Out to dinner with good friends recently, somehow we got on to the subject of "thinking outside the box." I defended my corner but Ogukuo the Scholar took the opposite view, arguing that thinking
inside the box was the way to go, building on previous research, carefully comparing, evaluating. The debate branched off into artistic creation, whether skill is essential to art, whether young children's "art" is ever really art and so on. Ogukuo grabbed a biro and, on the back of a menu, did a two-minute sketch of the objects on the table and the person sitting opposite him (me). He believes that he has no visual skills and wanted to prove his point: no skill, no art. I looked at the sketch and automatically drew a frame around it. Ogukuo took it back and wrote: "You have put my work into a box". True! I had instinctively boxed-in an outside-the-box manifestation! How embarassingly interesting. I slipped the drawing into my bag and when I got home, scanned it, added some colours in Photoshop and emailed it back to Ogukuo. Over the next week or so we played a sort of emailed ping-pong match which I've assembled on a single page below, though each frame was a separate message. I had to reduce it drastically but if you click on it you'll see the larger version.
So, that's the theme for this month: your thoughts, your experiences concerning in-box /out-box approaches. If you want to continue along the lines of our playful exchange, please do. But anything goes. Be bold!
CLICK ON PICTURE TO SEE LARGER VERSION
CLICK ON PICTURE TO SEE LARGER VERSION
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6 comments:
What a great conversation!
not feeling particularly witty today but can offer this question -- why does it have to be one or the other? Out OR in? Seems to me we need both...I find myself doing both...
Dave, yes it was/is a great conversation - why not join in? I'm sure you have an interesting take on the subject.
Towanda, I agree it's not an either/or situation. I'm just putting the challennge out to see what people will come up with.
I'm still pondering the question of identity. I don't do very much abstract thinking any more - I burnt out on it during my first two years of blogging, I think.
Dave, never mind abstract. Think concrete!
Putting my thoughts into this box are the only way they will get posted... a limitation right at the start.
Basically I believe all innovation comes from those who are willing and able to think outside the box. Sometimes they say one generation has to die before something can really take over and grow as people become so defensive of what always was.
As is the case with so many things, I believe a society needs both those who think outside and inside the box. Some develop what has already been done or figured out but others look and think but why not-- this? That totally blows the minds of those who have spent years developing something and then along comes a johnny come lately who suggests it was for nothing. Well it wasn't really for nothing. It was the foundation but from that, the idea can go anywhere that it is physically possible.
So being a typical libra, I think it's important for a culture to have both types-- those inside the box and those who can go outside.
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