making music

witch
coloured with my new Intuos! Sketch of a band we heard in Taipei's "legendary" Witch Cafe

I've always thought that if you threw together a bunch of creative and talented folks from different disciplines, you'll get a real lively collaboration and discussion - you'll get music.

But, boy, am I wrong.

I spent the morning today at the "Beyond 2005: Reinvent Your Future - Global Summit for the Creative Industries". Yes, yes, whatever that mouthful means! It is, after all, sponsored by the government - hence the cheesy, insecure title. It was a strange mix of speakers - first the Minister spoke (yadda yadda, Singapore, creative, arts...you get the drift), followed by the hottest architect at the moment Rem Koolhas, then the fashion designer Martine Sitbon with her art director (a French duo who punctuated everything with "voila"). Add to this Wallpaper's editor and one of the top creatives at advertising agency Ogilvy & Mather.

You'll imagine they'll have ideas flying leftrightcentre at the panel discussion, even if the topic was meant to be the rather pedantic "The Future of Asian Design". But there was no discussion. The speakers could not connect even at a human level, much less intellectually.
"It's all about happiness, selling authenticated happiness."
- advertising creative director

"I don't understand."
- fashion art director (he's a sweet guy, I think, coming across unpretentious despite his excessive name dropping)

"Identity is the most useless socialist anxiety."
- architect, responding to question on what is asian design

Actually, all this was rather funny to watch at first, then painful. But the creative types may say that creativity is discordant.

Comments

儒 said…
hey, your Intuos - does the image show up on the tablet? or using laptop screen?
5:43 pm
ampulets said…
use laptop screen lah, not so sophisticated! The surface of the tablet is mapped to your screen.
5:49 pm
Anonymous said…
Design is universal. Is there a need to separate everything into two extremes?
I don't understand what is it all about... so cheem. Grober sarmit and yada yada.
1:54 am
ampulets said…
yup! design is universal (everything man made is designed! it's just good or bad design,i guess), but the approaches, objectives and processes of designing can be so vastly different. I guess, sometimes, understanding the differences is important...so that we can then better appreciate the universal? ok ok, i am yadda-ing also now ;P
12:30 am
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