Nice, Ice baby!

We are often encouraged to look a little less at the destination and 'enjoy the journey.' But how often do we actually do it? The point of the process piece is to stop for a minute to see beyond simply the product. In this creation, the means carry far more meaning than the end, and in many ways supersede its value. The short film Five, for example, is more concerned with showing the commonality of children preparing for religious initiation rather than the initiations themselves. For our creative work, we wanted to capture the experience of our first time ice climbing. It's always a bit of a sketchy ordeal, and most climbers have sort of “figured it out” with their buddies. Our process of capturing the experience in audio followed on those same lines. We didn't give too much forethought to what our finished product would be—we just went up and tried to figure it out as we went. And we don't think we're alone. The unique creative process for each individual is, in some ways, common. We can appreciate, for example, a child's drawing; for though it may lack understanding, it conveys pure ideas and demonstrates the child's creative process. We can see a similar creativity in the body of Jackson Pollock's artwork. He is described as an action painter, wherein the process of the painting takes precedent over form and function. It's expressionism, not of ideas, but of emotion and movement. I have no fear of making changes, destroying the image, etc., because the painting has a life of its own. I try to let it come through. It is only when I lose contact with the painting that the result is a mess. Otherwise there is pure harmony, an easy give and take, and the painting comes out well.” —Pollock In documenting our experience with ice climbing, it was interesting to realize that we spent very little time actually climbing ice. The bulk of our time was spent hiking, setting up the equipment, and learning what to do. The enjoyments did not come so much from completing the climb. They came from the camaraderie of being with cool people and enjoying the beauties of the ice fall and inclement weather. We had hoped to include the process of actually recording the event, but due to constrictions we were unable to. Thus the narrative of the piece really evolved on its own. Unlike Pollock, we didn't have the luxury of limitlessness on our side, so it was all we could do to express something coherent. Our process is about learning to ice climb, but the real process that occurred was in putting the composition together. Listen closely and realize that this piece is made up of many layers, agonizingly stitched together to express in two minutes the events of an entire day.