Maybe we’re all glass blowers now?
You want to survive the robot takeover? You better be an artist. — David Kadavy
Couldn’t agree with David more! This is a great post.
When I think of artists, I immediately jump to glass blowers. Glass blowing is improvisational. Though the physics of molten glass could theoretically be forecast, the reality of liquid sand turning solid at lightning speed can’t be managed using equations. The glass blowing team must sense and respond in the moment to the glass.
“The manipulations that give rise to a finished piece can’t be fully specified ahead of time. Rather, the piece is the frozen record of a team’s coordinated finesse in responding to one other and to the glass. Having witnessed it’s making, I could only view the finished [piece] as … a fossilized bit of joint attention” — From The World Beyond Your Head, By Matthew B. Crawford
Glass blowing is very clearly an art. Being great at any art means dancing with the risk of utter failure. Being an artist means not knowing exactly what you’ll be creating next month. Being an artist means jumping into the dark hoping to create magic.
Thinking about it a bit less poetically, being a great artist means working in the complex domain, in Dave Snowden’s Cynefin Framwork (see the framework below). The Complex domain is characterized by unknown, unknowns. Experimentation is necessary.
[In the complex domain] the final solution is only apparent once discovered. No matter how much time you spend in analysis, it’s not possible to identify the risks or accurately predict the solution or effort required to solve the problem. — NeoMobile’s excellent article
What do you think of the glass blowing analogy? I’d love to hear your thoughts?
Thanks again for the post, David.
For more about Glass Blowing check out “Product Creation: Glass Blowing not Architecture.
If you have enjoyed this post, please consider recommending 💚 it and check out my latest project on Medium at www.WonderAndFear.Tech
