Nothing Is Impossible

Neil Gaiman is possibly the most quotable living person. In his “Make Good Art” speech in Philadelphia two years ago he gave a rousing encouragement to young practicing creatives, and his take on some of today’s art practices. He also came up with about 10 epiphanic lines; “make glorious and fantastic mistakes”; “do the stuff that only you can do”; …you have no idea what you are doing. This is great.”

As inspirational/soppy as this may seem to you, I’d like to talk about one in particular. It goes like this:

“The rules on what is possible and impossible in the arts were made by people who had not tested the bounds of the possible by going beyond them. And you can.”

I think this is an important one, because it’s precisely the attitude that you need as a young creative to make something new that is true to your abilities. An open mindedness to new things.

Consider that the Impressionists, Turner, Van Gogh, and many other huge canonical art figures were scoffed or thought little of in their lifetimes. But even more than this – because fame and even widespread critical acclaim I don’t think are the end-goal of an artist – think of the mindset of anyone you know who has made something actually interesting.

For example, my sister and I love the band Elbow, and we’ve been to see them twice. Last week for my birthday she surprised me with a T-shirt on which she’s painstakingly drawn some of their lyrics, and a flock of starlings, and on the back the logos of the O2 Arena and Echo Arena.

Or think of the early Youtubers, who in ’07 and ’08 realised that talking into a camera for four minutes was more engaging than almost all of television. Think of making up your own chemical symbols because the originals are rubbish. Think of the “Notes to a Fresher” series that Felix ran last year – short creative pieces by Imperial Horizons students.

Think of the artist Ben Wilson who paints miniscule images onto the blackened chewing gum on the Millennium Bridge (Seriously, Google it).

Think of an arts magazine that you can literally walk through – huge pages of drawings and video and poetry - that’s the idea for Roulade, the magazine co-edited by artist and poet Llew Watkins who is speaking at Imperial next Wednesday. His work and interests are thoroughly interdisciplinary, and his sculptures often exist only temporarily.

These peoples’ mindset is that they have this thing, this idea, and they assess it based on merit, based on how well it’s going to do the thing they want to do. And then they do the thing.

Responding to the world around you in an honest and open manner I think is crucial to making things. It’s important to know what other people have made, but it’s really, really important to know that what other people have made does not in any way define what you can or can’t make. There are no criteria. There are no rules. If it’s interesting to you, it’s worth making.

_Llew Watkins is speaking on Wednesday 3rd December at 13:00 in Blackett LT1. _

He will talk about interdisciplinary practice – art that is based on collaboration and bringing together different areas of expertise.He will talk about the term post-internet art and what that means, however especially his interest in the straight-forward bringing together of film, politics, performance, text, image, sculpture and internet to tell a story.

Perception is continually called into question throughout this poet and artist’s work, creating raw and daring work at the boundary between mind and reality.