Hello everyone, every being,

Some of you know me as a maker, a performer, a person who does stuff, plentyful in various disciplines, but many don’t know I am writing. Actually I am writing a lot, and I comment a lot on other peoples social media posting. Most stuff gets lost since it’s often quite trolly ;) But lately I rediscovered I had a passion for blogging from the first days of my internet presence. Brief summaries of projects, work in progress, joyful learning, rants, anything sort of in the making or in the scope of my interest.

It’s been disappointing to post on social media, things, fade, narratives are short and discourse is basically dead. So for a long time I have been thinking to revive that output. I have been reading a lot of creative people’s substack and decided, why reinvent the wheel, and just jump on. I like substack, because you can subscribe, but you can also just read without commitment. And the length of the postings and newsletters is nowhere to be defined. Overall, let’s give it a try. I might move the blog in the future, but for now this is easy and fun.

I am going to write work in progress updates, short stories, scripts for podcasts or ideas for songs and operas, information about designing in digital and analog, how to build community around creative projects, the meaning of life, and generally how I hope to stay creative despite technology. I try not to censor myself, because I believe people who go through the burden of reading more than the tag line of a insta image text are capable of rational deduction and interested in opinions. I will not spare my perspective and I might be wrong and not comfortable for everyone to read. My grammar might be broken, and sometimes I might even write in German, because somethings don’t make sense writing in another language. But, feel free to comment, engage in discourse, criticize me and share your take on anything, that triggers your synapses.

So, let’s go. My first drop is going to be a positive collection of things I liked this week. I collect interesting finds in an Obsidian repository when ever people recommend something that catches my interest. This might be high on a party or frustrated at an office lunch. This category “I like” will behave in a similar way. Short link, or name dropping, and why I am curious.

  • I recommended Allison Parrish’s solar powered sunrise poem generator a lot in debates about creative decision making. Because it does create very limited and incorrect results. Why do I like this? With big tech gaining foothold on creativity through generative AI even I get anxiety about how I could sell the only thing I have been training myself to really excel at these last 25 years. I find the break the walnut with a sledgehammer mentality of big tech monopolies alarming. Of course, it suits their business interests to built infrastructure which they can hire out in the down times creating ever more monopolized revenue streams. Gloomy future, isn’t it? On the bright side, in my day to day work I find normalized LLM’s to be rather boring for something John Gleese called “intermediate impossibles” during a lecture — the creative trick or counter intuitive logic is to throw oneself of the rails when stuck. I use my own metaphor for this: How does one survive the slack line? If you are about to fall release and wiggle with all your limbs and the body will magically find balance through muscle memory alone. So trust in our intuition. Machines can become intuitive or at least our interface design of them could inspire intuition. So instead of looking for something obvious, try something radically opposite or potentially wrong and the intermediate will help you find the potential next node in your path to a solution.

  • It’s nearly impossible to argument against the use of Spotify for its convenient. My hope is that lack of genuine surprise while spark a tiny revolution some day. I am looking forward to reading this book, The Mood Machine by Liz Pelly set to be released January 7th.

  • Every Christmas, I dive into gaming and recently explored visual novels while scripting a graphic novel with photographer Thomas Dalby. A standout find: Imaginaria on itch.io, an 8-bit monochrome visual novel chronicling an Antarctic journey with stunning graphics and soundtrack.

  • Another great game is CrossCode by a German indie team—an action-packed arcade adventure with a fast-paced, ADHD-friendly system. The mute hero, Lea, unravels her past within a game her brother created.

  • Canadian writer Clementine Morrigan, which I found through my friend Lisa Teichmann wrote extremely interesting pieces on cancel culture and even started a podcast about it. I liked it, even though it is a devastating topic because it gives some hope to what I find is a toxic hyper morality fueled by online echo chambres which is infiltrating sub culture, club culture and any sort of open democratic debate culture in academia and art. Choosing a side. WTF. I often find myself not being educated enough about a certain topic to blindly comment on it or to take sides, when both sides have valid arguments. On of the reasons I force myself to stay of social media, where people often apply crude binary logic to align themselves out of a socio-economical motivations. I don’t need a musicians take on over-complex geopolitical topics to find their music inspiring. Here is Clementine’s take and experience report on being cancelled.

Some poetry WIP

Sardinen. Busreise

Im Bus passen wir alle rein,
Gemütlich soll sein,
Die Arme ziehe ein,
Lass uns wie Sardinen sein.

In der ersten Reihe wird ein idiot zum Schwein,
Lassen uns auf den Stinker gar nicht ein,
Wie Sardinen wollen wir friedlich sein.

This is enough for this edition, enjoy and have a lovely end of the year. The next drop will be an update on my current album, bespoken graphic novel and what it means to be often not suitable for funding, or too stupid, wired of off general discourse to do so ;)

Yours, Tilman

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