Obliquely Strategic

 

Pictured, my current work in progress: a personal variant on Eno's Oblique Strategies: the creative block unstopper created by him and the artist Peter Schmidt in the mid-late 1970's, and which is still around in many forms to this day; either the original, very rare card sets, the current edition of the that physical set, or various software and online variations on the idea for hardware platforms various. Me being me, of course, I've come up with my own minor twist on the thing, grouping the 100 deliberately obtuse and terse instructions into four differently-coloured, ring-bound sets of record cards, to add one extra dimension to the idea. A random decision in itself, with the grouping of four sets of twenty-five dictated simply by the fact that my supply of record cards only comes in the usual four colours of green, blue, yellow and pink. The colours and groupings have no intrinsic significance, but serve only to introduce a further layer to the 'random' process of choosing a card whose content is to be followed - or not - in the context of whatever dilemma the user is currently facing vis à vis their particular creative workflow. I've yet to decide on the methodology for choosing the colour of the card-set to pick a card from, but I kind of like the idea of a tetrahedral die, with four differently-coloured sides, to make the initial choice. I also chose to use telegram-style paper printouts glued to the cards in a suitably retro fashion, as is my wont. Keep you posted on progress...