talent, try watching a few audition episodes of the X Factor. You'll see contestants who can't carry a tune be devastated to hear criticism from the judges. But you'll also see tremendously gifted singers surprised by effusive praise. Unfortunately, the critique on that program is more about drama and cleverness than providing useful feedback. But some reality talent shows do a better job.

So You Think You Can Dance is a great place to see how positive critique and coaching can help push creatives to higher levels of artistry and performance. Being able too see a group of gifted dancers evolve and transform over the course of a couple of months is inspiring. Outside of the obvious love for dance and desire to nurture talent, the feedback is useful because it includes concrete direction from people who are both knowledgeable and accomplished.

Unfortunately, critique via internet comments is usually closer to X Factor than SYTYCD. There's a lot of mean spirited and thoughtless criticism. And a fair amount of gushy praise. But there's a dearth of insightful and actionable critique from people with the knowledge and experience to offer useful input.

I think we do a pretty good job as a creative avatar-identified community in supporting each other's work through positive comments. What I'd love to see is more constructive critique. I'm going to try to be more thoughtful in my praise and more concrete in offering specific suggestions or concerns. Like, "Botgirl, what's up with the faux scratches on this image?"

Taking Proper Credit

The Gospel of Creativity: 50 Aphorisms by Botgirl Questi

• There is an unfathomable mystery at the heart of life, awareness and identity.
• Be the mystery you seek to kill.
• Be comfortable in the place of unknowing.
• Be easily amused but hard to please.
• Blessed are the easily amused, for they drink from the well and are intoxicated.
• Consumption without creation is like inhaling without exhaling. Or eating without shitting.
• Creative boxes: A monk's cell. A mother's womb. A martial arts form. A committed relationship. A musical key. A choreography.
• Creativity isn't merely a vehicle for the expression of your authentic self, it's the process through which it is discovered.
• Don’t whine if your audience doesn’t get it. Either your work sucks or they’re ignorant fucks. Probably the former.
• Drugs and booze have killed many artists. Distraction is today’s intoxicant of choice.
• Each time we shed light on one mystery, deeper questions arise from the shadows.
• Every time we hide an aspect of our self out of fear or shame, we make our Mojo cry.
• Everything's better when you share it with an audience. If you're performing. Get a life!
• Fuck the audience! Love the audience!
• Garbage in garbage out is true for computers. But the work of creative life is the alchemical transmutation of shit into gold.
• Give up a belief a day until you disappear.
• Questioning my own beliefs is always more enlightening than defending them..
• Inspiration is a gift. Have you thanked your Muse today?
• Inspiration never abandons me. It is I who turns from her warm living embrace to the cold dead arms of my own judgement.
• Inspiration offers many gifts, but patience is not one of them.
• Inspiration that doesn’t lead to action is like a seed rotting in a field.
• Is it better to burn out than to fade away? I wonder what creative life would be like with other options.
• It's good to know your audience, but not necessarily in the biblical sense.
• It’s hard to tell the difference between neurotic compulsion and creative passion in another person. And even harder in oneself.
• It’s true that you can’t please everyone. But you can’t offend everyone either.
• Meaning lives in the fuzzy border between reality and story.
• My church is the blank page
• Obscurity is its own reward.
• Play is creativity’s natural habitat.
• Prudence recommends the lowest effective dose. But Dr. Muse always prescribes the highest non-lethal option.
• Scratching the surface is better than avoiding the itch.
• Self-censorship is best left for the morning after.
• Some people create to express their vision. I create to reveal what I have not seen.
• Suffering related to art is more commonly experienced by audiences than artists. 
• Technology has obliterated the historic barriers between creative ideation, expression and distribution. For better and for worse.
• The act of creation lifts veils we didn't know were obscuring our vision.
• The challenge of sustaining creativity around an issue or topic pushes one to hack deeper and deeper into both metaphor and reason.
• The imagined audience is both projector and screen.
• The living Muse beneath your evolving vision and voice demands continuous leaps of faith into the deep unknown.
• The most universal and pervasive form of oppression is the unquestioned acceptance of our own thoughts and beliefs.
• The only rules in creative space are those which are self-imposed.
• The secret to creativity is unselfconscious freeplay. Let your mid and heart go where they will and build what they must.
• The social network can be the introverted artist’s best friend. Or their undoing.
• The well isn’t dry. Your bucket is just full of holes.
• Theemptyspacesareusuallyinvisible
• There is nothing free of cliche. There is nothing completely cliched. Dig deeper!
• To die for art is sublime. Metaphorically speaking. I’m not daft.
• Two cliches were sitting together in a bar. The bartender said, I've never seen the two of you together before. That's really HOT!
• When people say they’re "just not creative" it makes me wish I was a Zen monk so I could hit them upside the head with a stick.
• Yes. You can. When? Now! Why? Because there’s something inside of you longing to be born.

Are Prompt-Based Creative Challenges Antithetical to Art?

My entry in this week's Single Frame Stories challenge. The prompt is "simple".

A few weeks ago, I invited a social networking acquaintance to participate in the Single Frame Stories challenge. As a practicing artist, he seemed a bit offended at the idea of putting his inspiration-based Muse in the service of a prompt-based creative challenge. I appreciate his devotion to an artistic ethic, but I don't believe that waiting for unbidden inspiration is necessarily the most authentic way to access and actualize creative vision. As a matter of fact, I experience creative challenges in quite the opposite way . . . as an affirmation of my creative source rather than her prostitution. I think the difference in our viewpoints is a matter of our emotional response to the task rather than anything inherent in the format itself.

My knee-jerk reaction to a prompt that doesn't initially inspire me is probably a lot like my social network friend's. I respond to it emotionally, as if some external authority figure is trying to tell me what to do. I resolve to not waste my time on such an unworthy idea and turn my mind to other matters. But there's something in me that won't let go. I find my mind turning to the prompt at odd times, in the midst of some random activity, or as I fall to sleep or awaken. So although my conscious mind has rejected it, my subconscious mind has received it as a seed. Eventually, an idea emerges and I end up contributing one or more works. Not always brilliant. Sometimes cliched.  But almost always providing me with some fresh insight that I would have otherwise not experienced.

Applying Virtual World Skills to Atomic World Work

Avatar identities provide many of us with a pseudonymous sandbox to explore creative avenues that may not fit into our atomic world careers. Although some of us may never be able to claim the content for our wallet name identities, the skills we develop through writing, image creation, machinima, etc. can certainly be applied. Here's one of my RL projects that wouldn't have been possible without the years of work I've done under the Botgirl Questi identity.

Snow Buddha

I enjoy the weekly creative challenges. But they move me to move on an impulse. Creating without contemplating. Breathing out without breathing in. I was browsing through back-up drives yesterday and found a few dozen images and videos I've shot over the years of a Buddha statue that sits in my back yard. This is a short clip from two winters ago. I long for the patience to contemplate the unfolding world, silent and still. Listening deeply to its voice before abandoning it for my own.


Snow Buddha 2 - Mac and PC from Botgirl Questi on Vimeo.

Confessions of a Digital Artist

I spent a few hours last weekend strolling through our city's annual art fair. More than 100 artists from around the country exhibited ceramics, drawings, fiber, glass, metalwork, painting, photography, printmaking, sculpture . . . and digital art. I do most of my art viewing through books, magazines and computer screens. So I was astonished by both the visceral power of work rooted in physical materials, and the relative soullessness of even the best pieces springing from a purely digital medium.

Don't get me wrong. I love digital art. The use of software tools can facilitate compelling imagery that is not possible through traditional means. But there is a living presence latent in the deep complexity of the atomic/subatomic world that cannot be actualized through algorithm. The virtual realm can simulate only an infinitesimal fragment of the profound interbeing referred to in Thich Nhat Hahn's poetic vision.

Although it's true that the great can be the enemy of the good, in my case it's more that the cool is the enemy of the profound, and that flash is the enemy of substance. I'm finally accepting the hard truth that my compulsion to constantly share new work is as much an expression of addiction as it is of creativity. Continually feeding my short term craving with drive-through digital art is undermining my potential to satisfy the underlying hunger springing from a yearning to connect more deeply with myself and the world.

So I'm going to finally do what must be done to actually follow through on my aspiration to take on more substantive projects. For the next month and a half, I'm limiting my online expression to text except for the two collaborative projects I've committed to, A is for Avatar and Single Frame Stories.  I'll give it until Halloween and then reconsider. Given the likelihood that Linden Lab is going to to something parody-worthy between now and then, I may need someone to talk me down. Any volunteers?

My Inside the Avatar Studio Interview

Yesterday's Inside the Avatar Studio show turned out to be a pretty enjoyable journey covering a lot of interesting topics. Phelan kept the conversation moving in unanticipated directions. One main thread was that the differences between virtual and physical experience are surface deep and that living consciously is the key to productive use of either domain. Another recurring theme was around the influence of tools and technology on the creative process. Here's the whole show. Unfortunately, it doesn't include the additional hour and a half free-form conversation that followed. If anyone snagged it and posts it somewhere, I'll add it.

My greatest creative challenge may be yours too

My greatest creative challenge is remembering there are no rules I must follow.

Why does so much virtual world art and machinima have a similar look and feel? Is it because of platform constraints? Or maybe it's due more to imitation and incestuous inbreeding in creative communities. Both of those factors apply, but I think it's more a reflection of the psychological limitations that constrain almost every aspect of our lives.

We tend to do the same things over and again, year after year, usually without question. Over time, the infinite vista of our human potential gets narrowed to a point. We traverse time-worn paths until we've worn ruts so deep that we're in over our heads and can no longer see, little alone imagine, alternate paths. Occasionally we meet someone who's made a major intentional change in their mid-life or senior years. But they're a minority. Unfortunately, personal transformation usually requires some sort of signficant calamity such as a serious illness, job loss or other externally caused change.

We come to this sad state honestly. We have been coerced to conform since birth and baked within an educational system designed to produce cookie-cutter workers and consumers. Our culture idolizes innovation in technology, but is very intolerant of people who take more than a step or two outside of the norm. There is pressure to conform in our jobs, our social circles and our communities. But there is one sanctuary free of external pressure to comply: Our amateur creative lives. The only things holding us back in the sanctity of our studio space are the voices in our own heads.

One of the first things I loved about avatar identity was its power to facilitate positive personal change and creativity. But over time I've learned that it's just as easy to get stuck in the rut of one's virtual life as it is in the atomic. Many of the creatives I've known who were very creative two or three years ago have either left the virtual world or are now self-plagiarizing their initial breakthroughs. I often catch myself mining my past instead of creating a new future.

I've found that one quick way to get out of a creative rut is to try new tools or platforms. Personally, I've found that the more restrictive a tool, the more I'm forced to innovate. For instance, shoot your computer screen with your smart phone and edit it with a mobile application. Or try a new virtual world for your next project where you have less resources and expertise. Or jump out of the medium entirely and try your hand at a 100 word story, a series of themed tweets or even (gasp) a physical world medium.

I'm not speaking to the handful of professional artists who are perfecting their chosen craft and building careers. My advice is for the rest of us, the 99% who are creating as amateurs for the intrinsic value of the process. Our creative work is not simply a means to express ourselves, but also a practice that allows us to see ourselves and the world around us in new ways.

Try something new tonight. You'll thank me in the morning.

Transworld Promiscuity and the Death of Virtual World Immersion

I posted this sketch exactly four years ago, just a couple months after extending my Second Life identity beyond its walled garden. I was that Immersionist character at the top of the virtual world, celebrating our victorious extension into social networks, blogs and multi-media sharing. It seemed like there were no limits for our growing family of Emergent avatars, living rich and creative lives within and between worlds.

Four years later, most of the very active avatar-identified people I knew at the time have either left Second Life or have dramatically reduced their level of participation. Even for those who've stayed, the magic sense of wonder is just a glimmer of what it had been in our prime. How did we fall from grace? Did we move into an inevitable "honeymoon's over" stage where we take for granted (or even disdain) the very life with which we were once besotted? I think that's certainly one factor. But ironically, I also believe that our emergence into transworld identity also played a part.

Our virtual lives began immersed in the walled garden of Second Life. As we moved outside, the 3D virtual world transformed from being the life-giving environment in which we lived, to just another vehicle in which we travel. We have moved from immersion with the virtual world to immersion within our transworld identity. For better and for worse.

Do Me

Here's another example of how the idea ---> shareable prototype barrier is crumbling. I created this tweet visualization in about half an hour with the iPad version of Videoscribe HD.