This experiment in image and text is an example of our interest in combinatorial thinking, taking its starting point  from a selection of haphazard photographs taken at the top of a hotel in Amsterdam. It was stimulated through looking through the window and seeing other hotels all with their large neon signs standing out against the dark of the night. These photographs were taken for no purpose except for the encounter with the neon signs and the darkness. At the time we were researching the ancient Stoics interest in syllogisms, and so the textual element became an IPCRES reworking of a syllogism after Chrysippus et al. 

A further combination is added through its proximity to the Buzzing Machine project (see index) which dealt with the possible substitution of natural sounds with machine sounds. This is a process where you seek out connections that will illuminate each other to a greater or lesser degree, somewhat akin to Walter Benjamin’s idea of a ‘constellation’ or Deleuze and Guattari’s connected concept of an ‘assemblage’. As in Benjamin’s constellation metaphor, the neon signs were standing out against a dark ground suggesting some connection or similarity to each other (obvious in the literal sense). 

The syllogism, as an element of the Stoic theory of knowledge in its complex workings, suggested a machine with its dependent elements, perhaps even a kind of computer. Once this element is lent back to the Hotel photographs as a possible combination it seems possible to make the connection to the neurons, synapses and neurotransmitters in a biological brain. The last element is the concept of mise en abyme, the opposite of a mise en scene, which is essentially a picture. Mise en abyme means to throw into the abyss, producing continuous reflections into infinity. Worlds within worlds floating in the darkness. 

The work may seem obtuse but it a good example of how creativity works, through assembling materials and making connections often through instinct and intuition. Of course this process needs fuel, which in this case means remaining curious about the world, reading and looking etc.

Creativity can work like a machine, you just assemble the parts and put them into motion.