Are restrictions important to art-making?

Yes, I think so. A set of rules force the author or artist to find a creative solution.

I may be attracted to this position because it parallels the creativity required to make a mathematical proof. In math courses, I've been given some more or less obvious statements, from which I'm required to show the validity of a more powerful statement.

This relates to art-making. An installation artist is given mundane materials, like rocks, triangles, or the idea of pyramids, and from these creates something meaningful. A video artist has a computer and video camera, which are available to almost everyone. But she creates a piece that is moving or insightful. Traditional film plots set up a series of relationships from which an interesting, unobvious ending is believable. These are just a few examples in which the product is more than its pieces.

These examples are in the case when an artist overcomes ordinary constraints. But what if he is given restrictions beyond the norm?

Here is an excerpt from an interview that relates to this question. The quote is by Abbas Kiarostami, the highly regarded Iranian film director. He had finished Taste of Cherry (1997) and was showing it to people all over the world. On August 25, 1998, he was in Ohio, where he participated in an interview. An audience member asked the following question.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: .... My second question is related to politics. Obviously a lot of films have been made about Iran that have become the great films of the nineties just like Chinese movies were the greats of the eighties. It seems to me like a lot of great art is coming out of oppressive cultures or regimes so that while the Westerners can praise their art they condemn their cultures. How much of this factor influences your work and would you be the same person, would your films be the same, if you were making films in the West?

ABBAS KIAROSTAMI: .... I like to use the phrase restrictive to describe the conditions I work under rather than oppressive and I understand that oppressive means many different things under different contexts but for us as artists and filmmakers what we are dealing with are the realities of restrictions and I like to approach it from that angle. I look at these restrictions not in the context of the film alone but in the broader context of life. For me these restrictions exist everywhere and have always been there. Life in the East has never been without them. We have to always live within certain boundaries. Life is the combination and movement between restriction and freedom -- the field of action is limited, the field of power is limited, when we were kids we were always told what we could do and what we couldn't and how far we could go in doing things we could.

The best example I can give for this concept is when our teachers told us to do a composition for the class. When he gave us a topic, we would write about that topic and come up with something worthwhile. But when he did not specify the topic and left us free to choose our own, we usually couldn't come up with something worth writing about. We needed to be told what the boundaries and restrictions were. This has been the nature of our society and has been replicated in the realities of our film industry. For instance, during the first four years of the Iranian revolution, there was a great deal of chaos in the film industry because not many rules were set yet. Interestingly enough, most of the Iranian movie-makers didn't produce much during this time though a great deal could have been done. No one used the opportunity because everyone was waiting to find out what the restrictions were!

Most of the time we seek an excuse for running away from the responsibility. Restrictions give us this kind of excuse. Therefore, unfortunately, we seek energy from these boundaries set for us. I don't want to imply that these limitation are good and should be there, but we have been brought up with these and it is in our mentality. This is not limited to my profession -- it's in every profession, creativity is a necessity and limitation makes people more creative. I have a friend who is an architect. He tells me that he is at his best professionally when he designs structures for odd lots because these lands do not fit into the normal patten and he has to work within a great deal of limitations. So, he must be creative and he enjoys this. It is these restrictions that provide an opportunity for people to be creative.

Abbas Kiarostami suggests the idea of field of action. That restrictions help people to be creative. It should be noted that there are some obvious counterexamples. For instance, if the restrictions do not allow basic necessities, then these inhibit the creation of work. The field of action would be non-existent. The restrictions in this context presume that this field of action exists for its artists and authors. In the next post, I want to write further about the idea of restriction and constraint in relation to OULIPO.