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As the developer, editor, and curator on most of my longer projects, I often put out little test balloons during the process to gauge the temperature of the waters and to get early feedback.

One of these projects is entering a critical development phase: building out the systems and testing the technical robustness, all of which helps me focus through the chaos.

I’ve attached a photo of some tangled cables—this is my visual metaphor for the low-rumbling garbage and visual ‘slop’ I see everywhere. It crystallized a core belief: Art becomes better from what the artist desires to leave out, rather than what to show.

With the bombardment of ill-intended experiments (often accelerated by AI tools), we urgently need better filters. My quest is to create a set of tools to help in the process of curating, culling, and editing out the trash.

I am formalizing this into the Creative Engine OS (CEOS), built on self-hosted, open-source tools to guide complex workflows. My full manifesto—The Editing Manifesto—drops soon, so if you’re interested, please stay in touch!

Question for the community: Does the sheer volume of unfiltered, low-effort content (digital ‘mud’) currently drain your creative energy? Or am I the only one seeking an anti-dote to this constant stream-of-too-many-options?