with Created Expression

My name is Ines Hardtke and although I pronounce this the way my parents' gave it to me, most don't :o) I try to be "her", "me" as best I am able anyway (and any way) on my own, with my family and friends, in my neighbourhood and in my work.

For the latter, I am fortunate and oh so grateful to be able to write that I have always loved my work. Of utmost importance to me is doing something that matters to, yes, me. For most of my life this translated into work that I loved, in places that I admired, with people I respected and packaged in "jobs" that paid my bills. And I feel absolutely fortunate in the career that cobbled itself together along this path, sometimes despite me.

To this end, I made the decision a year ago to "go it on my own". This wasn't how my original plan was laid out, but it was -- once I stopped resisting myself -- exactly the plan that kept me in line with my own greatest driving force... doing what mattered to me.

In lots of ways I have and continue to do things backwards to most. I have rarely said "This is what I will do." and then learned what I like about it. I have always said "This is what I want." and then I've looked forward to seeing what this translates into. It is backwards to how most of society works and it has caused many an awkward moment when people (parents, children and friends definitely not excluded here :o) have asked "But what does this mean practically?". "Ummm... I don't know yet. But it will be great!" And it has been. And it is. And it will be still.

While at art school, as the 70's became the 80's, in an art history class, the instructor delivered the history part as he needed to -- "Read this.", "Look at this.", "Here's a slide. And here's another one." -- and then he spent the rest of the time contextualizing it all for what could be "our" future. I'm not sure if he would have been able to describe what he was doing in quite this way but this is how I lived it. He described society and different societies -- he was a fan of Australian Aboriginal culture -- and tried to get us to debate the definitions of "madness" and "normal" and the unchanging role of the artist across time. He was absolutely inspiring and this was definitely my kind of class.

And in this class he spent quite a bit of time talking about the coming importance of computers. So... I listened and I listened some more and by the end of the year I realized that I agreed with so much of what this instructor said that I actually ended up disagreeing with one of his own conclusions.

He kept saying "Take what the engineers give you, grab onto each piece of it but... use it creatively." I got what he meant but I thought that he hadn't quite gone far enough. I actually saw this as an amazing opportunity to not only use the new tools in a new way but to create my own tools to be used in even newer ways. So... I left art school to study computer science. Well, I actually left art school to eventually study computer graphics but you had to have a computer science degree first. So... that's what I did. And, along the way I met the most amazing people and saw so many wonderful ideas sparking into life. Truly an amazing time.

Through this I stumbled into what for me was/is a perfect triangle -- academic nourishment, governmental (read "non competitive") scientific research and development and a governmental (read "cultural") art application -- all working on a single project... a computer animation system used towards specific films. (For any of you computer animation buffs, "Hunger" by Peter Foldes was the first film made using/developing this system.) I had the good fortune of working at all three of these places (the University of Waterloo, the National Research Council and the National Film Board) towards parts of this continuing project and on graduating, I moved to Montreal to continue working at the NFB. This is where I continued to work up until last year.

Every so often along my years, I would try to trace the trail of the initial spark that moved me into this career to see how it was playing out. And I realized that I had ended up doing exactly what I wanted only in a form that couldn't have been described beforehand. My work has always been bridging the technical and artistic worlds in whatever form was necessary at whatever moment it was necessary in our technical-art history. The driving spark was (always) to create new tools for creators. At times this meant actually creating them. At times this meant repackaging existing tools in a way that made them accessible. At times it meant teaching about new things like -- at one point -- this thing that is happening called the "internet". And now it means something different once again. This time it means using technology to create our own context.

This may seem small but it so isn't. It is a major, radical shift. It means no longer working to convince people that what we are creating is important. It means simply creating in this importance. This is huge. And everything is in place to make this happen. And I continue to want to help.

To this end, I am working on a bunch of projects but one thing is sure... I will happily make it possible to have web space and a web presence in a way that works for creators. And, by "creators" I mean anyone expressing themselves or wishing to express themselves creatively -- be this in painting, video, fabric, stone, words, through the creation of a family history, through the furthering of a "cause". Whatever. Whichever. However. But it is in this realm that I continue to work. And, of course, my heart continues to support "society", good society, better society, fairer and more inclusive society. This is where most of the "with Created Expression" projects fall.

So... that's it about me. If this isn't enough, there are different "about" pages on my personal blog On Being and on my own site Created Expression but I would always rather exchange on current and upcoming work :o)