To make something really beautiful, you have to treat it like a lover

"I believe in practicing one's own craft. You learn an astounding amount from the resistance of the medium. My projects always evolve enormously from initial concept to final form. Often you try something and it sucks, so you go in another direction. Often you make a mistake, and the mistake ends up showing you a better way. But unless you have an intimate relationship with the medium and with the piece, you will not notice these cues, and the work will suffer.

I think this is why so much of the work that comes from large companies is so mediocre. It gets specified by someone and executed by someone else, with feedback from someone else and final say from someone else. It's just a big mediocre mess. To make something really beautiful, you have to treat it like a lover. It has to be personal. It has to obsess you when you're falling asleep. It has to be in your dreams. It has to be with you when you wake. It has to torment you.”

Click here to read more from Jonathan Harris, storyteller, visual artist, computer scientist, anthropologist, data voyeur, photographer, digital anthropologist, interviewer, and designer.