Drugs and creativity.
I was having a discussion (read: argument) with a 'pro-drugs' colleague at my college a little while back about the effects of drugs on creativity and talent. I conceded that occasionally drugs can give you experiences from which to draw inspiration from, and that more often than not those experiences are unavailable to those that don't do drugs, but the dude I was talking to argued that drugs were often an essential part of the creative process, depending on the mental state and personality of the artist in question (he used Bob Marley and Lemmy as examples).
This actually became quite a heated row, because he went on to say that drugs not only fuel creativity but also ability (citing Jimi Hendrix as proof), saying that drug use made people better musicians (I go to music school, so the musician references are topical). I personally disagree, but thats just my thing (strongly anti-drug).
I was interested to see what other people thought about the links between drugs and artistic creativity. Not trying to start some sort of controversial 'pro VS anti' argument thread, I'm just interested to see whether people think drugs help or hinder artists.
This actually became quite a heated row, because he went on to say that drugs not only fuel creativity but also ability (citing Jimi Hendrix as proof), saying that drug use made people better musicians (I go to music school, so the musician references are topical). I personally disagree, but thats just my thing (strongly anti-drug).
I was interested to see what other people thought about the links between drugs and artistic creativity. Not trying to start some sort of controversial 'pro VS anti' argument thread, I'm just interested to see whether people think drugs help or hinder artists.
Replies
http://www.cowboybooks.com.au/html/acidtrip1.html
You should never let an argument with a stoner get on your nerves, most of them are barely functional to begin with.
smoke weed every day!
This can easily be proven by putting someone in front of rock band or guitar hero. after a beer or two you start to get a tiny bit better.....but after a few more you just can't move your fingers fast enough to keep up with the notes.
Of course in the fine art classes that sold like crazy because the teachers were the same drugged out talentless hacks when they were in school. All those critiques were just massive circle jerks, "oh man I can really FEEL these colors!" and "wow that just SPEAKS so much to me through abstraction man!" You threw a single descriptive line or band of realistic value and suddenly you were "making it too easy on the viewer to understand what was going on in the piece" (actual teacher quote).
Now, this same approach sunk like a lead coated turd in Illustration and Graphic Design classes...I wonder if it was a coincident that all the fine art teachers were "starving artists" that get their living solely from teaching while all the illustration and design teachers were successful first and teachers afterward...
But Eq pillowtalk surely improves while UI.
Hell one could even argue mental illness can lead to creativity,many very creative people throughout history have also been very troubled people.
You may be of the view that drugs do not inspire creativity but you have also been through different life experiences then the person your argueing about this subject. For him it could possibly be the case. But just like anything in this world,moderation is the important part. I am of the view that anything done without moderation can be destructive wether it be drugs,sex,food,alcohol or even excercise.
So in essence i think both of you guys are right and wrong,its entirely up to the person. The Jimi Hendrix arguement again falls in the category of the person and what sort of experiences they had in their life and environment. I can see someone growing up in the 60's could have a life altering experiences with drugs which would lead to creativity. But it was also the 60's,it was a time of radical changes and rethinking of conventional thought.
(smoke weed every day)
I drink pineapple juice!
I think the better "drugs" are produced into our brain. We Should don't need external drugs that kill a bit of us to stimulate our creativity. That's tricky.
I know people who draw amazing only when they're completely blasted(and not just abstract stuff).
Find your muse. end of story.
Actually no i don't,i have smoked in months really. At the moment i see no need for it. It had its positives in the past but at this point in my life i dont really care to use it. Mind you that doesnt mean i wont pass up a joint at a party and such but in terms of looking/buying and using it on a regular basis its not something i really need in my life atm.
Made my polycount screename years ago also
Zephir summed it up quite nicely also
What's weird is that I don't think any sort of intoxication ever help drunks or stoners create something interesting, however people who are usually super uptight with their work and creative process seem to benefit from it more. Just like in the link Dekard posted.
That's the best example I think, the first shows that the guy probably has a traditional training in art, and it is technically well done, while the second shows he still knows what he's doing however now looks as though he's relaxed or doesn't really care about some of the restrictions he'd normally have while drawing, it has that extra splash of interest in it.
The problem with stoners is that they're almost always chilled out and relaxed, so their work doesn't get that extra splash, it's just what they'd normally do.
Dekard: That link was fascinating, thank you. I'll have to show it to my mum (she did a lot of acid in her youth, and will occasionally try to explain what she experienced, but never manages to put it into terms that I can really understand).
I find it interesting that most people are saying something along the lines of 'if you're already creative then drugs can help or hinder the process, but they don't add to or detract from the process in itself'. I like the idea that creativity can be dormant in people until unlocked somehow, but I find it easier to be creative with a clear head.
Of course, theres a lot of romance around it, too. The attributing of many dadaist and surreal works to 'the green fairy' is evidence of that, as is the whole 'heroin chic' thing. "People that do drugs are free spirited individuals, everybody that doesn't is stuck up and uncool" is an attitude that I come across a lot at college.
What I find interesting about drugs is that they can alter the creative process, making you choose different paths than you might ordinarily take, but the idea that drugs equal creativity is a ridiculous one. I'd be interested in knowing whether he's any sort of an accomplished musician, as well, all the more so because he linked Jimi Hendrix's talent with his drug-use, as if that's not more easily explained away by years of arduous practice.
edit: man, there's a lot of hate for stoners in here, heh. Although I assume you're talking about those that see weed as a lifestyle more so than a drug, and admittedly I've seen my fair share of wankers there. Still, it might not hurt to be a little less judgemental, eh?
I have no particular dislike for stoners (hell, my mother smoked more weed when I was a teenager than I did) but I do tend to find that the ones that do little else tend to have little else to talk about, which gets dull after a while
Exactly,judge people by their character not from knee jerk reactions based on a persons life choice. Ive met good people who dont drink or do drugs who were good people and met those who were judgemental pricks as well. Same for stoners as well good and bad people.
A perfect example of this is at my last job which was in Amsterdam,ill leave the names out and the specifics. We just had two new artists arrived at exactly the same time. One of them seemed like a cool guy,nice on the surface,smoked and on first impression seemed like a guy who i could hang out with and smoke a spliff with. The second guy didnt smoke,didnt drink,didnt like to be around either and first impression he seemed rather prickly and not the type of guy i could get along with.
I could have easily written the guy off as some straight edge holier than thou type but i did not,i tried to get to know him and see how he came his views. I am really glad i did because over time how perspectives changed. The guy who didnt smoke or drink was a really nice guy,he had negative experiences with people who didnt respect his views in the past and it made him a little defensive on the subject. I came to admire his dedication to his work and the quality of his artwork and despite the fact i smoked weed and drank we still got along because i respected his views and when ever i did smoke (we were all roomates) i went outside and never did so in the apartment. The other artist who did smoke didnt respect the other guys views,smoked in the apartment,went to work high and had a general unproffesional attitude which i found disrespectful towards other and in the end i could not stand this guy.
I found it funny that the one guy i got along with and highly respected was the guy who didnt do anything while on the other hand the guy i thought id be able to hang out with was a total prick.
Give people a chance and judge them on who they are not on knee jerk observations based on personal views you may not like.
1 up to 2 beers makes me creative in case of painting ugly people,
im smoking cigarettes everyday, but that has nothing to do with creativity
but i can work best when im awake, without any intoxication
the last time i smoked some shit was o vacation 4 jears ago, i was liing on the bed rubbing my eyes and laughing, there was no sign of creativity in that
That Zone is also useful for creative purposes, obviously. And there's a ton of ways to get into it. Pretty much any stimuli powerful enough will do the trick, and how powerful it has to be is, I believe, a measure of how creative you are as a person. Some people don't need any external stimulation at all to get into the zone. Some people can do it with the help of some music, or the correct state of mind. Or just focusing enough at the task at hand.
I guess intoxicating yourself can work as a shortcut to get into something. The massive downside is that you can't bring yourself back out of it exactly when you need to. I can get really zoned out (in?) sometimes when it's really late and I'm working on something, or if I'm playing a particularly hard game, but sometimes I have to snap out of it and do something more important. And then it's as easy as getting up, turning on the lights and taking a walk around the room, and it's over.
Unless the game in question is Space Giraffe, in which case I might as well be on drugs... that game is amazing. And very very easy to zone out to.
Also, I'll slip in a bit of that essay after all; Drugs can have undeniable long-lasting (sometimes permanent) effect on the human brain. To me, a person is defined by their personality, which is defined by their brain. Damaging your brain and thus irrevocably damaging yourself as a person isn't worth anything I can think of. No matter how small the scale. LOVE YER BODY, MAN! Peace.
[edit]
Yay, page break. I just thought of one more thing I meant to mention... The oddness of state of mind that can bring up the most weird-ass things that sometimes, you actually want to create. I think some people can't do that unless somehow intoxicated. I have no problems with it at all. I dunno, maybe I'm so anti-drugs because I'm somehow capable of intoxicating myself without aid of external items. Because when I get into it, I can get so insanely odd and just want to hit myself just for coming up with the messed up crap I sometimes think up. Things that make me say "What the hell is wrong with me?! I'm scared!!" And if I can do that without drugs, I think everyone can, they just aren't willing to try!
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Spark
True that, a shit band on drugs are still a shit band.
Different people draw creative influence from different ideas and experiences. "To each his own" I think, doesn't make one method better or more necessary than the other.
and i would have to admit that when i get together with Mike (the other guitarist in my band). we tend to knock back half a bottle of vodka each, and then get working.
we always jam together with some form of recording medium playing the whole time. and we both admit that we perform better/write better music when we are drunk.
as for drawing and stuff, i feel like it's easier to get what i want out of my head when i'm a little hight...
when i DJ, i like to take a hit or two of MDMA, as it REALLY gets you in the mood...
i would never argue that any of the above are essential, or even wise. but from personal experiance, they do help.
I understand the relaxation thing, as I generally find it easier to write (I'm currently writing/illustrating a comic) with a glass of wine or a bottle of beer, but that doesn't really apply when you're talking about something like LSD, heroin or speed (just examples off the top of my head, not picking on these ones in particular), harder drugs that are many creative people (William S. Burroughs, Kurt Cobain, the Beatles, etc. etc. etc.) are inextricably linked to. What do people think about that? Are the drugs linked directly to the art? Or are they a part of the lifestyle of the person in question that should be removed from their work?
I mean, a joint or two is a different thing to being off your face, or floating somewhere near the ceiling. I found experiences like that horrific, and never want to repeat them, but some people seem to thrive off them and make something amazing from them.
it's not like it makes you/me more creative. i feel just as creative sober. but i do find it easier to express myself artistically, and musically, under the influence.
I didn't listen, and am continuing to draw completely un drugged
-caseyjones
Agree.
or something
my greatest inspiration is my brother, while hanging around with him we're always creating some concepts or music and stuff. unfortunately he refuses wearing proper shoes for some time now, so his feet smell awefully even with a distance over 4m, this is the real intoxication, puking, diareah and skin eruptions are the result. (i have to say that i have a delicate stomach) but this is seriously no fun anymore.
i think his next birhthay present will be this:
@ music
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=180891032
me, brother + other smelly guy called peter(his smell got better after he got himself a girlfriend)
above all though, you have to bust your ass at whatever you're doing. that's the only real way to succeed at anything. hendrix was playing guitar from childhood, that's why he was fucking amazing. i also think that his music would not have been as interesting had he not taken psychedelics, but only because the instrument had already become a part of him prior to drugs. same with pink floyd, no way their music would have been that cool without drugs but they were geniuses to begin with.
then you have examples like giger...come on.
but no, i don't think it's essential to creativity to use drugs, but it doesn't hurt from time to time. smoking the occasional bowl can be great for getting new ideas. but so can looking at other art, listening to music, keeping track of your dreams, etc.
some people take a lifetime to experience certain ways of thinking. drugs usually offer a quicker way there, but it's all just experience.
maybe a guy can do an awesome rendering of an ugly animal sprawled on a rock. and it looks exactly like the boring ugly photo he took. Like exact. He created something. People love it, it looks real, he made a series. It goes on a magazine cover blah blah, but his source is a random photo he took on the side of the road while he took a leak.
then, same guy does acid, sits in thought for 4 hours about his soul, and believes that he can render it in 4 vertical lines. He believes he succeeds as he looks at the lines he created, he sees himself. The drawing is total crap to look at, but really it came from a more creative place to him. he created what he thought was a rendering of the essence of himself.
So maybe defining to yourself what you think good creativity is, would be first step to answer the question to yourself, if drugs help or not. Then what drugs do to you toward that good creativity.
If you are anti-drug, you may never find out the answer for yourself since you dont have the information about yourself on drugs... but i think this type of general conversation will never lead you to your end if you dont define those two values above first. People are probably responding or treating the concept of "more creativity" as "more technical skill" rather than say something like what you create to learn more about yourself type of creativity, to use the 2 examples i gave above again.
personally i think both pieces on their own, are total crap. I want to make games! which encompasses both sides plus interaction! woot!
You've never drank alcohol before?
love this one.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHzdsFiBbFc&eurl=http://substation.co.nz/blog/?p=262
On the art side, we wouldnt have many of the art movements we have if it weren't for people like Van Gogh eating his yellow ochre and gradually becoming more influenced by that
LSD experience and then acting on it to switch from being more of a traditionalist
to an impressionistic style.
If not for drugs we'd have a lot less of the music we do, surely everyone by this point knows
that drugs have been a huge influence in most bands music.
On the negative side, theres been just as many cases where the same sort of people ruined
their lives by making the mistake in thinking that it was the drug alone that made them good
and sought to use them more in order to become a better creative!
Drugs don't so much give you new experiences as restrict your distraction from lesser experiences and thus allowing you to sometimes be more focussed on the one thought or
become almost overwhelmed by the depth of that one thought or idea and thus experience
something you had before, but in a new and fresh way.
For some creatives, that really helps them create more easily, become more immersed in
the creation at the expense of awareness of other matters.
Theres a pattern in types of artists I've met that suggests to me that some are naturally
imaginative or have a skewed perspective on the world naturally and as a result they
tend to ( from others perspective) effortlessly launch themselves into bold stylish choices
in whatever style they want.
Then theres the craftsmen type that dont posess the same kind of effortless style, they are
the ones that just grind away through study and practise and rely more on the left
side of their brain to be creative.
Type1 tends to like stimulants, Type2 tend to be more wary of them or just distrust how
it screws up their natural workflow.
Obviously we're talking shades here, few are purely type1 or 2 only.
So drugs are good or bad for your art depending on who you are. I don't think its a bad thing
for young artists to experiment and find out for themselves, as long as they remember that
the key word is 'experiment'. All art is drawn from our experiences, so the richer back
catalogue you have, the more likely you are to be a better artist. Those experiences
can come just as easily from living too though, travel, cinema, relationships, work ... they
all add up, drugs are just a shortcut to rexperiencing what you already know and feel from
a different perspective, and thats what life is as you grow older anyway!
I don't take stimulants to aid my work, I like a good singlemalt after hours, but that's something I know doesn't work well for me while working!
Kevin, good points.
Alex
What you should know is that drugs are such fake friends: at the beginning, drugs can give you some creative style, mood, point of view, you name it... eventually, drugs eat your mind and creativity. That's a fact, that's how drugs work: they are brain destroyers. Don't worry, how many artists live their lifes with the exactly creativeless same old, same old...
Personally? I find that creativity is actually my anti-drug: I relax myself, I open my mind... I don't need drugs, I'm the drug. But maybe, if I wouldn't taken drugs in the past, I wouldn't know how to find the way to be me the actual drug... who knows.
... Simply I don't like what drugs have made to some of my friends, it's just that.
Concentration is an impossible thing for me in any drug-related state, I couldn't imagine getting anything productive done.
It irritates me immensely when, both drug-users & sober people, listen to creative music or see amazing art and immediately pin it down to being on drugs.
Suggesting creativity is bound to drugs, simply because they themselves wouldn't have thought of it. It's quite disheartening, as if there's a lack of faith in the artist's own abilities and it's just "the drugs talking".
ONLY USERS LOSE DRUGS!
It's funny, because I'm usually more impressed with outrageous and creative art when I learn that the artist took no drugs what so ever during the creative process of it. David Lynch for example, crazy ass guy and he's against the use of drugs, although I do believe Eraserhead was written under the influence, only because he stated he didn't remember the process of writing it. Here's a quote from him I like
"We all want expanded consciousness and bliss. It's natural, human desire. And a lot of people look for it in drugs. But the problem, is that the body, the physiology, takes a hard hit on drugs. Drugs injure the nervous system, so they just make it harder to get those experiences on your own."
*steal steal steal*