Karl Schmitz, whose career spanned three decades of work in computer security, also is an artist and musician.
So, which requires more creativity? Working in technology or creating art? Or maybe both involve the same degree of creativity? Here, tech pro, artist and musician, Karl Schmitz, shares his thoughts on the role of creativity in each area.
- Your career has involved computer programming with a focus on security protocols, yet you also are an artist and musician. One area uses calculations and logic, while the other leans toward expressions of organic perceptions. What’s the connection between two such seemingly different interests?
All these pursuits are creative. Artists, composers, and programmers all create things although they use different tools. For me, the best art is created by those who understand the “rules” of their art form, but are not afraid to break them in pursuit of novel and better approaches. Although programming involves logic, logic may not dictate the decisions that a programmer makes. I think this is analogous to the fact that though all colors and notes have frequencies, that does not constrain the choices made by artists and composers.
So, which requires more creativity? Working in technology or creating art? Or maybe both involve the same degree of creativity? Here, tech pro, artist and musician, Karl Schmitz, shares his thoughts on teh role of creativity in each area.
I had to learn to look at software with a fresh perspective, which is how I think the greatest artists have come to look at the world. In turn, the work of those artists can allow us all to experience the world in a new way.
- What’s the difference between expressing creativity through programming versus through art or music?
In theory there’s no difference, just different tools. But in practice, most programming is done to create specific functionality for commercial purposes and there are a lot of forces at work to impose standardization and uniformity to programs created by organizations.
Further, although there is a sense among programmers that some code is more
elegant and aesthetically pleasing than others, there doesn’t seem to be an
audience that appreciates those pleasures
outside of the software community.
"For me, the best art is created by those who understand the "rules" of the their art form, but are not afraid to break them in pursuit of novel and better approaches." -- Karl Schmitz
- What kind of art do you do? Music? Do they reflect your programming work? How?
My paintings are abstractions. They are not about computers, but they are explorations of what elements of a composition draw a viewer’s attention. I’m particularly interested in how our eyes/brain tend to be scanning for patterns and exceptions to patterns. For that reason, I try to balance predictability with randomness in my visual work. For example, I might work starting from a grid and then alter it in ways that deviate from its “gridness.” I leave room for structure, chaos, and improvisation. The process is a mix of planning and intuition.
My music has ranged from industrial noise to punk rock to folk. Most of my music now is original acoustic rock that I can easily perform at open mics.
- At one point you became blocked as an artist. What was that about and how did you move beyond it?
I had a decade-long spell of being unable to complete a song. I wrote the music for dozens of songs, but had no luck with lyrics. During that decade, I began to focus on painting as my primary creative outlet.
About five years ago, my wife Cathy encouraged me to start playing at open mics. After playing at a few, I wanted to bring some new material to perform. I’d recently read a book about Leonard Cohen’s song “Hallelujah,” and was surprised to learn that he’d written in the vicinity of 80 verses, from which only five appear in the version of “Hallelujah” that most of us know.
With that as inspiration, I took some music I’d written and made it my goal to write three verses every morning and three verses every night. I didn’t worry about how good they were because I knew that any particular verse was likely to be thrown away. Once I had 90 verses, I looked through them for four verses that might go together well enough for a song. With a little extra tweaking I made a coherent song that I liked.
I’m prepared to take that approach with any song I write now, but in practice I
don’t need to. The lyrics are less of a struggle and I have more songs than I
know what to do with. In 2020, I’ve already written 31 songs.
"Geometry Abandoned #3," by Karl Schmitz
- Where do you find creative inspiration?
Everyday life, particularly in accidents, coincidences, misunderstandings, and unusual connections
- What else?
Here are a couple of books I would recommend.
- New Think by Edward De Bono -- an introduction to the idea of lateral thinking. I read this over 40 years ago and it had a great influence on how I used creativity in my career, music, and art.
- Tao - A New Way of Thinking by Chung-yuan Chang -- I bought this book over 30 years ago due to the similarity with the title of the DeBono book. A good introduction to the Tao Te Ching and an alternative way of relating to and being in the world.
- The Path of Least Resistance by Robert Fritz – This book focuses on the use of tension between what we would like to exist and what actually exists as the engine of creation. This applies to all sorts of creation from art to constructing a more meaningful life.
- Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman – Featured here, is the science about how we make decisions and solve problems. When does logic kick in and when does intuition and emotion take charge?
- The Holy or the Broken by Alan Light – This is devoted to the story behind the song Hallelujah and the many versions of it that have been recorded.
Karen Maserjian Shan is a communications professional, editor and writer with an expertise in connecting people and businesses through written communications in print and digital platforms.
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