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Ah, the internet. What would I do without it? It\u2019s a portal that bounces me from one wonderment to the next \u2013\u00a0an inspiring road trip filled with jaw-dropping illustrations and illuminating interviews, with sideshow attractions of fun video tutorials to community hangouts for every niche under the sun. The internet is the gateway to inspiration on demand, and it seems like the more sidetracked I get, the hungrier I get for more.<\/p>\n
When you have a source that beckons with creativity and inspiration 7 days a week and 24 hours a day, it\u2019s easy to be sucked into a loop. There\u2019s always something interesting a mere click away. I know for a fact that I\u2019m not alone in my predicament. In the age of Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter and the many infinite scrolling art & design websites (I liken it to a bottomless well of beautiful things just waiting to be discovered) \u2013\u00a0what does this mean for artists?<\/p>\n
The National Centre for Biotechnology Information\u2019s research in April 2015 has surveyed that the average attention span of people in 2015 is now 8.25 seconds, compared to 12 seconds in the year 2000. That means our capacity for holding attention is 30% less compared to 15 years ago \u2013\u00a0and it\u2019s not surprising, given how our brains are hard-wired to crave new information; according to Bruce Morton, a researcher with the University of Western Ontario\u2019s Brain and Mind Institute.<\/p>\n
With each click leading to the next and the more information we devour, the novelty wears off quickly, and off we go in search of better, more beautiful, more interesting things. It\u2019s nasty cycle that perpetuates itself; leading to a host of other problems like a lack of productivity (hey, where did the time go?), procrastination (just one more website!) and for some, the inability (or reluctance) to dive deeper; to analyse and synthesise the information they\u2019ve already visually absorbed.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve talked to college students who were confused by it all \u2013 there was no lack of inspiration, and yet they weren\u2019t inspired. They grew up with the internet being a very big part of their lives, and yet they seem to be suffering from inspiration fatigue, and couldn\u2019t understand why. One theory that I brought up was that perhaps they\u2019ve been looking at what was already completed and done by other artists, therefore subconsciously they didn\u2019t need to figure out the process for themselves (hey, since it\u2019s already been done!) Replicating something visually without finding out the underlying thought process behind it all is just like skimming the water without knowing its depths. It\u2019s also a little like eating junk food all the time, which tastes great\u00a0but isn\u2019t very good for you.<\/p>\n
I recommended my students to try and be more conscientious of the information they took in. Instead of merely looking at the aesthetics of the many works of art in front of their screen before jumping to the next, how about they pause for a moment and focus on finding out more details about it instead? Dig through archives of the artist\u2019s work, and perhaps catch a glimpse of their process. Maybe it works and maybe it doesn\u2019t (the ails of over-inspiration runs far deeper), but the reminder to dig vertically instead of mindlessly pacing horizontally might just be a good start. I needed the nudge too as I\u2019m sometimes guilty of the same.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s times like these that it\u2019s useful to remember Charles Eames\u2019 quote:<\/p>\n
Art resides in the quality of doing, process is not magic.<\/strong><\/p>\n Maybe we don\u2019t really need more inspiration. We need more doing instead.<\/p>\n [This is an article I originally wrote for\u00a0Illustration Friday<\/a>]<\/em><\/p>\n
\n[Illustration: Neil J. Rook<\/a>]<\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"