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Oblique Strategies

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Oblique Strategies (subtitled Over One Hundred Worthwhile Dilemmas) is a card-based method for promoting creativity jointly created by musician/artist Brian Eno and multimedia artist Peter Schmidt, first published in 1975. Physically, it takes the form of a deck of 7-by-9-centimetre (2.8 in × 3.5 in) printed cards in a black box.[1][2][3] Each card offers a challenging constraint intended to help artists (particularly musicians) break creative blocks by encouraging lateral thinking.

Origin and history

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In 1970, Peter Schmidt created "The Thoughts Behind the Thoughts",[4] a box containing 55 sentences letterpress printed onto disused prints that accumulated in his studio, which is still in Eno's possession. Eno, who had known Schmidt since the late 1960s, had been pursuing a similar project himself, which he had handwritten onto a number of bamboo cards and given the name "Oblique Strategies" in 1974. There was a significant overlap between the two projects, and so, in late 1974, Schmidt and Eno combined them into a single pack of cards and offered them for general sale. The set went through three limited edition printings before Schmidt suddenly died in early 1980, after which the card decks became rather rare and expensive. Sixteen years later software pioneer Peter Norton convinced Eno to let him create a fourth edition as Christmas gifts for his friends (not for sale, although they occasionally come up at auction). Eno's decision to revisit the cards and his collaboration with Norton in revising them is described in detail in his 1996 book A Year with Swollen Appendices. With public interest in the cards undiminished, in 2001 Eno once again produced a new set of Oblique Strategies cards. The number and content of the cards vary according to the edition. In May 2013 a limited edition of 500 boxes, in burgundy rather than black, was issued.

The story of Oblique Strategies, along with the content of all the cards, exhaustive history and commentary, is documented in a website widely acknowledged as the authoritative source and put together by musician and educator Gregory Alan Taylor.[5]

The text of Schmidt's "The Thoughts Behind the Thoughts" was published by Mindmade Books in 2012.

Design and use

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Each card contains a gnomic suggestion, aphorism or remark which can be used to break a deadlock or dilemma situation. A few are specific to music composition; others are more general. For example:

  • Use an old idea.
  • State the problem in words as clearly as possible.
  • Only one element of each kind.
  • What would your closest friend do?
  • What to increase? What to reduce?
  • Are there sections? Consider transitions.
  • Try faking it!
  • Honour thy error as a hidden intention.
  • Ask your body.
  • Work at a different speed.

From the introduction to the 2001 edition:

These cards evolved from separate observations of the principles underlying what we were doing. Sometimes they were recognised in retrospect (intellect catching up with intuition), sometimes they were identified as they were happening, sometimes they were formulated. They can be used as a pack, or by drawing a single card from the shuffled pack when a dilemma occurs in a working situation. In this case the card is trusted even if its appropriateness is quite unclear...

Cultural impact

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References to Oblique Strategies exist in popular culture, notably in the film Slacker,[6] in which a character offers passers-by cards from a deck. Strategies mentioned include "Honor thy error as a hidden intention", "Look closely at the most embarrassing details and amplify", "Not building a wall; making a brick", "Repetition is a form of change", and one which came to be seen as a summary of the film's ethos (though it was not part of the official set of Oblique Strategies), "Withdrawing in disgust is not the same thing as apathy." This line was quoted in the 1994 song "What's the Frequency, Kenneth?" by R.E.M., who also mentioned Oblique Strategies in their 1998 song "Diminished" from the album Up. The Oblique Strategies are also referenced in comic 1018, "Oblique Angles",[7] of popular web comic Questionable Content.

Other musicians inspired by Oblique Strategies include the British band Coldplay, said to have used the cards when recording their 2008 Brian Eno-produced album Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends and French band Phoenix, who used the cards when recording their 2009 album Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix.[8] German musician/composer Blixa Bargeld has a similar navigation system, called Dave. In response to their song "Brian Eno", from their album Congratulations, MGMT has said they had a deck of Oblique Strategies in the studio, but they "don't know if [they] used them correctly." The band Bauhaus have used the cards for the composition of their songs.[9] The B-52's used them in the studio when recording their first album.[10]

They were most famously used by Eno during the recording of David Bowie's Berlin triptych of albums (Low, "Heroes", Lodger). Stories suggest they were used during the recording of instrumentals on "Heroes" such as "Sense of Doubt" and were used more extensively on Lodger ("Fantastic Voyage", "Boys Keep Swinging", "Red Money"). They were used again on Bowie's 1995 album Outside, which Eno was involved with as a writer, producer and musician. Carlos Alomar, who worked with Eno and Bowie on all these albums, was a fan of using the cards, later saying "at the Center for Performing Arts at the Stevens Institute of Technology, where I teach, on the wall are Brian Eno’s Oblique Strategies cards. And when my students get a mental block, I immediately direct them to that wall."[11]

The Oblique Strategies cards deck is featured in Italian comics artist Igort's work Japanese Notebooks: A Journey to the Empire of Signs (Chronicle Books, 2017; original Italian edition: Quaderni giapponesi. Un viaggio nell'impero dei segni, Cononino Press, 2015).

The football club A.S. Velasca used the Oblique Strategies during an official football match.[12] These Football Times referred to the club, founded by French visual artist Wolfgang Natlacen, by the german word Gesamtkunstwerk, which means "total work of art."[13]

Editions and variations

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Publication history of Oblique Strategies
Edition Year No. Cards Edition of Notes
Original 1975 113 500 Individually numbered, and signed by Eno and Schmidt[14]
Second 1978 128 1,000 Available through Eno's record label at the time, Opal Records[15][16]
Third 1979 123 1,000 Advertised for sale in the EG Newsletter[17] and elsewhere[18]
French 1979 128 unknown Alain D'Hooghe translator; produced in association with an exhibition "More Than Nothing" by Schmidt & Eno[19] at the Paul Ide Gallery in Brussels, February 1980[20]
Japanese n.a. n.a. n.a. A rumoured edition. No conclusive evidence has surfaced as to its existence[21]
Serbian 1986 128 3.000 Slobodan Cicmil, Srdjan Vejvoda, Goran Vejvoda translators, Serbian title: Zaobilazne strategije; published by Radionica SIC - Studentski izdavački centar, Belgrade 1986 (Student's publishing Center, Belgrade)[22]
Fourth 1996 100 4,000 Produced by the Peter Norton family (with the blessing of Brian Eno) as Christmas gifts for his friends and colleagues (i.e. not for commercial sale).[23] Unlike other editions, the cards feature translations into the five other most common languages (Mandarin Chinese, Hindi, Spanish, Russian and Arabic),[24] include artwork (by Pae White) on the cards, and come in a molded white plastic container.[25] A handful of the cards are by new contributors (Arto Lindsay, Ritva Saarikko, Dieter Rot, and Stewart Brand).
Fifth 2001 103 + 2 informational unlimited Currently on sale[26]
Sixth 2013 106 + 2 informational 500 A limited edition in a burgundy case[27]
Hypertext version 1995 unknown n.a. By Cetacean Enterprises[28] for Mac software[29]
iPhone version unknown unknown n.a. Includes all five versions of Oblique Strategies[30]
Processing version 2010 110 n.a. Open-source plugin by David Wicks[31] for the Processing creative coding environment.
Android version 2018 unknown n.a. Reproduces the 1975 cards typography and design[32]
Alexa Skill 2018 208 n.a. Available as an Amazon Alexa News Feed updated hourly.
Web project 2022 213 n.a. Previously available on the web: https://www.oblique.pouruntemps.com at the Wayback Machine (archived November 21, 2022). Made by Maksim Morozov to be used as a tool.
Nintendo Game Boy version 2022 unknown n.a. Available via https://nickyflowers.itch.io/osgb . Made by Nicky Flowers
iPhone versión 2024 151 n.a. Reproduces the five versions of Oblique Strategies[33]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "Brian Eno's Oblique Strategies – the Ultimate Music Production Tool". Productionadvice.co.uk. 2009-04-29. Retrieved 2013-09-20.
  2. ^ Sasha Frere-Jones (July 7, 2014). "Ambient Genius – The working life of Brian Eno". The New Yorker. Retrieved 5 January 2018.
  3. ^ "h2g2 – Oblique Strategies". BBC. Retrieved 2013-03-14.
  4. ^ Emr, John (2010-03-09). "Peter Schmidt Web: "The Thoughts Behind the Thoughts"". Peterschmidtweb.blogspot.com. Retrieved 2013-09-20.
  5. ^ "A Primer On Oblique Strategizing". Rtqe.net. Archived from the original on 2024-07-08. Retrieved 2013-09-20.
  6. ^ "Slacker's Oblique Strategy". The Criterion Collection. Retrieved 2013-09-20.
  7. ^ "Oblique Angles". Questionable Content.
  8. ^ "Phoenix (interview with Thomas Mars)". Ear Farm.
  9. ^ Greg Prato (May 9, 2022). "Bauhaus' Daniel Ash: "I don't really pick out guitar players in bands – I listen to something for the whole package"". Guitar World. Future Publishing Limited Quay House. Retrieved 4 December 2022. Interviewer: "What other avant-garde composition techniques have the band employed?" Ash: ""We've used Eno Cards [also known as Oblique Strategies]. I know David had those first, and then I actually went and bought a pack."
  10. ^ Runtagh, Jordan (May 29, 2018). "The B-52s at 40: An Oral History of Their Awesomely Bizarre Beach Party Breakthrough 'Rock Lobster'". Peoplemag. Retrieved 2023-06-16.
  11. ^ "Carlos Alomar's Golden Years with David Bowie (Interview)". Rock Cellar Magazine. 11 February 2016. Archived from the original on 13 February 2016. Retrieved 11 February 2016.
  12. ^ Martin Samuel (May 7, 2023). "The team using a pack of cards and not folding like Chelsea" (PDF). The Sunday Times. Retrieved 7 May 2023.
  13. ^ "The new order: A.S. Velasca, art and football". 24 October 2016.
  14. ^ "The Oblique Strategies Web Site". Rtqe.net. Retrieved 2013-09-20.
  15. ^ "Oblique Strategies". Gruntose. Archived from the original on 2013-09-21. Retrieved 2014-09-29.
  16. ^ "Edition 2 (1978)". Rtqe.net. Retrieved 2013-09-20.
  17. ^ personal collection
  18. ^ "Edition 3 (1979)". Rtqe.net. Retrieved 2013-09-20.
  19. ^ "Brian Eno Is More Dark Than Shark". Moredarkthanshark.org. Retrieved 2013-09-20.
  20. ^ "Consulting Other Sources". Rtqe.net. Retrieved 2013-09-20.
  21. ^ "Consulting Other Sources". Rtqe.net. Retrieved 2013-09-20.
  22. ^ "Brian Eno Zaobilazne strategije" (PDF). monoskop.org. Retrieved 2022-07-10.
  23. ^ "Edition 4 (1996)". Rtqe.net. Retrieved 2013-09-20.
  24. ^ "A New Edition Appears (in a limited way)". Rtqe.net. Retrieved 2013-09-20.
  25. ^ "Some Cards From Edition 4". Rtqe.net. Retrieved 2013-09-20.
  26. ^ "Eno Shop Oblique Strategies". www.enoshop.co.uk.
  27. ^ "Oblique Strategies Limited Numbered Edition". Enoshop.co.uk. Retrieved 2013-09-20.
  28. ^ "ObliqueWare review". music.hyperreal.org.
  29. ^ "ObliqueWare review". Music.hyperreal.org. Retrieved 2013-09-20.
  30. ^ "Oblique Strategies SE on the App Store". 18 August 2024.
  31. ^ "sansumbrella/Processing-ObliqueStrategies". GitHub. 25 June 2021.
  32. ^ "Oblique Strategies – Apps on Google Play". play.google.com.
  33. ^ "‎Oblique Strategies Sideways". App Store. Retrieved 2024-12-23.

Further reading

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