Brains, idea, lightbulbs and tattoos

Editor's note: To accompany the series A History of Ideas you can find 48 animations exploring the philosophical ideas from the programmes. Produced in partnership with The Open University and animated by Cogni+ive the short films are narrated by Harry Shearer and Gillian Anderson. Here, Visual Thinker, Andrew Park writes further about his creative process and invites listeners and viewers of the animations to contact him about his work.

I am attempting to write this blog in retrospect. Retrospect isn’t a beleaguered ex-Soviet outpost near the Siberian border where I have decided upon a self-imposed exile until I manage to wrestle the entire History of Ideas series from my aching arm (apparently Golfer’s elbow – although I have never knowingly picked up a golf club) and my increasingly flabby brain. No…Retrospect is some place, even grimmer! It is a place of muffled coughs, squinted glimpses, half digested memories and ‘dirty terminals.’

‘Dirty terminals’ is an expression I picked up the other day when having to change both headlamp bulbs in my Smart car a rather convenient name when talking about light bulbs! A cheery wipe with a cloth was all it took to restore the car to it less-dangerous glory of being able to drive after 5p.m. in November. No such luck for me then in attempting to piece together the shattered fragments of my memory over the last few months to see if I can tell an interesting story about how we got to where we are with the ‘History of Ideas’ project.

In writing this blog about the first 12 animations, I feel a bit like ‘Leonard Shelby’ character from ‘Momento’, who has anterograde amnesia, without the ability to store recent memories and has taken to adorning his body with tattoos of fragments of information in order to solve the mystery of a murdered wife. Although permanent body adornment hasn’t taken place with me just yet, as I can’t quite see how having an indelible image etched into my flesh will work for me personally, as I tend to contradict myself within the same sentence, let alone be happy with an image that I would be happy wearing on my skin forever.

Going back to memory. I often wonder how people write their memoirs when I have trouble remembering yesterday. I find it hard to believe that people have such clarity about what happened on, say, a Sunday afternoon in 1948. Perhaps Paul Broks will be able to tell me!

I went through a phase of keeping a diary in order to try and keep tabs on my movements, both cerebral and physical, but when I read back what I had written some months later, it depressed me. Such squalid and non-eventful happenings! I also started to tend make things up in it to make it seem less tedious. I suppose if you were to look back on it in 30 years time you would conclude that this man went to the shops a lot.

Anyway. This Blog is an attempt to engage my brain with the more creative end of my existence. Something that might be of interest to somebody else other than my mundane trips to Wilkos to buy the wrong lightbulbs. Hang on….What is it with lightbulbs? I have got lightbulbs on the brain. I suppose it is inevitable when we are talking about ideas that we have to include this symbol.

Even Melvyn Bragg is sporting a lightbulb in the Radio Times spread about the broadcast. It’s now entered our visual lexicon and because it is so well used it is now a cliché. I don’t think there is a person on the planet that wouldn’t understand what the lightbulb represents. Is it wrong of me to want another symbol to represent ‘ideas’ or creativity other than this invention of the industrial age, invented in 1800? I think because the lightbulb has been around so long that ironically it stands for the opposite when it comes to talking about ideas – We have no idea. What was there before the lightbulb? Maybe people didn’t represent ideas in that way – I often use candles when drawing people post industrial age having ideas.

Maybe ‘ideas’ as we know it, as collateral are the preserve of industry. Everyone else was too busy threshing hay and being mammals before that. Hopefully I will not have to resort to relying on this cliché too much over the course of this series of translating ideas into pictures. I give you all permission to let me know when I have been lazy!

It’s now a few days after the first batch of ‘The History of ideas’ animations have gone live. Seeing them online, in one solid lump, has been a thrill. What is hopefully even more exciting is the prospect of creating some kind of dialogue with the audience too. I am all for discussion about the films that we make and the ideas contained within. Please do leave a comment or email or tweet me @wearecognitive. I would like to engage with you!