Conference Doodling
Or, the art of flexing one’s creative muscle in the face
of uncompromising creative oppression
By Tim Hunter
It’s conference time, hooray! And you have been selected to
endure a solid week of PowerPoint slides, shifting paradigms, and exciting new
corporate bullshit that will drain your soul out through your ear, and replace
it with a powerful desire to run naked through the streets, screaming, “everyone,
remove your clothes, break your laptops, and burn every copy of MS PowerPoint
you can find!”
But you don’t. Instead, you endure the fifty slides of
forecasts and pivot tables. You smile politely, and nod occasionally as you are
fed clock speeds, marketing slants, and forced to participate in role plays
with illusory customers. You shake hands, trade business cards, lock eyes with
Emma from payroll, and silently share the look that says, “We will never build
our own huts, or hunt our dinner, nor will we paint a mural depicting our life
and times, but at least we had Sydney, and that conversation about Intel promos…
at least we had that.” But most importantly, you stave off the madness of
oppressive corporate exposition by rebelling, and flexing your creative muscle.
You engage in the time honoured, and ancient ritual of doodling on the
conference hotel’s stationary. Oh sure, you start by noting down a few key
points from the presenter, but as the madness builds, and your desire to strip
and paint yourself with jelly mounts up, your doodles become a window into your
soul. I’m a firm believer in the arts of creative writing and drawing, and the
power that they have to express our inner-most feelings. From the dog-eared
school text book, to the ledgers of the mightiest of money movers, we all open
ourselves up for soul inspection through the window of our art. This is my
story: FY17 Kick-off Conference.
I want to start by letting my employer know that they throw
a hell of a party to help us swallow the throat obstructing pill of a week-long
conference. This is me, for those of you that I have never met:
I'm the cheeks on the right |
The quality of entertainment that went into keeping us
alive, and not driven to vegetative paraplegia, was second to none, and I want
to acknowledge that in advance.
But the story of my conference madness will begin innocently
enough, with my first, and only real attempt at professionalism, and making
useful notes that carefully documented the information I was being imparted.
Here you can see the notes on objection management:
As you can see, I genuinely took to the info, and it was
part of the highlight of the learning. In this session, we discussed the “Boomerang
Method” of objection management first, that being the art of taking an
objection and feeding it back verbatim to the interlocutor, and clarify that
their position, which demonstrates your understanding and genuine concern for
their needs. Next was the “Feel, Felt, Found” technique, which is a minor
story-telling manoeuvre that relates an objection to a story of a similar, and successfully
resolved situation. Sneaky, snacky, no? This was the point that my attention
span began to waver. In spite of all my genuine interest in becoming better at
handling objections, and negotiating mutually beneficial settlements, I felt
the creative urge begin to well inside me. The bland, perfectly uniform
distribution of florescent lighting, and the perfectly practiced speech of the
presenter all called out for the imperfection of the human condition. I needed
to draw something. I needed to break the uniform perfection of the
factory-assembled work environment. I needed to express myself.
In the bottom right corner of the paper, my rebellion began.
It is small, and tucked into a corner, but you can make out the first attack.
The presenter might have called it a terrorist cell, but I call it my freedom
fighter band, taking up arms against the oppression of PPT, PDF, and PNG. It is
incomplete, and imperfect, it is a small, poorly rendered sword, and an arrow
being readied on half the string of an undrawn bow. It is small, but it is a
start.
The conference breaks momentarily, while presenter one packs
up his Latitude, and is replaced by the Thinkpad X1 Carbon bearing rep from a
stats company. Here, in this moment of weakness from my oppressors, the underground
resistance bursts forth into fully-fledged, open rebellion! The warrior spirit
in me has been totally unleashed, and I unleash the heroes of history onto the
pages:
Ignore the Olympic reference top right
|
A spear-wielding warrior of ancient times, bearing his hide
shield, and naught but his flesh for armour bursts forth. I practice his wild, lean
but muscular physique above, and imagine what it would be like if he burst into
the room during this presentation on in-store demonstrations. Would his lack of
a suit and tie be more disturbing than his garishly-feathered turban, or tiny loincloth?
I decide to pull my head out of the world of semi-nude warfare just long enough
to reply to the announcement that our presence in stores leads to a massive
increase in attach rates; that’s the part where you buy a mouse, or MS Office,
or a designer bag to go with your new laptop, instead of just walking out of
the store with the bare bones option of the sale. My mind reels with images of
celebrations befitting such a feat:
But before long, I return to drawing the warriors of
destiny. I draw and draw. Firstly, the death-howling mask of the Samurai whose Katana
adorned my first page, now with his bow completed and drawn. Next I add the
Chinese swordsman, preparing to cut a swath with his Da Dao, the mighty
two-handed cleaver; his top-knot and loose robes swashing in the sun! Next I
decide to step up the protection with a Gothic-Plated Knecht, with his
form-fitting armour, versatile Langschwert, and Lanze, ready for anything. The
battle is in full swing in my head, and glory is to be earned with fire and
steel. And then we broke for lunch.
Lunch consisted of the usual fare, a selection of fruits,
pastries, and some hearty salad rolls, and chicken-pesto sandwiches on Turkish.
I’m always cautious about overeating at lunch, since the lethargy that takes
effect can drive you straight to sleep in the post-repast session. So, I keep
it to just a salad roll, and a few slices of melon for the sugar. No coffee,
though. I don’t know exactly who thought this was a good idea, but no coffee
gets served at lunch. I know, right? A room full of bored 18-30-year-olds,
being forced to endure an endless array of slides, and no coffee till afternoon
tea. The Stalinist Purges weren’t this oppressive. Okay, maybe they were, but
at least they didn’t use weapons-grade bar graphs. Someone get onto The Hague.
Clearly, suffering under an unjust system |
However, while I claim to be the hero of the revolution, I
must warn you that this was the point in the conference where my mind started
down the path of perversion. If you are easily offended, or feel that it is
right to judge thought-crimes of a man under PowerPoint duress, it might be in
our mutual benefit for you to skip to the drawings I did of kittens a little further
down this page. Just don’t read anything till you reach the kitties.
Are they gone? Good. As young men in forced comradery are
often obliged to do, I bonded with my fellows sitting the presentation. Our
corporate motto for FY17 was #playtowin, something that we only found out later
was already a hashtag for crossfit. I’ll let the next few pics speak for
themselves as to my conversations with the fresh-faced young corporate
go-getters that sat next to me that day:
"Laurence, what would you do if you had a million dollars?
I tell you what I'd do, Peter man..."
|
Let the jury know that it the defendant was under the influence of PPT. |
Seriously, if you read that earlier warning, and still
looked at those pictures, you have only yourself to blame.
And now: KITTIES!!!
Somehow the shame of the male bonding conversation left me
feeling unwholesome, and like I needed the pure honest cuteness of kitties to
wash away the filth from my soul. At this point the presenters had switched,
and the Thinkpad X1 Carbon had been replaced by a new weapon of corp-order-only
choice, the Elitebook. You won’t find any of these in retail, so don’t bother
searching (bourgeois custom orders only, ala the Mac Pro with the 5k display).
For those that were disappointed by my cat drawing, this is Oreo and Milo, my friend, Paris', cats |
It
was around about this point the new presenter made an incorrect use of Latin, describing
a slap-dash, improvised solution as “Ad Hoc”. For the benefit of the young man
sitting next to me, I outlined the actual meaning of ad hoc, and how it means “for
that/to this”, or that in modern English use, while pompous, it denotes a specifically
created solution for an exact task, and while synonymous with impromptu, it
does not implicitly mean that it was done without forethought. As his eyes
glazed over, I explained to him the connotations of the above-listed shocker
and show-stopper, and re-established his attention.
My passion for words and grammar once again aflare, I
decided to express my outrage by developing a new list of creative insults,
which I have put in an easy-to-use table as follows:
The final act of the day came when I realized firstly that
there were things on the internet I could be looking at, like grand works of
philosophy, historical archives, and freely-viewable art from this century, and
the many that have come before. Not to mention the endless cavalcade of drivel,
memes, cats, and scantily-clad maidens for me to vacuously mull over. Literally
anything but this. Secondly, I realized that there were five syllables in, “Is
there Wi-Fi here?”
The next day was no less a treat than the last. This time my
creative assault began with a desire to understand the mechanics of the spear.
The spear is one of the simplest weapons imaginable, and the art form behind
its use relies on geometry, angles of attack, and lines of defence. I was
fascinated by the techniques of the spear, and of rapiers, which shared the
similar simplicity of the thrust, and the angular defence. It wasn’t blood in
the streets today, but an attempt at articulated design. I wanted to capture
the essence of a battle in its scientific exactitude.
Then I decided to be completely immature, and come up with
some names for my imaginary progressive rock band.
For those that can’t make out the childlike hieroglyphs of
my handwriting, and shitty spelling, I’ll translate. My band may be called:
-
Digital Spudgun
-
Wonky Shocker’s Whacky Hackers
-
The Galah Gala
-
Gun Dog: The Wild Pug Slinger
-
Excel Bedsheets
-
Reality Czech
-
Funkier than Yo Monkey Bunch
-
Trans-Digital Acceptance
-
Consensual High-Five
-
Flogging Boxes
-
Critical Sass
Got to admit, it’s down to either Gun Dog, or Critical Sass.
The morning tea break was a well-deserved reward for listening
to whatever the hell our presenter was reading from his fancy new Zenbook 13. I
knew that we were in Sydney Harbour, and there was something special I needed to
do before leaving town. My uncle was a seaman in the Royal Australian Navy
during the Vietnam War, and his wit, sass, and outstanding storytelling have
always been an inspiration to me. One of the ships he served on, along with 300
other Aussie sailors, was the HMAS Vampire. The Vampire, also known as The Batmobile,
is a museum ship, docked in Sydney Harbour right now. I knew I wouldn’t get
much of an opportunity, so I bolted for the door during the 15-minute tea
break, and managed to look upon Vampire in all its glory.
Magnificent |
Vampire was one of three Daring Class destroyers operated by
Australia during The Cold War, and Ian Hunter served on it, and its sister the
Vendetta. His stories of laughter, debauchery, and the horrors he witnessed
down the telescopic sights, all contributed to the hero he is today, and I was
thrilled to get the opportunity to see his ship, even if only for five minutes
before sprinting back to the gulag for more slideshows.
Audamus! |
Of course, one can’t experience that thrill without having
the creative muscle scream to be flexed. While I’m no great artist, here’s my
etching of the Vampire launching a spread of torpedoes. ‘Audamus!”
By this point, my journey into madness was all but complete.
Without the open air of the harbour, or the majesty of my mistress, the Lamia
of Sydney quay, I had no patience left for the discussion of legal implications
of predatory salesmanship, or use of a person’s image. I wanted to ride the
waves, or charge with a couched lance across the steppe. My patience concluded:
I'm sure he was a nice man, and deserved none of this. |
But anger is the perfect fuel for the artist’s soul. When
you feel like your exits are all closed, and your flame is choked by the lack
of air and closed doors of the conference, it is time to let loose the blast
furnace they’ve stoked in your chest. Draw, recite, sculpt, create:
Slightly corrected below: |
Consume
Eat of the wholesome fruit of the digital vine
Chew on the open vein of the cloud-based throat
Sing of the bloated, black reticulated spline
Scream at the choking, user-preying garrotte
Like, comment, subscribe, share, promote
Take the pill, buy the house
Swipe, tap, wave, and die
Check in to the madhouse
Consume, buy more, shut up, and buy
Okay, it’s borderline Vogon poetry, but what do you
expect, I made it up while watching a PowerPoint on market share growth. Thus
ended my descent into madness. I take a small amount of solace in the fact that
I was far from alone. All around me were the bored, slack-jawed faces of those
that consumed the data like folk drowning in plain air. I toured the aftermath
of the battle between work and creativity, and took many autopsies of the
fallen. Sculptures, etchings, inscriptions of the lost. These were the works I
recorded, and that I now submit to you. When you find yourself yawning in a
silent scream at conference, I hope you find your creative will to fight, and
summon the energy of these works of art to your side:
Express, my dear colleagues, express your inner desires
I’d like to close by thanking my employers for all the
effort they laid on in keeping our spirits high. This article was in jest, and
good humour, and I genuinely respect how hard it is to keep parasitic employees
like me entertained, and receptive to the info we need to work our jobs
properly. Thanks for the memories.
Damn it feels good to be a Gansta |