Creativity Testing

Eero Saarinen’s Architectural Aptitude Test

In my album of 12 solo piano pieces ("Rifts"), the only rule was that each piece would be in the Lydian mode--one for each key. It's "home" chord (Key of C):

Here is an example of a similar set of simple rules applied to visual art, combining the rectilinear and curvilinear, and using a set of 12 colors. (Similar to the creativity tests they would give young architects). 

The results are very simple and almost child-like, but in some ways, it is also like a Pollock drip painting, which also has a few simple rules, yet it is the aesthetic opposite.

What does this have to do with music? Almost nothing, but the use of metaphor (Rifts, a breaking apart or using the metaphor of tectonic plates) allowed for something new to emerge (like mountains are pushed up at the edges of colliding plates).

The "algorithm": Divide a square, then assign the color of an adjacent part, then rearrange randomly.

Step 1: Select 12 colors

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Step 2: Slice each square randomly, then assign the color of an adjacent part (e.g. take green from square 1, and apply it to a part of square 2, take green from square 2 and apply it to a part of square 3, and so on).

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Step 3: Randomly rearrange and rotate each square into a new work, or create another rule for transformation.

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Step 4: Digitally transform the piece in some way ("Dark Strokes" effect in Photoshop, then rotate -90)

Step 5: Duplicate the image and rotate 180 degrees and set to Screen mode.

Step 6: Duplicate the image and rotate 180 degrees and set to Overlay mode.