Oblique Strategies

Oblique Strategies (subtitled Over One Hundred Worthwhile Dilemmas) is a deck of 7-by-9-centimetre (2.8 in × 3.5 in) printed cards in a black container box, created by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt and first published in 1975. Each card offers an aphorism intended to help artists (particularly musicians) break creative blocks by encouraging lateral thinking.

Origin and history

In 1970, Peter Schmidt created "The Thoughts Behind the Thoughts", a box containing 55 sentences letterpress printed onto disused prints that accumulated in his studio, which is still in the possession of Eno. Eno, who had known Schmidt since the late 1960s, had been pursuing a similar project himself (which he had handwritten onto a number of bamboo cards and given the name "Oblique Strategies" in 1974). There was a significant overlap between the two projects, and so, in late 1974, Schmidt and Eno combined them into a single pack of cards and offered them for general sale. The set went through three limited edition printings before Schmidt suddenly died in early 1980, after which the card decks became rather rare and expensive. Sixteen years later software pioneer Peter Norton convinced Eno to let him create a fourth edition as a Christmas gifts for his friends (not for sale, although they occasionally come up at auction). Eno's decision to revisit the cards and his collaboration with Norton in revising them is described in detail in his 1996 book A Year with Swollen Appendices. With public interest in the cards undiminished, in 2001 Eno once again produced a new set of Oblique Strategies cards. The number and content of the cards vary somewhat from edition to edition. In May 2013 a limited edition of 500 boxes, in burgundy rather than black, was issued.

The entire story of Oblique Strategies, with the content of all the cards, exhaustive history and commentary, is documented in a website widely acknowledged as the authoritative source, put together by musician and educator Gregory Alan Taylor.

The text of Schmidt's "The Thoughts Behind the Thoughts" was published by Mindmade Books in 2012.

Design and use

Each card contains a phrase or cryptic remark which can be used to break a deadlock or dilemma situation. Some are specific to music composition; others are more general. Examples include:

• Use an old idea.
• State the problem in words as clearly as possible.
• Only one element of each kind.
• What would your closest friend do?
• What to increase? What to reduce?
• Are there sections? Consider transitions.
• Try faking it!
• Honour thy error as a hidden intention.
• Ask your body.
• Work at a different speed.

From the introduction to the 2001 edition:

These cards evolved from separate observations of the principles underlying what we were doing. Sometimes they were recognised in retrospect (intellect catching up with intuition), sometimes they were identified as they were happening, sometimes they were formulated. They can be used as a pack, or by drawing a single card from the shuffled pack when a dilemma occurs in a working situation. In this case the card is trusted even if its appropriateness is quite unclear...

Cultural impact

Many references to Oblique Strategies exist in popular culture, notably in the film Slacker, in which a character offers passers-by cards from a deck. Strategies mentioned include "Honor thy error as a hidden intention", "Look closely at the most embarrassing details and amplify", "Not building a wall; making a brick", "Repetition is a form of change", and one which came to be seen as a summary of the film's ethos (though it was not part of the official set of Oblique Strategies), "Withdrawing in disgust is not the same thing as apathy." This line was quoted in the 1994 song "What's the Frequency, Kenneth?" by R.E.M., who also mentioned Oblique Strategies in their 1998 song "Diminished" from the album Up. The Oblique Strategies are also referenced in comic 1018, "Oblique Angles", of popular web comic Questionable Content.

Other musicians inspired by Oblique Strategies include the British band Coldplay, said to have used the cards when recording their 2008 Brian Eno-produced album Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends and French band Phoenix, who used the cards when recording their 2009 album Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix. German musician/composer Blixa Bargeld has a similar navigation system, called Dave. In response to their song "Brian Eno", from their album Congratulations, MGMT has said they had a deck of Oblique Strategies in the studio, but they "don't know if [they] used them correctly."

They were most famously used by Eno during the recording of David Bowie's Berlin triptych of albums (Low, "Heroes", Lodger). Stories suggest they were used during the recording of instrumentals on "Heroes" such as "Sense of Doubt" and were used more extensively on Lodger ("Fantastic Voyage", "Boys Keep Swinging", "Red Money").

Editions and variations

Edition	Year	No. Cards	Edition of	Notes
Original	1975	113	500	Individually numbered, and signed by Eno and Schmidt
Second	1978	128	1,000	Available through Eno's record label at the time, Opal Records
Third	1979	123	1,000	Advertised for sale in the EG Newsletter and elsewhere
French	1979	128	unknown	Alain D'Hooghe translator; produced in association with an exhibition "More Than Nothing" by Schmidt & Eno at the Paul Ide Gallery in Brussels, February 1980
Japanese	n.a.	n.a.	n.a.	Although much-rumored to exist, no conclusive evidence has surfaced to confirm one was ever produced
Fourth	1996	100	4,000	Produced by the Peter Norton family (with the blessing of Brian Eno) as Christmas gifts for his friends and colleagues (i.e. not for commercial sale). Unlike other editions, the cards feature translations into the five other most common languages (Mandarin Chinese, Hindi, Spanish, Russian and Arabic), include artwork (by Pae White) on the cards, and come in a molded white plastic container. A handful of the cards are by new contributors (Arto Lindsay, Ritva Saarikko, Dieter Rot, and Stewart Brand).
Fifth	2001	113 + 2 informational	unlimited	Currently still on sale
Sixth	2013	106 + 2 informational	500	Limited Edition in Burgundy Case
Hypertext version	1995	unknown	n.a.	By Cetacean Enterprises for Mac software
iPhone version	2013	unknown	n.a.	Includes all five versions of Oblique Strategies
Processing (programming language) version	2010	110	n.a.	Open-source plugin by David Wicks for the Processing creative coding environment.

See also

• Aleatoric music
• I Ching
• Lateral thinking
• Water Yam (artist's book)
• More Dark Than Shark

External links

• The Oblique Strategies
• Online version
• Brian Eno explains Oblique Strategies on Jarvis Cocker's BBC6 Radio show, November 8, 2010