Constraint Satisfaction

There are many moral and philosophical reasons behind the modern, Western dedication to individual freedom. Additionally, though, there is the more pragmatic belief that complete freedom of expression is what encourages free-thinking, creative ideas and solutions to problems. Now, I am an ardent supporter of freedom of expression as a policy, and believe strongly in the ethical importance of granting all individuals complete civil liberties and freedoms. However, I would like to argue that because this belief is instilled in us so early and often, we sometimes underestimate the importance of constraints, and their ability to inspire our creativity and productivity.

I guess, in essence, this goes back to one manifestation of abstraction which I spoke about in my first blog post. Specifically, one function of abstraction is to filter out a usable nugget from a body of information which is unusable because of its vastness. In this case, when a person has unlimited possibilities open to him it becomes difficult to know what to do. Too many choices are available so that sorting through all of them might be more work than actually doing the thing itself.

(Once again, I believe I'm trying to describe a model which risks being too general, so as to describe everything, and thereby lose its usefulness as a model, but I'll do my best to isolate (ie constrain) what I'm talking about into just a few instances.)

It is surprising that constraints are supremely important in the fine arts. Many of us think of art, especially any art since the beginning of the 20th century, as being fundamentally generated by people's creativity and freedom. In contemporary art, the most valued quality is a sense of freshness and the sense that the artist is truly expressing themselves, unencumbered by the norms and expectations of society. However, even as the artist yearns for the freedom to do anything that comes to her mind, I think that constraints are often integral to the actual execution.

For example, I think that part of what I love so much about the printmaking class I'm in are the limits imposed by the process itself. With many types of printing, the creative portion of the process is severely limited. Aside from the fact that there are simply many things that just aren't feasible given the limitations of the materials, it's also true that the amount of time spent creating the image (what may be called the 'creative' part of the process) is generally miniscule compared to the total time spent on a single print. Much of the time is spent preparing materials, using the various chemicals, sanding and smoothing, operating the press etc. You may then be prompted to ask - is there really that much of a difference between craft and art? If the process becomes so restricting that the artist is basically just going through the motions, doesn't it become craft? I'm not sure about the answer to this one. This certainly does make the line between the two a little bit less clear, but I believe there still is a distinction.

In any case - I've felt the helpfulness of constraints in generating creativity in a number of art classes I've taken, and I've heard this from other people as well. An exercise suggested by an art teacher, such as limiting your palette or working on a very specific subject, will often bring out an ability or creativity that may have remained hidden had the assignment simply been to 'paint whatever you want.'

I also think that the whole notion of an artist having a style is fundamentally an issue of the artist establishing constraints on their own work.
In a lecture this week, we were learning about an artist named Haim Steinbach. For thirty years he has done the same thing. Every piece of his has been a shelf, with a few objects on it. The objects change, the style of the shelf changes, but the idea of the shelf persists. Now I don't actually know why he chooses to use a shelf. I'm sure there is thought behind it. But I'm sure there are other things he can do. There are other ideas in his head, ways he might express himself. Why didn't Jackson Pollack decide to give up the whole splatter thing and just try out something else. Why does Chuck Close insist on repeatedly working on grid based portraits?

Well there is a cynical answer, and that is that it's simply specialization. People get good at a specific type of creation, and once they see that it sells, they stick to it because it makes money and they know they're good at it. But I really believe there's more to it than that. Style is a starting point. It lets the artist know where to begin. Of course choosing a style is a creative decision as well. But once it's chosen, the artist is constrained, and within that reduced realm of possibilities, creativity actually flourishes.


There is also a technical, mathematical usefulness to constraints. The title of this post is actually a type of problem encountered in artificial intelligence. The computer program is given a situation described by a number of constraints, and must use those to solve the problem. The systems of equations we all learned in algebra class are just constraints that help us find the values of a group of variables. The constraints are what give the solutions.

As I said earlier, this can get quite general. It can be used as a reason to adhere to religious beliefs which constrain our daily activities. It can almost as easily be used as justification for repression and control. Obviously it's an idea that can be taken too far. Many great pieces of artwork are created by purposefully escaping from constraints. But I do believe there is something to be gained by not viewing constraints only as retarding forces, but also as tools which, when properly taken advantage of, can just as easily inspire and create.