Monday, February 16th
I’ve never seen a documentary like this one that is “generative.” Most of the time, I think authors, directors, and other creators want to tell a very specific story, and that often results in a final product that is static and tells a linear story. Everyone who sees the movie, reads the book, or listens to the song gets the exact same thing. On the other hand, this documentary was more dynamic. It’s cool that it felt more pieced together, and I liked watching code snippets flash on the screen. Some of the clips seemed kind of random and disjointed, but they still told a story about how art and music help us synchronize our feelings and impact the world we live in. It was cool to see Eno experiment with music and hear about how he got into it through his interest in nature and evolution, and I resonated a lot with his statement that things start out simple and can transform into something more complex. We can take unconventional methods like Eno’s oblique strategies to iterate. Some of the prompts on his cards pushed me to think about some of the creative work I’ve done. What would happen if instead of sticking with my original vision, I leaned into mistakes and let them take me in another direction? How would the final product be different if I “destroyed the most important thing”?