Past collaborative projects here at Mind on Fire have produced some fine creative work, like the results of the 18-hour comic day, and the virtual First of May Choir–you know, the JoCo song that goes, “First of May, First of May, Outdoor fucking starts today” (original call, final song). In the that same spirit of group play, I would like to propose a new project.
I would like to propose a group creative experiment with chance, disorder, fate, Jupiter, Steve–whatever you choose to call it. The randomizer will be a shuffled deck of Tarot cards. The tie between creativity and random elements is not a new one–Scott McCloud, founder of the 24-hour comic phenomenon, tells comic creators that they should “Perhaps have some randomizer at startup (like a Pictionary or Tarot Card Deck or a child’s picture book of household objects).” Consultants for business creativity sometimes suggest the introduction of some kind of randomizer into brainstorming sessions.
The rules for our project are quite simple:
1) Each morning for one week, starting on Wednesday, March 17th (St. Patrick’s Day!), I will draw a tarot card. I will post a picture of the card on this site.
2) You simply use the card as a spark for some kind of creative activity. It can be a sketch, a paragraph from your novel, a tweet, a photo, an interpretive dance, a poem, a political blog post, a video. The activity can even change from day to day. The only requirements are that a) you leave some element of the project undetermined until you see the card, and b) the final creation has to be done by the end of the day, and c) it has to be linkable.
3) I will then post links to everything everyone created by the time I draw the next card the next morning.
All right, any questions?
If no, then who’s interested in joining in the fun?
26 responses so far ↓
1 John White // Mar 15, 2010 at 6:42 pm
I’m up for it!
2 Gregory Hamel // Mar 15, 2010 at 6:46 pm
I’m game!
3 Sarah // Mar 15, 2010 at 7:01 pm
I like it! And I’m actually on break (for a once).
4 Brandon Dove // Mar 15, 2010 at 7:04 pm
Sounds awesome.
5 Erin G. // Mar 15, 2010 at 7:06 pm
I’ll try. Sounds fun!
6 Danielle // Mar 15, 2010 at 7:09 pm
I’ll give it a go.
7 Rich // Mar 15, 2010 at 9:14 pm
I may bite… we’ll see… (shy)
8 Elaine // Mar 15, 2010 at 9:25 pm
That sounds like fun. I’m game.
Elaine
9 Kate // Mar 15, 2010 at 9:42 pm
Seems like a fun experiment – I’ll give it a go.
10 kuri // Mar 15, 2010 at 10:39 pm
I want to play.
11 xJane // Mar 16, 2010 at 7:32 am
dittos to Sarah @3—I’m in because I’ve got a break!
12 Stretching // Mar 16, 2010 at 10:38 am
[...] it’s time to stretch a little. John at Mind on Fire is doing a week-long collaborative art project, where he’s introducing the randomizer of a daily Tarot card to inspire…whatever. At [...]
13 G // Mar 16, 2010 at 11:10 am
yep yep yep!!
14 Bored in Vernal // Mar 16, 2010 at 12:01 pm
I want to join in–but I’m away from home and don’t know how much access I’ll have to the computer. Or how much time I’ll have to be creative. As long as there are no great expectations, it should be fun.
15 G // Mar 16, 2010 at 2:43 pm
hey, we should come up with a twitter hash tag for those of use who may be tweeting ours/others stuff etc… something like… #MoFgCe… or something…
16 Sean // Mar 16, 2010 at 4:18 pm
I’m down.
17 xJane // Mar 16, 2010 at 5:43 pm
BiV—I’m the least creative person I know, so “no great expectations” is how I approach all these things.
G @15: YES! #MoFgCe it is!
18 Jeff // Mar 17, 2010 at 12:16 am
Sounds life several flavors of awesome in one ice cream cone. I’m in .
19 John // Mar 17, 2010 at 5:01 am
I’m excited by the turn out! Thanks for your enthusiasm. Here’s the link to the first card:
http://www.mindonfire.com/2010/03/17/tarot-randomizer-day-one/
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