The College of Architecture was organizing my annual talk; we were communicating long distance:
What is the title of your talk?
Flop Show
Flop Show?
Flop Show.
Pause
Could we have subtitles?
Sure: “A Conversation with Architect-Poet-Calligrapher H. Masud Taj.”
Would you have an image for our talk’s poster?
Perhaps my passport-size photograph?
On the day of the talk, I was guided to the Director’s office, where he had me sign forms. As I was signing, noting I had walked in empty-handed, he suggested I give my PowerPoint USB so that it could be plugged into the college computer to save time as the students had already assembled. I said there was no PowerPoint because I wasn’t showing my work.
I could see the hint of alarm in my gracious host’s eyes. By way of explanation, I added that it was meant to be a flop show. It dawned on him that the talk’s title was literal and not metaphorical. He handed me the honorarium cheque in the best tradition of their college’s hospitality before I delivered the “talk.”
There was a buzz of excitement when I walked into the hall packed with architecture students. It only increased with the introduction, which sounded even more impressive due to the generosity of my hosts. I took to the mike and said this was a Flop Show, and we would try our best for the event to fail.
The audience laughed; they thought I was joking.
Hence, I continued that I would not show my work nor give a talk but only stand on stage and invite their questions. There was the proverbial pin-drop silence. Students like being entertained; they don’t like asking questions. I elaborated: The event’s duration was 45 minutes. If they ran out of questions or I ran out of answers, I would conclude the session as I had already been paid. I waived the cheque at them.
It was OK to short-circuit the whole event so that it would achieve what we set out to do: fail. But if the event failed, we would have succeeded in our objective of failing! So, how do we fail?
If, however, the improvised session went the whole distance as a lively event, then we would have failed in our objective of failing and hence again succeeded!
Can a Flop Show ever flop?
It was the nearest I came to an intellectual stand-up comedy. The venue, the wonderfully youthful audience and the faith of my gracious hosts in me, ensured the event was lively and went the whole distance.
A student in any intensive creative program, such as architecture, is there for all those years to master one crucial skill. She needs to practice resiliency, i.e., bouncing back from failure, i.e. practicing failing but failing quickly so that there is enough time left in the semester to bounce back. Rinse and repeat. To gain resiliency is to achieve the freedom to create as one is no longer anxious about the result. Because by then, we know we have it in us to take risks, to make it work if the far-out idea that grips us does not work. We have it in us to turn around and make it work within deadlines.
Architects are professional optimists; without playing, there is no creativity.
The art of creativity is knowing not how to succeed but how to bounce back from failure.
Author’s Note: The Creativity Calligram and the World Lecture Tour can be downloaded from Academia. The Flop Show poster, too, can be found on Academia: Talks.
Architect-Poet-Calligrapher H Masud Taj. This author in The Beacon
Leave a Reply