"Things that take no effort are hard to value" (Robert Hodgin bonus episode)

0:00Radim Malinic:Hey, welcome to another bonus episode of the Daring Creativity Podcast. I'm back to unpack some of the gems from this week's conversation, pulling out those moments that deserve a second look and digging deeper into what makes them special. This week I spoke to Robert Hodgin, an artist and head of research and development at Rare Volume, a company specializing in data visualization and immersive installations that make technology feel human. This episode published a few days ago was titled Dare to Question Excellence and it is packed with deep thoughts and observation of what it's like to be at the intersection of art and science.

0:39Radim Malinic:If you haven't checked out a full interview yet, let me start with these moments that stood out from my conversation. So I seem to always be bouncing back and forth between the two And I think that's why I like visualizing data in an artistic way, because it's not uncommon for data visualizers to be sort of in the science bucket where they're not really too concerned about the aesthetics. They just want the data to show up on graphs and be readable. And I think there's more opportunity there to present the data in a way that feels more arch forward. and that seems to be how I step up with my time lately is just finding interesting data sets and then finding non-traditional things to do with them.

1:23Radim Malinic:This moment captures the core tension that defines Robert's entire career and his creative philosophy. He's identified a gap in the market that exists precisely because most people stay firmly in one camp or the other. Data scientists prioritise function, artists prioritise form. But in Robert's case, he recognised that the intersection where both concerns are equally weighted, it is where truly innovative work happens. What makes this particularly powerful is that he's not claiming to have solved the art science divide. He's still bouncing back and forth, which suggests an ongoing dialogue rather than a settled position.

2:04Radim Malinic:This resonates with anyone who's ever felt like they don't quite fit in the traditional categories. His discomfort with choosing became his competitive advantage. For listeners struggling with their own identity across disciplines, this validates that you don't have to pick a side. The middle ground can be the most fertile creative territory. It's gone to the point where if I hear the phrase arch forward, I'm going to assume that it's not going to be and they already know what they want to see. They just, they're, they're too afraid to dictate it during the call. I guess there's been some projects that, that were fantastic.

2:43We did, I think our first project as we're going was to do content for Samsung or their flagship store in the meatpacking district. And the content was on like a three story video wall. It was huge. And it stayed out of our way. We got to execute our vision almost to the letter with minor notes because what they wanted at the end of the day was art. They wanted big, beautiful, moving art on their big, beautiful three-story video wall. And they didn't need to throw the Samsung logo up on everything and dictate brand guidelines. They wanted us to do sort of a love letter to New York City as viewed through a Samsung lens.

3:21And so that was an example of a project that I think is up there with ones that I feel most strongly about.

3:29Radim Malinic:This is perhaps the most universally relatable quote for anyone working in the creative industry. Robert has identified a psychological game that plays out in countless client relationships The performance of trust that masks unwillingness to actually relinquish control What makes this observation so valuable is his pattern recognition After enough projects, he's learned that certain phrases Art forward, or we love what you do, or we'll stay out of your way They actually have become red flags rather than green lights And this is a hard-worn wisdom that takes years of frustration to acquire. It's essentially teaching us listeners to read between the lines of client briefs and spot the warning signs early.

4:14Radim Malinic:I'm sure that some of these words, like, we love what you do and we'll stay out of your way, they're not unique to what Robin is doing with Rare Volume. Those are actually universally recognized red flags for anyone anywhere in the world. because I can't tell you personally how many times, you know, when someone said, hey, just do what you do, we'll love it. And they didn't. So when you think about it, a deeper insight here is about the nature of creative collaboration itself. The true creative freedom requires genuine trust and genuine trust is rare. Most clients want the safety of someone else's vision with the appearance of taking a creative risk.

4:55Radim Malinic:Robert's frustration isn't petty. it's about a waste of creative potential when talented people are hired to execute someone else's mediocre ideas. This quote for young creatives this moment is a permission to value their own judgments and to recognize when a project set up is doomed from start. Yeah well I should offer that that wasn't my quote it was what was told to me by one of our employees Luca, who is wise beyond his years, I had been working on creating these procedurally generated Japanese stone lanterns in Houdini. And it was a couple months in, and it was starting to get to a point where I felt really excited about it because I was procedurally growing moss and all sort of the shady bits and making the surface look really weathered and cracked.

5:47And it's a lot of fun. And then I would hit, you know, render and then go to sleep and I'd come back the next morning and see if it looked okay. And it was around that time that I thought, I wonder what mid-journey would be able to do with this prompt. So I typed in, you know, aged Japanese stone lantern, boss, whatever, and immediately got back four beautiful Japanese stone lanterns of all different designs. And it made me angry. I didn't know what to think about this because the desire to continue working on my version of it evaporated. It's like, why would I, why would I spend the time now when it's going to be so easy to jump to the end, like reading the last page of a book?

6:32You don't then want to read the book because you know what happens. So Midjourney showed me the end of my journey for this particular project. And it was really frustrating to me because I was really excited by the project until I saw that AI can generate good results pretty quickly without any of the struggle. So I remember sending Luca a few of these mid-journey outputs because he had been paying attention to what I'd been working on. And I simply typed out the words, why bother? And he wrote me back this really lovely statement about how we bother because we find value in bringing to life something that lives in our mind.

7:14And ended his statement by saying, if I threw away those mid-journey images, nobody would care because they took no effort. And things that take no effort are hard to value. And that sort of set me straight hearing somebody say that. Somebody who's half my age, he's 25 or 26. He talked me off of an interesting ledge because it made me realize that I need to appreciate the journey and not be too focused on the destination because the journey is the fun part.

7:46Radim Malinic:So a while ago, I had a conversation with the amazing Burton Rust, who picked up on a quote in Robert Hudgens' talk at Paradiso. and the quote and he said things that take no effort are hard to value and of course i had to ask robert about the situation because it's so simple it now makes sense when you think about what you've seen today or what you've seen some ai wizard create and share as if it's the next masterpiece on linkedin or wherever it's hard to value because you can start questioning the process you start questioning uh what's actually you know gone into the process because in in robert's moment he really captures the most important creative question of our current moment what is the value of human effort when ai can instantly generate equivalent results in our conversation with robert talk about two-month journey with houdini versus mid journeys four second output that crystallized the crisis that every creative person is potentially experiencing right now what makes this moment profound is the emotional honesty we need to listen to the conversation where robert talked about how he was trying to create realistic moss and create these japanese lanterns and struggled with it and you know hit render and waited for the outcome the next day and it wasn't quite right and then when he prompted this intimate journey he got four perfectly amazing uh renders but he told me that it felt kind of like a end of the book like end of the story like the final frame it was end of the journey and there was no effort it was like what do you do with it because the quote you know things that take no effort are hard to value should be a reminder to anyone who is questioning the value of ai should be questioning clients expectations if you know they love what you do but why don't you use ai those are usually people who will not value what you do even though it was a lot of effort that's gone into it so i just love that moment because it just summarizes the whole idea of the episode the episode was titled dare to question excellence and there is time and place and there will always be time and place to strive for excellence and to create extraordinary stuff that is result of you know month-long processes because we justify the time with something that is out of this world rather than regurgitated mid-journey render thank you for joining me on this episode i hope you check out the full interview with robert hudgen and i look forward to seeing you on the next one if you enjoyed this episode and would like more accessible resources to help you discover your daring creativity, you can pick up one of my books on themes of mindful creativity, creative business, branding and graphic design.

10:57Radim Malinic:Every physical book purchase comes with a free digital bundle including an ebook and audiobook to make the content accessible wherever you are and whatever you do. To get 10 % of your order visit novemberuniverse.co.uk and use the code podcast. Have a look around and start living daringly.