8 Clicks from Nowhere Productions

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NOWHERE

  • Inside Outsider

    The first time I ever thought about “outsider” influence on an art was watching that one episode The Simpsons[1]. Homer tries to build a backyard barbecue pit and turns into such a mess that some passing art gallery owner mistakes it for beauty and elevates him into the art scene. It is a parody of the notion of the idea that sometimes creation is accidental… and anyone can do it.

    It’s a farce of course. Comedy.

    But the notion of the novice outsider is not.

    I am definitely an outsider.

    I am not a pro. I am largely self-taught (provided you don’t count the occasional class at the community centre.) And I far too often break the rules simply because I don’t actually know them yet.

    Gatekeepers everywhere will pronounce, thus, that my efforts are null and void.

    And yet others of a more nurturing nature will decide that we are all students and imperfect until the day we die, so all of us are outsiders until then.

    Which is it?

    Being an outsider hardly puts me in a position to suggest what that answer might be, but I would offer that notions of “revitalizing energy”, “fresh blood” and “new talent” are not cliche by accident. I think many people recognize that outsiders can break barriers and unclog stuck patterns, maybe even helping those entrenched on the inside, offering inspiration or change.

    I’m not saying my noodling art will do that by some deliberate design or effort, but I think the possibility of such accidental insight means we shouldn’t simply dismiss outsiders either.

  • Hustle Up

    What if the people buying are not into what you are selling?

    Consumer-driven culture and basic economics would argue that supply should meet demand. If you are supplying something that no one seems to want, capitalism argues that you need to shift your product to where the demand seems to be.

    But what if the supply is, well… you?

    What if you are selling yourself and your skills, or your ideas and your art?

    Is it worth shifting the product to meet demand? Should you change to align with what someone seems to want from you? 

    Say, you submit a proposal for a big idea or walk into a job interview or call into a pitch meeting—and what you are selling there is your ideas, your skills or yourself—but they are not buying?

    Are you in the position to say I’m not going to be or do something I’m not, sell something I don’t have, or pretend to be good at a skill I don’t yet have just to get a gig or a deal? Or are you full on ready for the hustle of becoming someone different simply to get the work? 

    Maybe you are. Maybe you don’t have that luxury.

    Either way, it often seems to be little more than a balance between selling yourself …and being yourself.

  • Broken Sounds

    I bought another guitar pedal.

    (Note to new readers. I do not actually own a guitar, but I do play either my synth or my violin through my pedals to “wet” the sounds.)

    My new pedal is a multi-effects distortion pedal. This means, putting aside the looper pedal (which has a very specific recording & performance purpose) I now have what I would call a matching set: one pedal that adds and a second pedal that subtracts.

    The new distortion pedal is subtractive. As I understand it, it passes the audio signal through its circuits and scrapes away some of the clarity of the signal by clipping or compressing or otherwise degrading the pristine sound emerging from the instrument before it comes out of the speaker.

    There is beauty in destruction of that sort.

    There is grit. There is abrasion. There is texture.

    In fact, having now acquired a device whose sole purpose is to erode the quality of what comes from another device, it has got me thinking about the role of destruction in a lot of my art, and the aesthetics of grinding away the perfection in favour of something that feels like it has been lived in. Used. Worn away with time and the passing of years. And not just that, but done so with the clash of random indifference only possible through authenticity. 

    How can one hope to recreate the beauty of erosion and the story of a million soft touches with a simple tool in a single day? How do you add grit to fiction? How do you age a photograph at the moment of the click of the shutter? How do you sketch abrasion?

    I can only begin to wonder.

  • Costume Party

    Does everyone need to brand themselves? 

    A personal brand goes well beyond a clever URL and a logo made up of your initials. 

    In an online world we are presented with this ideas of an avatar, a kind of costume that we don when we share our work, our thoughts, or our best selves in digital spaces.

    Since we are (obviously) unable to be online in the physical, tangible way that is the organic stuff of reality and a million years of social evolution, what we then present online is necessarily a construct. After all, we cannot know the subtleties of our own personalities like the ticks and quirks we give off when sitting across from a real person, so all of it is fabricated as some kind of manicured self image if we like that idea or not.

    Embracing this idea, leaning into it, is the notion of personal brand: shaping that avatar to fulfill a purpose, and perhaps to be more than—or at least a more refined and controlled version of—our real world selves.

    The notion this implies is that we are all somehow emotionally mature enough to construct these online characters in a way that presents us in a positive and beneficial way. 

    What this implies is skill and nuance. 

    What this notion misses is that not all masks well made.

    To brand oneself, one puts on a mask and becomes someone or something else, which can be useful and necessary, but can be a difficult illusion to maintain. 

    This doesn’t make it impossible or ill-advised, but rather perhaps something that is done with care and purpose and not just because it seems to be a fad.

  • Last Make

    What if today was your last day to make something that would define you after you were gone?

    What would you make?

    Would you aim for perfection of quality by making something well that you knew you could make well? Or would you push yourself, not caring about potential imperfection, and want it to express your individuality in it’s flaws by showing people that you were striving to be better? It will say something about you whatever you choose, you know.

    Would you make something of value to others? Or would you make something of value to yourself? Would you stop caring about the marketability of that thing, or if it would get lots of clicks or if it had potential to bring in high sales? No really, I’m asking? I think some people would want their last craft to have a literal payoff even if they weren’t there to enjoy it, while others might feel that was selling out? 

    Would you make something that in the making also made you happy? Or would you seek out a final product that better defined you externally to others regardless of the enjoyment your would get from making it? Or is that the same thing? I think about it myself and I’m not sure if the things I do well for others are what make me the happiest.

    What would you make?