Additive process - Theory of Dirty #1

breaking it down

Rather than overwhelm myself with this huge task, i’ll break bits of this theory off into tiny lil posts to inspire you in your creative practice.

Seeing as this is the first one, I’ll quickly summarise my Theory of Dirty: it’s the idea that in the era of digital production, we’re getting lazy, and efficient methods of production are leading to boring, dehumanised work. Instead, if we involve ourselves more in the creative process, we can recapture much of what makes analog work more interesting, even if iin digital mediums.

We’re starting with one of the most important points…

Additive Process

An additive process means not going backwards, only going forwards; not deleting or completely erasing work. It’s good because it helps enrich work. Even ‘wrong’ elements can be seeds for the ‘right’ ones in the overall artwork. Traces of previous versions humanise the work by hinting at the larger process.

Here are a few examples of how this could work in different mediums.

Repurposing

In music production, especially the bedroom type - a lot of the process is auditioning sounds, trying things out. Most of what is done in a session is usually just deleted. Instead, what you could do is bounce things to wav format before deleting, to work back into the track down the line.

Let’s say there’s a synth accompaniment that isn’t working out - the frequency is overlapping with another main part. It could be used behind the main part, to add a little texture or harmony. You could put a massive reverb on it so it was like a wash, then set a noise gate side chained to the main part. Turn it down till it’s only audible if you know what to listen for, and see how that sounds.

Let’s say halfway through a track you decide to change the snare. Keep a copy of the original (you liked it for some reason). Try pitching it down or up and using it in the drop, transitions or to add syncopation with ghost notes in your beat.

Leaving/Overwriting

In painting, it could be only partially painting over a failed painting, or section, before starting again. Try leaving the part of the painting that you like best, and using that as a starting point for the rest.

A thin layer of white will leave glimpses of the previous in variations of white. This will add variation and give the finished work more subtle detail to ignite the viewer’s imagination.

You could also use bits of previous paintings in new paintings by way of collage. This is something Lewis Noble does a lot in his abstract work like in this video. He also uses an additive process in general with works taking on new life over time.

Similarly, In digital visual art, it’s very easy to erase a canvas and start again. However you could also get a white brush and set it to 80% opacity and go over the canvas leaving elements of the previous showing through, creating texture and depth for new layers.

Forwards only

In writing, it could be avoiding the backspace. This will encourage you to write slower and more carefully, planning your sentences out in advance. It might also just give rise to a bit of dirt in your writing - making it seem more off the cuff and human. Of course with writing there are hard limits in how messy and disjoined it can be: at some point it will be too hard to read, but have fun experimenting with the additive process. See how little use you can get out of the backspace key, and how seldom you can return to previous paragraphs to rewrite. This isn’t that rewriting is bad, there’s obviously a need for it, but just play.

You can check out most of my posts to substack for examples - I try to avoid the backspace unless something is clearly unreadable, and I’m pretty generous with myself in this regard too.

It’s a lot easier with computers to edit text as you go, but this wasn’t always the case. With pen and paper, or Typewriters, you’d need to be a lot more careful because changing anything was hard (strikethroughs anyone?). Even with electric typewriteres with automatic whiteout on backspace (I had admit I don’t have a lot of experience with either of these examples, although there was a manual typewriter in the house while growing up), going back wasn’t fun. Before computers, In general, you’d have drafts and re-writes. Not saying this was better, all in all it probably wasn’t, but in terms of the creative process there may have been some advantages.

Over to you

There will be an infinite number of examples I’ve left out - what are your favourite additive techniques?