<html><body><div style="color:#000; background-color:#fff; font-family:HelveticaNeue-Light, Helvetica Neue Light, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, Lucida Grande, sans-serif;font-size:14px"><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1444018833323_5977">Hi.</div><div dir="ltr" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1444018833323_5978">So, I might as well add my perspective on compulsion. I have a very charged relationship with it as I have a number of issues with (for the sake of expediency let's call it) OCD. I think the attention required for compulsion is a necessary part of art making, as focused labour on a given task is elemental to creative acts. This is not something necessarily native to humans, as there is abundant evidence in other species of close, focused, and continued applied attention to specific ends - from a bird building a nest to my typing this note: continuous and focused effort is required. There is also a reward mechanism - the sense of "flow" one gets when one is immersed in a task is pleasurable. </div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1444018833323_6074">A question might be - when does it cross the line from attention to compulsion? That's a complicated question, and its answer will vary from person to person.From my experience, I can "turn on" my obsessive compulsiveness - I know "that feeling" of getting sucked into a task, and I can use it to certain ends. For example, I have a radio show every sunday night at 10pm on CJRU called "Something Completely Different". You can catch it here, live:<br id="yui_3_16_0_1_1444018833323_6313"><a id="yui_3_16_0_1_1444018833323_6305" href="http://www.thescopeatryerson.ca/">http://www.thescopeatryerson.ca</a></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1444018833323_6307"><br>You can listen to previous shows at mixcloud:<br></div><div dir="ltr" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1444018833323_6307"><a id="yui_3_16_0_1_1444018833323_6362" href="https://www.mixcloud.com/misterwarwick/">https://www.mixcloud.com/misterwarwick/</a></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1444018833323_6364" dir="ltr"><br></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1444018833323_6369" dir="ltr">I've had students tell me they like it because it's all so unfamiliar and eclectic, it's perfect music for writing essays or reading. Anyway - I needed to collect a lot of music for this. Ripping all 1300 of my CDs and digitising 1250 LPs would be slow and tedious and burn out the drive in my laptop, so I set about finding it all online and downloading it. Along the way I collected other works, focussing on out-of-print or impossible to find music. Then I had to organise it in a way that I would be able to make reports saying how many of my songs are Canadian Content, what style of music are they per CRTC regulations, are they instrumental, what language are they sung in, etc. Once everything was collected, I found that my mp3 player, MediaMonkey, was able to use custom ID3 tags, allowing me to label all my songs as needed. So, for about a week and a half that's what I did. Every day, all day. I listened to music and labelled songs. At the end, I could run reports from MediaMonkey on my show playlists allowing my show to demonstrate conformity with CRTC regulations.</div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1444018833323_6606" dir="ltr"><br></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1444018833323_6665" dir="ltr">At the end of that week, I was a horrible twitching mess, and it took me a month to properly recover. Now, I add that info as I collect each new record, and presently my archive contains 119,193 songs. I listen to music on random, and so as a song comes up that I think would be good, I drag it into a playlist. This also allowed me to create playlists based on music style and Cancon. Was it worth the effort - cascading back into this "must. keep. going." mental state? Yes. I was not being "creative", per se, I was getting all OCD on data entry.<br><br>I have used this creatively. <br></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1444018833323_6769" dir="ltr"><br></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1444018833323_6800" dir="ltr">I have a book you can buy for $10 from Amazon.<br><a id="yui_3_16_0_1_1444018833323_6814" href="http://www.amazon.com/code-x-Henry-Warwick/dp/1482582619/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1444049061&sr=8-1&keywords=warwick+code.x">http://www.amazon.com/code-x-Henry-Warwick/dp/1482582619/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1444049061&sr=8-1&keywords=warwick+code.x</a></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1444018833323_6833" dir="ltr"><br></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1444018833323_6819" dir="ltr">In this book, I took a large X form and processed it in Photoshop using a specific set of sequenced parameters. To sit and generate them took a long time, and the experimentation it took to find the proper parameters took longer. There was no real "expression" involved - I was engaged in a weird form of data entry.<br></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1444018833323_6992" dir="ltr"><br></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1444018833323_6993" dir="ltr">I am also known for creating eBook collections (The Alexandria Project, Datafield1,2,and 3, etc.) and this is another form of intensive focus. Every Saturday morning I go to a couple of websites and download books. The criteria of choice are simple - it has to be something I might be interested in or capable of reading. This is a limiting factor, but it helps make the task more manageable, as I only download books in English. Also, my interests - while broad-ranging - are not infinitely elastic and some writers irritate me, so I don't bother with their work, unless it is really important. As it stands I now have about 60,000 books in my personal collection. I advocate that others do the same, as this creates resilience. Much of this discussion is covered in my book, "The Radical Tactics of the Offline Library", which is available as a free download, here:<br><a id="yui_3_16_0_1_1444018833323_7370" href="http://networkcultures.org/blog/publication/no-07-radical-tactics-of-the-offline-library-henry-warwick/">http://networkcultures.org/blog/publication/no-07-radical-tactics-of-the-offline-library-henry-warwick/</a></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1444018833323_7372" dir="ltr"><br></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1444018833323_7408" dir="ltr">So, the empowering force that allows me focus is this thin edge between "simple focus" and OCD. <br><br>I think one of capitalism's chthonic engines is that same effort. Whether one is making twine from sissel or vines in a CroMagnon cave, or typing long missives into the interwebs in one's bedroom, or stamping car parts in a factory, it is this repetitive behaviour that creates its own reward - the sense of "flow", or more, the non-sense of flow, in that when one is not in a flow state, one is aware of time, so in gaining flow one is losing a sense in order to float in a mental space of process. One isn't waiting, one is doing.</div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1444018833323_7651" dir="ltr"><br></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1444018833323_7745" dir="ltr">There is also another side to this, and that is the unbidden compulsion. There is the behaviour of the addict - where one feels one MUST at all costs engage in a given behaviour (video games, heroin, whatever...) <br></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1444018833323_8643" dir="ltr"><br></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1444018833323_8644" dir="ltr">There is worse, and this even worse Compulsion is also part of my experience. Since the age of 10 I had a common activity that later became an affliction - "Intrusive Music Syndrome", or, at least that's what my shrink called it. For most of my adult life, it was actually VERY useful. I never needed a Sony Walkman or Diskman because I always had music in my head. note for note. In stereo. And I could listen to whatever I wanted. In that way, it wasn't really intrusive. I saved a lot of money that way. Around 2009 it started getting out of hand. I was increasingly less able to control what song I was listening to, or its volume. I was slowly going crazy. The jukebox just wouldn't shut up. I ended up having a serious breakdown in early 2011. At that point, my other OCD behaviours were wildly out of control as well, (I was doing stuff like counting my foot steps, etc.) After my breakdown, the music was gone - and instantly I had never felt so lonely. Then I realised how beautiful the silence was. I could hear myself think for the first time in years. Now, I can listen to music in my head when I want, and while I am just as susceptible to catchy pop music hooks as anyone else, I have vastly greater control over what I am hearing. Also, with a vast collection of music that needs me to listen to it, I don't need to burn brain cycles playing music - I can focus on other more productive pursuits. With some therapy I was able to then contain, reduce, and/or eliminate other behaviours. I am now in a much better place, mentally, than I was in 2009.</div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1444018833323_8139" dir="ltr"><br></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1444018833323_8168" dir="ltr">However, this unbidden compulsion is a scary beast. I've come to the conclusion that the neuroscientist V Ramachandran is probably correct - the conscious mind is an illusion - it's simply riding herd on a vast number of non-verbal (but often very smart) "zombies" in the brain. An example is walking down the street talking to someone. One is not focused on stepping over the dog poop, or evading the telephone pole or oncoming traffic or other pedestrians. One "simply does it" and continues with one's conversation - the "zombies" are doing their job to keep you from walking into things. I think that my OCD patterns were part of some non-verbal part of my brain insisting on reward. My relationship with Compulsion is not a philosophical one - it is a material one of struggle. It was much more difficult, but now-a-days it's a good bit easier. I have no illusions with it - I am aware that if left unattended it could easily out manoeuvre my verbal brain and make life difficult. Again. Hence, "invoking it" for specific purposes (such as labeling tens of thousands of songs) is a risky business, and "recovery" time needs to be factored in. <br></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1444018833323_8430" dir="ltr"><br></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1444018833323_8491" dir="ltr">I also feel that many artists also tap into that compulsivity. To be in the flow or "The Zone" is a rewarding feeling. All parts of the world drift away and it's just you and the work. You pull your head out of it for a moment and are surprised that hours have flown by. What that says about art production under capital is another discussion.<br></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1444018833323_8090" dir="ltr"><br></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1444018833323_8091" dir="ltr">I've been typing this for over an hour. I have other things I need to do. I will return to this later today.</div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1444018833323_8713" dir="ltr"><br></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1444018833323_8714" dir="ltr">kind regards to all,</div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1444018833323_8729" dir="ltr"><br></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1444018833323_8730" dir="ltr">Henry Warwick<br></div></div></body></html>