KJR Studios
Kameelah Janan Rasheed is a
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from East Palo Alto, CA
© Kameelah Janan Rasheed. All rights reserved.
A score is an invitation to play, an algorithm to provide generative boundaries, a constraint that leads to other pathways, a prompt to do otherwise, or the installation of new "software" for future action.
SCORE
INVITATION
ALGORITHM
CONSTRAINT
PROMPT
SOFTWARE
These are all offerings to not succumb to a canon we cannot banish or an opportunity for surprise not to die. In Emiel Heijnen and Melissa Bremmer’s Wicked Arts Assignments: Practising Creativity in Contemporary Arts Education (2020), these are referred to as “enabling constraints.”
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SCORE
INVITATION
ALGORITHM
CONSTRAINT
PROMPT
SOFTWARE
These are all offerings to not succumb to a canon we cannot banish or an opportunity for surprise not to die. In Emiel Heijnen and Melissa Bremmer’s Wicked Arts Assignments: Practising Creativity in Contemporary Arts Education (2020), these are referred to as “enabling constraints.”
Constraints invite us to get out of our own way; to discover something accidentally, or in the words of Octavia Estelle Butler:
Below is an inexhaustive menu of constraint categories specifically for writing:
Also, check out Brian Eno’s Oblique Strategies for additional scores, Little Octopus School’s games, and Library of Babel (thanks, Kiko!).
And for a fun syllabus on scores, constraints, FLUXUS + OuLiPo fun, etc., please email studiomanager@kameelahr.com
Below is an inexhaustive menu of constraint categories specifically for writing:
- Units of speech/writing: Restrict your writing to only certain letters, the length of words, etc.
- Time: Restrict your writing to a specific period of time (arbitrary – roll a die and multiply by 5 or the length of your birthing parent’s labor time)
- Environment: Restrict your writing to only times when you are on a train or other form or public transportation
- Form: Restrict your structure to an everyday sources like recipe, ingredient lists, rental contracts, etc. (Kim Adrian’s The Shell Game)
- Shape: Restrict the shape of the sentence you write to the shape of a snail’s slimy pathway; write using the shape of a bird murmuration.
- Substrate: Restrict your writing substrate to something other than paper or a word processor. Can you write on fabric?
- Available Language: Restrict your writing to only the words found in the last 10 screenshots on your phone.
Also, check out Brian Eno’s Oblique Strategies for additional scores, Little Octopus School’s games, and Library of Babel (thanks, Kiko!).
And for a fun syllabus on scores, constraints, FLUXUS + OuLiPo fun, etc., please email studiomanager@kameelahr.com
Select a tool below and create a score for yourself. Remember, a score is just a constraint. (Here is the code to make your own randomizer -- simple JS and HTML, and you can customize with CSS if you wish)
Random Reading!