Hi!
I’m Julian and I’m a designer and a person living in Oslo.
My me-time is spent deeply engaging with art. I use art in Brian Eno’s broad sense here; everything that humans do that isn’t strictly necessary, that has little to do with function, and lots to do with feelings. Often that is obsessing over electronic and experimental music, or playing with ideas from video games and world building. It can also be books about mapmaking or race car livery design. Lately, it’s been a lot of fashion shows. What I’m apparently endlessly interested in is how cool things are made. How creators think, and how they work. I love borrowing from it and use it in my practice, and I love telling other people about it.
I talk about engaging in art, and that sounds a bit fancy, I’m sorry. But it’s really not. It’s just that what I’m talking about is not consumption or entertainment. It is closer to research, but not quite. Often it is about searching. And discovery. These are my interests and hobbies, yes, but what I’m talking about here is the mighty effect such experiences can have - on the mind, on life, on everything! Therefore it is engaging with art. For now.
Let’s introduce the word spark ✨.
That is the feeling I get from art that moves me. Actually, it covers a range of feelings, which is why I won’t call it excited or amused. It is called a spark because it lights something up inside of me, becomes a beacon to navigate after, and it is not always easy to know why or what it is I’m feeling. That ambiguity, if you will, is why I personally like to write, or in other ways work to convey these experiences. It’s a way to go deeper into that love for something, and often times I really like to include other people in it. Get a discussion going. Either with friends that share a spark-experience, or friends that almost never feel sparks like this, or with the artists themselves.
I think that’s all you, and I, need to know for now. What I want from this Spark File is to inspire someone, have conversations about that, and find more sparks along the way. A spiralling thing. A snowball effect. Rabbit holes.
It’s not the book you start with, it’s the book that book leads you to.
Creativity-author Austin Kleon wrote that. I’m also using his words “spark file”, but that’s from his book “Steal Like an Artist”, so I think we’re good.