Cherry Picking is the Enemy of Soul
Matt over at 37Signals recently used this title for one of his postings. I really liked his point on art and design. The premise:
In “A Talking Head Dreams of a Perfect City,” David Byrne describes what he loves in different cities.
There’s an old joke that you know you’re in heaven if the cooks are Italian and the engineering is German. If it’s the other way around you’re in hell. In an attempt to conjure up a perfect city, I imagine a place that is a mash-up of the best qualities of a host of cities. The permutations are endless. Maybe I’d take the nightlife of New York in a setting like Sydney’s with bars like those in Barcelona and cuisine from Singapore served in outdoor restaurants like those in Mexico City. Or I could layer the sense of humor in Spain over the civic accommodation and elegance of Kyoto. Of course, it’s not really possible to cherry pick like this — mainly because a city’s qualities cannot thrive out of context. A place’s cuisine and architecture and language are all somehow interwoven. But one can dream.
Byrne’s article is fascinating, but so is this inital warning about singling out individual elements — the idea that cherry picking is a pipe dream. Qualities cannot thrive out of context. Everything is interwoven.
He goes on to say:
The sum is often greater than the parts
In today’s isolate then cut-and-paste world, it can be tempting to go around trying to single out just the best parts of things. Think of the “show three comps” method of delivering designs to a client. Inevitably the same thing happens: The client picks a few elements from design #1, a couple from #2, and a few others from #3. Then the designer(s) try to frankenstein these pieces together into a “perfect” hybrid — which turns out to be quite imperfect. All that cherry picking destroys any sense of cohesiveness. The end product looks like a collage instead of something unified.
When you cherry pick, you lose integrity. You lose the below-the-surface aspects of what makes something great. You cut the invisible strings that hold the whole thing together. You wind up with a mash-up instead of something that’s got soul.
Of course, the entire identity of post-modernism is this cherry picking and self-referencing. This is why so much post-modernist work fails to stand on its own - until you get what it’s referencing, it is difficult to see its value. At one extreme of music sampling, this is the case as well. The sample is often not chosen because of its inherent beauty but because the musician is interested in the collage of cultures. Unless you get this, a sampled bar of music looped over and over again seems sterile.
This picture is composed of a SOHO image of the Sun in extreme ultraviolet light for each year of the last solar cycle, with images picked to illustrate the relative activity of the Sun.
[Nasa.gov]
Scientists have recently observed the golden ratio in full display on the quantum level in chains of magnetically linked atoms spaced one atom apart that behave as if they were a nanoscale guitar string when “plucked” (quantum uncertainty). In sum, there is a perfect relationship between the first two notes of the overtone system. Their frequencies amount to a ratio of 1.618: the oft-cited golden ratio that can be observed throughout nature in our everyday world.
The universe is an ordered place with patterns that can be seen throughout the smallest and largest systems. That order is what comprises our entire identity as humans. When we venture from it we feel disconnected and so we work to tap into it. Music, art, empirical study, religion. They all speak the same truth.
Anaïs Nin
via suzywire
As pointed out on another blog, I really love the idea of generative identity. In this case - a distinct and compelling shape that can take on many different personalities but remain essentially itself.
In urban areas such as Melbourne or Chicago, if you walk a mile you’ll see many different faces of the same city. So why should city identities be staid and uncompromising?
It’s the Saturday after New Years Day in Chicago, Illinois. The first thing I thought when I stepped outside to go for a walk and grab a cup of coffee: it’s so quiet out.
A conversation about winter almost always settles first on how you feel about the cold and then how you feel about the snow. However, I love winter for two reasons outside of those parameters. The quiet stillness outside gives me creative headspace. A time for my ears, which work 24 hours a day, 365 days out of the year, to relax. Secondly, the smell of crisp, clean air. The smells that float to the nose under winter conditions are absolute and un-compromised. These are experiences you simply can’t have anywhere else.
photo credit: Carey Primeau
