Creativity and Constraints

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Although my university obligations are enormous at the moment, I find myself drawn back into the Origami world. Thus, I came across this month's challenge on the Origami Forum - fold something cute. This brought me back to a subject I've given quite a lot of thought to over the last few months - the importance of constraints to creativity.

This a fact that I keep bumping into, and I'll give a few examples.

1. At work, we've had to decrease the memory consumption of our product by an order of magnitude. This resulted in some very creative solutions by the team, which I think will also result in a better product overall.

2. Parkinson's law states that no matter how much time you allocate for a given task, then that's how much time that task will take to complete. This means that what could have been accomplished in a week can take a month, without necessarily any added value introduced.


3. The limitations posed by Origami on the designer forces one to think on what exactly defines the subject. I've seen too many cats and horses which end up looking like dogs. So think about it - what is it that makes a cat, well, a cat? For example, I made a human model several years back, and it turns out it's an Elvis. Because of the hair, you see?

4. There's a phenomenon here in Israel, which I suspect happens elsewhere in the western world, where parents attempt to give their children everything they didn't have growing up. This has many downsides. Children growing up without having to work hard in order to succeed will have a hard time coping with the real world, where nothing is given for free. That's why we see so many people still living with their parents well after the age of 18, or not working, or spending more than they earn, or many other things. Count me guilty!

I think I could talk about the last example quite a bit more, and I've obviously made a lot of simplifications and generalizations, but I hope you get the idea - boundaries, limits and constraints are good.

I'm sure I'll write more about it, but right now I have to think what exactly defines "cute".

Schedule

Jeff Atwood wrote a very interesting blog post where he postulated that quantity is more important than quantity. From my point of view, this is an interesting extension of the fact that the only way to learn is by doing. Especially if this means making mistakes.

In a prior post, Jeff wrote that the same holds for blogging, and that one should make a commitment to uphold a schedule. Therefore, I will now declare that:

I will post at least one post every week

And no, this post doesn't count.

The Importance of Rats

The fourth Israeli Origami Convention ended a couple of days ago. Since the guest of honor was Eric Joisel, I though it was time to write down something I've been thinking for a while.

Eric is famous for saying "If anyone can do it, it ain't art". This is very distinctive in his later works. As he told us during the convention, he spent nearly 35 years perfecting his art to reach his goal of folding human figures. It began, as he said, from folding traditional style - clear crease patterns and technical folding. From there, he explored the 3D folds, for which his masks are most famous. Only recently was he able to combine the two to reach his current masterpieces.

And that's where the importance of rats comes in. No, not this kind, and not even this. I'm talking about RAT folds. A RAT fold is a fold whose diagram has text below it saying: "Fold right about there". For many years I held rat folds in the greatest contempt. But as I age, I have come to appreciate their importance. If anyone can do a fold, it ain't art. And some rat folds only work out in the hands of a master.

A sidestep. Two prominent Japanese folders - Satoshi Kamiya and Hojyo Takashi. I've folded models from both authors, including from crease-patterns. The differences are amazing. When collapsing a model by Satoshi, we have a nearly complete piece of art. All the finishing touches are built into the crease pattern (see his unicorn, for example). With Takashi, it is quite a different matter. Folding the crease pattern is the easy part (which doesn't imply its easy). It is only half the work. This is were Takashi is a true artist - going from a base to an amazing model is not something everyone can replicate. Few people can do it well. It's art.

Now, I think Satoshi is an artist as well. There's been a recent surge of new designers over the past couple of years, and they have only shown that Satoshi's art is in the design itself, not just his incredible folding skills. His crease patterns are elegant, whereas nearly all of those created by the new stars are cumbersome. No one can design crease patterns like Satoshi.

And that's art, just of a different kind.

Blogging 101

At 27, I'm an old man.

I guess I've been living under a rock or something - I have no idea what's "hot" in technology these days. I'm new to blogging. I only have a general idea what the whole RSS thing is and I don't know what technorati is. I barely even have a facebook account.

Now, this is a problem for me. I program in c for a living. I like c. I've been programming in it for over 10 years. And I recently found out that people don't really program in c anymore. Now this didn't surprise me. I knew that. I was surprised, however, that people don't even program in C++ anymore. They program in Java or .NET. This really blew me away.

I'm taking an advanced course in Object Oriented Design. You know - design-patterns, AOP, UML, etc. It's been a real eye opener into just how far removed I am from what's been groovy since, well, I was 18 years old. I really am old.

And now I'm writing a blog. I have a lot of catching up to do. Not just in learning what a trackback is, but also in what tools to use. Tools are important. Very important. I think I'll probably have to write more about that later on, but for the time being, I need to find myself some good tools to help in blogging.

Favorite Origami Books

1. Origami Design Secrets / Robert J. Lang - This book, by retired laser physicist and origami master, describes the methods developed over the last couple of decades in origami design. It provides a good understanding of how modern, complex origami models are created. Unlike most origami books, it contains mostly text and is not an easy read. There is also an appendix detailing the mathematics behind some of the methods, mostly from the realm of Graph Theory. It is a treasure in understanding crease-patterns. See Gilad Aharoni's book review.
2. Origami for the Connoisseur / Kunihiko Kasahara, Toshie Takahma - A classic book. It includes many classical models, lots of mathematical insights and covers a broad range of origami fields - modules, geometrical, figural, technical, etc. See Gilad Aharoni's book review.
3. Animal Origami for the Enthusiast / John Montrol - One of Montrol's earlier books (circa 1985), it has 25 models which embody the magic origami held for me as a child. It is a wonder of what can be achieved using simple folding techniques. The folding sequences are natural and beautiful all by themselves. See Gilad Aharoni's book review.
4. Origami to Astonish and Amuse / Jeremy Shafer - This book contains a lot of models, unique in their wacky, unconventional character. It is a must. See Gilad Aharoni's book review.