THE PLAYFUL PROCESS - Part 1: The Subject of Coincidence and Workflow with Chewlie
Added 2024-07-17 18:00:07 +0000 UTC
THE PLAYFUL PROCESS
Part 1: The Subject of Coincidence and Workflow with Chewlie
In this Lux Cache essay series, we explore the core principles behind achieving an efficient creative workflow. This series delves into interdisciplinary strategies that extend beyond traditional DAW use, providing producers with fresh insights and practical techniques to enhance their creative toolkit. By embracing playful experimentation and innovative methods, In our inaugural chapter, we invite producer and artist Julia Häller, also known as Chewlie, to share her insights on how interdisciplinary practices can enrich a musician’s workflow, offering practical techniques and philosophical perspectives on sustaining creativity beyond the digital workspace. Through her innovative methods, she inspires artists to embrace chance and intuition as vital components of their creative toolkit, emphasising the importance of courage, self-discovery, and the power of limitations in fostering artistic growth.
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CONTENTS
SELF-SEARCH IN MY CREATIVE ACTIVITY / IDENTIFICATION WITH THE PROCESS 2
WORKING POSTURE / PACE OF WORK 4
INTRO
Coincidence: (definition) something unforeseen, unintended, that happens unexpectedly.
In my thoughts, evaluations, and critical questioning, the almost unrecognizable, blurred, silent, often unheard intuition seems to glimpse through. An energy beyond my mind comes into effect, allowing for coincidence. Let it fall to you.
Interwoven in the German word for coincidence, I emphasize it: the fall. It falls to me. As if losing control was a mind fall, a letting go. Devoting yourself, forgetting that certain things are already in motion to welcome the unexpected.
In relation to my creative process, it is fundamental to set something in motion to then welcome coincidence in further steps. In my experience, this presupposes finding a start. By beginning, I mean opening up the known. Breaking through the familiar. It may be a small gesture, but it is above all the willingness to fail. A willingness that allows nothing to happen, or anything undesirable. In the courage to relativize the predictable lies the ignition energy of coincidence.
A movement controlled by me and observed by the mind, which allows for an unexpected change. How do I bring my controlled being under control? How do I work intuitively yet composed? Can I be intuitive and controlled?
COURAGE
Courage: (definition) the ability to control fear and to be willing to deal with something that is dangerous, difficult, or unpleasant.
To lure chance into brainstorming, which has already been thought through or even conceived, there is an unfiltered beginning. A step that needs courage, courage that overcomes your self-seeking mind in work. It’s the genuine willingness to fail. If for a moment I do not make my self-worth dependent on whether I fail or not, then there is room for an encounter: the encounter with chance.
You can start with something you already know or can do. For me, this could be something playful like recording some weird samples, or daily life noises - nothing too far from where I’m at. I like to start with quick techniques and material that allows me to work quickly. I load them into Ableton and chop them very roughly. I'm braver because I know it’s just a sketch, it’s a fun play. That’s how I lay the groundwork for the breakout.
SELF-SEARCH IN MY CREATIVE ACTIVITY / IDENTIFICATION WITH THE PROCESS
Identification: (definition) proof of who someone or something is.
What do I mean by finding myself in my work and liberating myself from it?
Paradoxically, I notice how I have more space or attention for my work when I distance myself from it. By distance, I mean losing identification with my artistic practice.
I feel an intimate connection with my work as it is created. However, the tendency to identify with it shortly after creating it disturbs my relationship with creativity and creation. I am looking for my personal fulfillment or the completion of my person/character in the completion and success of my work. Success measured by social standards of financial remuneration and social encouragement? In my opinion and experience, this is not beneficial at all! I'd rather make myself a target if my work is criticized or not accepted. Don’t get me wrong, ambition and success are valuable driving forces, but too much of it and I reach my limits and self-doubt. When I say distance from work, I mean that there is room to fail. The work may fail, and this permission creates a huge liberation, a pressure that is relieved and, essentially, a willingness that opens up and allows coincidence to happen.
From the mind's perspective, coincidences are a risk because I could fail. It might expose me because the failure of my work (which I identify with) means the failure of my person. What does failure mean? Have I failed if no one understands my artwork? Or do I fail when it is not appreciated? Who decides the success of my work? Because I've created a little distance, I'm willing to welcome coincidences and the possibility of failure. For me, it is essential to create serenity to consciously find coincidences. To let myself fall. Fall into the unknown.
But why do I even identify myself with my work in the first place?
I seek myself in my work because I strive for recognition, in society and with myself. The search for recognition comes from a feeling of not being recognized already, not being important enough, seen by people. I figure: this feeling actually comes from loneliness. But before I get to the root of loneliness, I also have to realize that the search for approval will always be a search. Small or even big successes sometimes feel as if I have gotten there, I finally made it. But then I observe how little time passes and I start to look for myself again. Desperately searching for my meaning in society, my purpose as a human being. I even realize now, that these are forms that pass, success passes, recognition passes, and my artistic work passes. Although it may outlive me physically, that implies that if I pass, I will die as a human being. Now I might have arrived at the bottom of my self-seeking. Isn't the unacceptability of impermanence what makes me feel unimportant and sends me in this search of validity, Satisfaction... essentially the escaping of everything changing - of eternity? It’s harrowing to inevitably realize that everything eventually passes, impermanence has somehow an insignificance and that makes me so lonely...
On the other hand, it’s a huge relief to realize that this all is not really about me. I don’t have to search for these ephemeral things, because I wouldn’t find anything there that is permanent! So what do I have left? Perhaps an intrinsic creative energy, a natural desire to express myself. I think there is also an underlying lightness in knowing that all forms will eventually pass away. So I surrender to my need to express myself, but with ease, I don’t take myself too seriously. It’s more attention in the present moment, on my movements and less on my fear of being unimportant and untalented. It’s a joy for creating, a gratitude for being able to create something.
Returning to fear of failure, I see the ignored yet logical irrelevance. Which doesn’t have to make me nihilistic or depressed! A playful joy, a wondrous appreciation for the process and surely its magic will emerge, unleashing a platform for coincidence. It’s like becoming almost child-like in the sense of feeling fascinated by things and wanting to play with them, explore their boundaries, break them... It lets me play instruments, but also become one myself. It lets me repeat something to realize that nothing can really be duplicated or repeated. In this fusion of contradictions, I find a poetic potency that makes me pause to realize that I'm in creative motion.
"For me, it's all the same - to sleep, to work, to eat, to cook and all this sort of stuff. It’s life."
-- Miriam Cahn
COINCIDENCE AND CREATIVITY
Creativity: (definition) the ability to produce or use original and unusual ideas.
What is creativity? Is creativity a form of coincidence? Or is it an interplay of chance and control?
I think it’s a hybrid. I'm very creative when I can relinquish control. This doesn’t mean being out of control, it can happen in an awake, conscious state. It’s interesting that our bodies can perform acquired skills without much mental concentration. I feel that when I draw, for example, my hands have gained self-confidence through a lot of practice. I can leave them to their own devices or consciously guide them. I can casually listen to music while drawing, talk to someone or have my attention on each line I make. What is creative now? Or how does something new and exciting come about? Is the new thing more exciting? Is nothing new at all?
I think a force deep within us always strives forward, to the new, to growth (no matter in what form). Another part wants to repeat, practice, acquire, and understand. These two aspects are actually inseparable and in their core, they mean the same thing. They only become separated when the mind tries to define what’s success or progress, what is new. Ultimately, these definitions are part of the creative process because they allow me to consciously try out something in different states of mind leading to diverse directions.
Going back to the question of creativity versus coincidence, I answer exactly as follows: I believe the integration of coincidences is inevitable in a creative flow. Just as the supposed control is relevant to understand a work process and to re-coordinate it if necessary. A pendulum between control and chance.
"I did a batch of drawings. I had them pinned in the studio. I went in one day, I hated them and I tore them all up and threw them on the floor. And when I went into the studio again several days later, they looked pretty good that way!"
-- Lee Krasner
‘Transforming Matter’ artwork by Chewie.
WORKING POSTURE / PACE OF WORK
Workflow: (definition) the way that a particular type of work is organized, or the order of the stages in a particular work process
Introspection is the basis for dealing with my creative work. How can I understand how coincidences work or arise?
I have to perceive myself and observe my inner attitude during my work. What are my motives? A final idea? Do I have an idea of an end product? Is it a success? The recognition?
For me, ideas are always based on a certain notion of output but are primarily a desire to create. An idea only forces me to implement it when its creation process gives me pleasure. An original, perhaps childlike playfulness. And I also notice immediately if I miss this initial energy, this ignition because I am too attached to the end product: I lose myself in blockades and self-doubts. That's why I'm concerned with the pace of work. How soon do I start? How long do I construct an idea?
I've found that I have a rather fast way of working. I move at different speeds depending on which work phase is pending. I'm usually super quick at the beginning. Sketches happen quickly, or my tracks are often created in series leading into an EP or Album. I try not to cling to the individual track but make multiple to gain insights more quickly so one track doesn’t have to carry all my ideas. This allows me to answer basic questions like vibe, story, or aesthetic. Other tempos will happen in future steps.
An example: I record a very random noise that I find interesting. I place it in Ableton and compose the basis of the track. I make fast decisions because I’m playful, it makes me virtuous, I almost cannot reconstruct this phase but it will remain the heart of the track. In further steps, I become very sharp and slow. I make all the details and I have to be cautious not to be too controlled.
So my working attitude often oscillates between analyzing, checking and reflecting, or trying things out, playing, and surrendering. It’s very important for me to keep a watchful eye on myself to see what the pace is and when it’s efficient to work accordingly.
"The order is clear. One after the other. You do one thing to do the next. That’s the order. It’s metabolic. I pee, eat and drink to pee again. This is art. No less and no more. You breathe to get the next breath."
-- Jonathan Meese
Jonathan Meese, Kampf Um Rom (Gesamtkunstwerk Imperathor), 2024
THE POWER OF LIMITATION
Limitation: (definition) the act of controlling and especially reducing something.
Working methods have accompanied me in recent years and they have proven themselves! Even if they felt restricted at first. But it is precisely this restriction that makes me inventive, and creative! So I set myself a grid, certain rules or laws and then I play. I push the boundaries. Of course, I can also break the rules if the creative flow requires it! But then it happens out of a process that was only allowed to arise because there was a limitation. I can only free myself if I wasn’t free. I think it’s important to limit yourself. What is freedom? What does free art mean? Isn’t the art itself already free? Why free art? Am I free if I have all the materials/plugins available? If I know all the effects of a machine or software?
It’s obvious for me to limit myself! I think it’s no different in human nature. We are always physically and mentally limited in some way. I deal with this knowledge in a similar way as with the transience of all forms:
In the acceptance of limitations, within a limit, lies the potential for freedom. I think limits and earthly finiteness are the gateway to freedom and therefore also to creativity. Freedom is actually a synonym of creativity. I can’t reinvent the world. But I can always rediscover it! Can I search and find myself?
When I seek for myself, I'm looking for something I already am. I can only BE myself, I think that’s practically inevitable. Be creative! Don’t search, be! For me, this ultimate devotion is an incredible development, a true creation, it’s actually evolution…
Chewlie, press picture. Photography by Milena Müller.
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Julia Häller, known as Chewlie, is an artist and producer from Luzern, Switzerland, currently based in Bern. Her 2024 album ‘Transforming Matter’ is available on streaming and download.
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