Reviving The Tired
What is that force that draws us to the sounds, ideas and genres we surround ourselves with? Whether talking of genres of music, fiction, politics or more I've narrowed one of those forces down within myself... creating something fresh of the stale.
There is something to be said for the occasional illness. While it makes me a grumpy and quite often pained girl, I do get through some of those books I've been meaning to read. As I finished off my second Jasper Fforde book of the week and relaxed within a bubble bath I realized what I love about Jasper's writing... his refreshment of old ideas. With a vivid imagination and a quick wit he works within constraints known to his readers (the literary world and books as a whole) to invigorate a tired detective genre. There's something exciting about working within memories and known histories that readers have. He doesn't treat his readers as stupid clones but as learned followers.
This seems a common thread amongst all things I enjoy. Whether it's a bright and stimulating reworking of sound, the odd pairing of classic and modern in design or reusing classic literary figures in new and fresh ways... I enjoy the work of people who take something known and add their imagination to meld the known into something outside it's previous boundaries.
My ipod just came upon Johnny Boy on shuffle and they serve as a perfect example. By reworking a Spectorish wall of sound and a northern soul flair with their anti-consumerism ideals and technology they are one of those few bands out there to invigorate music in my mind. It's all about those odd pairings, the new with the old, the imagination it takes to be influenced by opposites that can make my mind go gaga. Alone these elements have been done and done to death. Collected and thrown together they revived the sound and brought with them a new energy.
Think of the Avalanches... by showing up at a DJ gig with six guys behind turntables and crates of records they may or may not have ever heard before, they can create such strange and inspired pairings to make the kids on the floor go absolutely nuts. Sampling is far from a new and excited medium but they bring it to life by drawing from such varied and extensive resources of six learned music nerds instead of just the one or two we are used to. They can make the music aficionados amongst us delirious as they try to flush out "oh my god I know that sample... I've heard that baseline". But it isn't those little bits that makes it all extraordinary... it's the layers of it all that make it unique.
None of these people in their varied art forms are breaking entirely breaking the mold but learning how to meld it. They aren't doing it alone either. Collaboration seems to the at the root of these often genre changing ideas. This whole idea makes me jealous of an old friend who has been enjoying the creative freedom of Fabrica for the past year. By crossing disciplines (film, interactive, visual communications, industrial design, creative writing, music) within the design world the artists at Fabrica create cooperative efforts at various design challenges. They throw it all into the bottle and toss it about to see what the laboratory can come up with. More of the world needs to be like this. We need to be not only explore our own minds and imaginations but those around us.