Oliver Warden

Blog: www.wheresgloball.tumblr.com

In a society where so many of our human interactions take place online, we constantly face the question “to whom am I truly connected?” GLOBALL is an
in-person social network designed to create meaningful connections through one world-spanning art experience. 

Janet Alexander of GALO Magazine wrote an excellent article on GLOBALL which describes the project, read it here: 

"Unprecedented in both its scope and origins, Warden’s most ambitious project to date is summarized by a single question, “Can we pass seven beautifully made wooden balls, hand to hand, person to person, around the world?” In keeping with a hallmark of Warden’s body of work, GLOBALL challenges both the form and function of its medium, or as Warden explained last September, “I want to destroy your idea of what art is; it’s my lifelong ambition.” Put simply, GLOBALL is a social network composed of people among whom seven wood-crafted balls are exchanged indefinitely. Put less simply, GLOBALL engages relationship forming as an art form. In a similar vain to the so-called, “art of living,” GLOBALL challenges people to enact the “art of connecting” — in a time when social connection is as accessible and instant as ever online, GLOBALL is a decidedly contrarian effort to revitalize relationships founded in the traditional custom of exchanging a gift. GLOBALL’s innovation is in how the gifts are uniform and self-consciously a part of a larger network. Fundamental to any of Warden’s work is how it is distinctively illusory — a simple plan surrounding complex ideas.

Relying on the most basic definition of art as a means of communication, GLOBALL explores how a social network is a means of communication in and of itself. Not surprisingly, the novelty of such an idea as visionary as GLOBALL has quickly garnered a variety of media attention, including a recent interview from Amanda Browder at Bad at Sports, as well as Artinfo. In order to engineer the Web site and the balls — made from wood that is to be sourced from all seven continents — Warden is hoping to raise $20,000 through an IndieGoGo Campaign, which ends on November 26th. If all goes according to plan, Warden will be hosting a launch party in New York City — a tight-knit group of only friends, from which he’ll hand off the balls — in late January, early February.

Ever since the first grade, when he memorably created a one-point perspective drawing at the age of five, Warden has dedicated himself to crafting wholly visionary causes. And his extraordinary ability to see something for what it is as much as for what it could be through art is no more self-evident than in hearing him explain GLOBALL.

GALO: It can be said that GLOBALL involves a kind of performance art, and it is certainly interactive, yet it is markedly different from what you’ve done before. How and when did the idea for this project come about?

Oliver Warden: I don’t know, because GLOBALL, unlike all my other ideas, didn’t have a Eureka moment, or at least I can’t remember what it is [if there was one]. But instead, it was a combination of all these things in my life coming together at a certain time. Around 2008, the recession hits; I’m still going on [President] Barack Obama’s hope, still optimistic, I’m coming off a project that is very dark — a Columbine themed feature-length film based off a video game — and I think GLOBALL is the opposite of that. It’s hopeful and optimistic. I was having tough times in my personal life. And I saw this weird moment in 2008, when Facebook was awesome, but there was starting to be something missing. And I think what it was, was deep, meaningful content and connection. There is another level of connection that I think social networking can offer.

GALO: Because the connections are based on exchanging a tangible object, GLOBALL sounds like a drastic departure from your allegiance to the virtual. Is this a criticism of virtual connection?

OW: It’s not a statement. I don’t have any problem with fully virtual. In fact, when people say, “oh, I hate Facebook,” my knee-jerk reaction is often to think they don’t do it enough. Rather than abandon it, why not push through it so deeply that from the other end comes art? You know, for an artist, comes art. I’m 42-years-old; I have one foot in both digital and analog. I’m very young in the sense that I’m fully immersed in the virtual, but I’m also very much a product of my age, growing up rooted in analog. So, GLOBALL is a fitting union of the two that challenges those of us from an analog age, just as much as those who grew up only knowing digital.

GALO: How can attempting to form a social network be considered an artistic endeavor?

OW: It’s a new type of social network. It’s a work of art where social networking is my medium. I like to say it’s in the collective experience — what it creates ultimately, as one giant endeavor. Facebook could have solely been a creative endeavor; it could’ve been art. I think the best thing is I don’t know how it will truly manifest itself. The only way to find out is to do it. You can track the GLOBALLS on the Web site. And as each GLOBALL travels from person to person, it will give people a chance to take a one-of-a-kind work of art and instead of keeping it, pass it to the person of their choice. As GLOBALLS travel around the world, the Web site collects their fantastic stories. It’s a medium of contemporary art, but it’s hard to pin down exactly wherein the art lies. It’s not solely in the balls; it’s not solely in the storytelling.

GALO: How is exchanging GLOBALLS a distinctly more meaningful kind of exchange compared to other forms of gift giving?

OW: I want people to think about whom they’re going to hand the balls to. Because you can’t mail the balls, it will create a more meaningful connection between people. It can be anyone, but it requires meeting face-to-face to pass it on. As people share the GLOBALLS, they can take a moment to define on their own terms, words such as “share” and “friend” and “follow.” It is said that giving a gift to someone is really giving a gift to yourself. GLOBALL expands on this notion by providing you with the chance to give someone not only a GLOBALL, but also the gift of giving itself. The GLOBALLS are a part of a larger network, and to be a part of something distinguished makes receiving one a special thing.

GALO: Aside from the obvious pun, what is the significance of having the object of exchange be wooden balls?

OW: The balls are made out of wood for a very particular reason. Wood is a natural palimpsest — an object that can record its history within itself. When people touch them, the oil from your hands will rub off onto the balls and create an analog history woven into it, which, in a sense, is the history of its social network. It’s recording its own social connections. The record will be reflected digitally online on the website, and over time you can see the balls’ appearance change. They’ll increase in substance, with their value based in the experiences associated with the ball. You can always talk to that friend with whom you shared the GLOBALL. It involves consequence and, in turn, a more meaningful exchange than just what you might experience through a purely virtual connection.

GALO: Compared to your previous works, there seems to be a large risk for failure, since the artwork is not in your control. What happens if a GLOBALL is destroyed or lost?

OW: I’m sure that’ll happen. That’s part of the experience, but I hope that if someone decides to destroy a GLOBALL that his or her idea is better than mine. There might be a reason to do that. The piece requires a lot of faith in people, but I think that’s fresh and exciting. The art is in the process, as much as it is in the resulting network.

GALO: To what end is GLOBALL intended to exist, since the GLOBALLS are to be exchanged indefinitely.

OW: Nothing would make me happier than to be in a pub in Dublin nine years from now and see a GLOBALL being passed to someone. Hopefully, it’ll endure as a testament to the human spirit, and how the human spirit, in one way or another, will always manage to communicate.

GALO: GLOBALL is simultaneously substituting virtual connection with actual real-world connections, but also uses a virtual forum to maintain a sense of the GLOBALL network. How does this combination relate to your pre-existing artistic practice?

OW: I’ve been in the New York art scene for 20 years. And one of the ways to make a living is to show in galleries, and for a long time I was making the kind of work that can show in galleries. I was in some fantastic group shows, but I never had a solo show or the representation I wanted here in New York. After the recession hit, 20 percent of the galleries in Chelsea closed, including the one in Boston that was representing me. And I realized that the stability and the foundation that we think is so enduring and strong is actually a façade. And that includes the gallery system, and that even if you have representation it doesn’t promise you a career or the rich experiences you expect. Meeting the right people at the right time, you can’t plan. Timing is everything. So, I started thinking outside of the gallery system.

I was rejected enough times to start to think of other places to make art. The Internet allows for instant connection to everyone, all the time. And I realized the world can be our gallery. Once I started thinking outside of commodity-oriented art, it started feeling more authentic. I started seeing galleries more as stores, less as churches — places of worship — and I started thinking (thanks to the Internet) that I have a chance to communicate with everybody at once. It feels like a responsibility, as a contemporary artist I need to address the world. What message do I want to send the world? Well, there’s sharing, connection, gifting, fun and friendship. I needed a positive message in my life. It’s very difficult to have this level of faith in people, but it seems like time well spent."

Another fantastic article about GLOBALL:
Ben Sutton for Blouin Artinfo. Read it here.

Interactivity has always been at the heart of Warden's work. Having an interest in gaming, film, performance art and media of all kinds, Warden has spent his career creating social experiments that break down the borders of performer/audience. Writing his first video game at 15 and having completed the Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) at NYU in its first year, Warden continues to create conceptually rigid and assertive interactive work. 

The most successful and well received work has been Untitled Box 2.0. Originally created as Untitled Box in 1993, the second iteration was brought back in 2010. Since it's return, Untitled Box 2.0 has appeared at 15 different performance spaces including the New Museum's Ideas for a New City and as a solo performance at the Bushwick Open Studios.

The piece is best described by the writer and curator Amanda Schmitt in her article for Artcards: 

"A young woman rounds the corner and catches a glimpse of her reflection in a full-length mirrored box. Attracted to this, she stops to make sure her bangs are okay, and notices that the mirror also has a switch, at perfect doorbell height. Curious, she flips the switch, only to immediately jump back, letting out a half scream, half laugh. She might be going crazy, she thinks, but she swears she just saw her reflection change into that of a man’s.  Intrigued, she presses the switch a second time, and registers the flashing image of him again. Sure enough, inside the two-way mirror is a man, about 6’, standing at the ready, in a grey suit with a black tie. He has the appearance of James Bond, but the moxy of Elvis Presley vis-à-vis Andy Warhol’s prints. This man also has an identically placed switch on his side of the mirror. While the young woman can turn on the light, revealing the man, he has the power to turn the light off. The young woman giggles, fascinated by her power, yet she still feels the need to touch the switch again, and sees the opportunity to compete; a game ensues. She continuously turns on the light, as fast as she can, trying to reveal the man, to find out who he is, and what he looks like. He is calm and quick to the switch; she is relentless. She giggles more and more, and he remains stone cold 007, intensely staring into her eyes. You can see he is sweating, somewhat annoyed yet maintaining his authority, which fuels this woman’s sadistic tendencies even more. Who will win?

Eventually, she grows tired of hitting the switch so many times, hoping to tire him out, hoping to see him give up. He finally breaks, and the two individuals share a moment of recognition. She backs away, and he turns the light off, deviously waiting in the dark box for the next person to discover the game. The man is Oliver Warden, a Brooklyn-based painter, photographer, performance artist, and videogamer (of all things).  The performance, Untitled Box 2.0, is a concept that was originally devised in 1993 (as Untitled Box) while the artist was in school, and realized for the second time nearly 20 years later in November 2010 at Physical Center, a night of performance and installation at Former Convent of Saint Cecilia in Brooklyn, NY. The piece was performed most recently at School Nite, an exhibition in partner with the New Museum’s Festival of Ideas in May 2011, in Manhattan. Untitled Box 2.0 is a piece that speaks directly to the viewer’s most immediate feelings of art viewing: surprise, mystery, and humor. From another point of view, Untitled Box 2.0 is about many things: pop art, masochism, the Internet & social networking and analogous topics like voyeurship and surveillance, as well formal themes such as the artist/viewer interaction." to read the rest of this article please visit Artcards. 

 

In 2013, Warden invented a technique whereas he can infuse a high-res, full-color image into a mirror. The work start off as a mirrored box, when the switch is flipped, a work of arts beams through the mirror. Warden's technique allows him to control what parts of the image reflect into infinity and what parts don't. Using the optical effect of the infinity mirror, Warden addresses themes of vanity, introspection, desire, objecthood and the proliferation of the "selfie" in contemporary culture. 

A continuation of his last bodies of paintings - The Great American - Warden continues his questioning of how "the spectacle" operates as the global language of power. "In a global consumerist culture, the last enduring marriage is the one between sex and violence. The last body of work, The Great American, dealt with the violence of imagery and the transaction of power mediated through technology. This new body of work deals with the sex. Not sex as in intercourse, but the fetishizing between desire and objects."

Each image is a composite of "desired" pictures collected from Tumblrs. Contemporary abstract paintings weave into photos of models, luxury brands and classic sculptures mesh with explosive fireworks and pop culture icons to create new forms of lush, prestine objects. The faces are obstructed or removed so the viewer can place themselves into the works, interweaving their own reflections into objects of desire.

To make these works Warden builds up and pours layers of oil medium onto digital composites that have been printed on stretched canvas.  He appropriates these images from event films, satellites, video games, radar, telescopes, the Internet and many other digital sources.  Once printed on canvas, he covers the composite with multiple semi-transparent pours in oil.  The layering creates a low-relief topography inspired by many digital SFX processes such as texture mapping and sub-surface scattering.  These composites are landscapes that depict a world that communicates through the mediated violence of the spectacle. 

After 9/11 and Shock and Awe, Guy Debord's interpretation of the spectacle came to a frightening apex.  It pushed the spectacle into an arena of immediate global significance.  This vernacular of the spectacle, which is about the transaction of power, now permeates every part of our daily consumerist experience.  With these works, Warden examines this global visual language head on by bringing it back in to the arena of art as a gesture of dissent.  The arena of art is a progressive zone for examination, criticism and dialogue.

Since 2002, Warden has been using cameraless-photography to explore video game spaces. 

Inside these virtual spaces the camera is a virtual construct that serves as an echo of the mind’s eye. The facade of the computer screen is a porthole that allows us to peer into video game worlds and experience them as layered spaces of dimensionality and meaning.  Warden's work maps, critiques and records these fantastic new landscapes, treating them as serious places of creative expression.  

To best understand the work, please read an article by writer Janet Alexander for GALO Magazine. Ms. Alexander writes:

"From out of his studio apartment, located on a mysteriously unmarked street in Bushwick, New York, Oliver Warden displays selected works on his gessoed white walls, an attempt at replicating the walls of a gallery. Walking through the domestic exhibit, most of his pieces are oversized, nearly meeting the floor with the ceiling, which is why I immediately take notice to the only exception in the room. I begin to walk over to the opposite wall from where I’m standing. Three 4’’ x 6’’ glossy prints are pinned side-by-side, two of which are of nondescript city high rises, while the third is unmistakable. I’m looking at The Twin Towers, but it is dated January 23rd, 2011 — months after the tragic event.

Since 2002, Warden has been creating so-called, video game photography under the pseudonym ROBOTBIGFOOT. The name is a reference to an episode of the 1970s television show, The Six Million Dollar Man, in which Steve Austin encounters Big Foot, rips his arms off, and finds out its actually a robot. While the name is obscure — Warden only knows of two people who’ve ever understood the reference — and may seem silly, it’s proven to be an apt metaphor for the deception that characterizes Warden’s work. Unabashedly, he describes how tension is intended to inform his work as a projection of his fourth generation Japanese-American identity, which toes the line between “both sides of the bomb.” Originally from Cleveland, Ohio, Warden spent a youthful two-year stint in Los Angeles before moving to New York at the age of 20.

While many may be tempted to roll their eyes at the idea of art derived from video games, Warden is an unapologetic philosopher whose artwork is a creative visual extension of rumination and introspection. Reflecting on how his time is divided between virtual and actual reality, Warden says, “The thing I’m starting to suspect is that fantasy is less of an alternative to reality and more of a lifestyle choice, like choosing to be healthy or educated.” When asked what he means by that, Warden proceeds to tell me about going to Disneyland as a child, “we walked into some restaurant with animal heads mounted on the wall, and then all of the sudden, they started singing. Even in this dumpy restaurant, it never breaks face; it never ceases. World of Warcraft, SecondLife, even Facebook, all function the same way. We choose to enter into these worlds, fully immersing ourselves, and we never have to leave the fantasy; we can build it out. We create our identity online, and manage it virtually through software.

Likening himself and his artistic peers to superheroes, Warden elaborates on the struggle to be understood by the general public. “I think of the story of Superman that was created by an artist and a writer in Cleveland where I’m from,” he says. “This guy has superpowers that alienate him from Smallville. He comes to the metropolis, finds The League of Justice — his peer group who’ve also felt alienated — and they exercise their powers while forming alter egos. This is not unlike the story of artists who also feel alienated by their own Smallvilles, move to the city, find a community of others just like them, and go on to invent who they are. The superpower isn’t flying or invisibility; few people can understand the power of the artist. Our power is talent.”

Warden’s work was featured at Danziger Gallery in New York City in 2010, as James Danzinger’s first video game artist. It was a personal breakthrough, but more importantly, as Warden says, “it helped bring video game art into the realm of virtual photography, or as James referred to it as: “’camera-less photography.’”

GALO: How did you realize the artistic potential of video games as fine art photography?

Oliver Warden: I started making video game photography inside Tribes (Sierra, 1998), a massive multi-player online first person shooter (MMOFPS) video game. It was a beautiful game, rich with fluid gameplay and excellent graphics for its time. I was invited into a tribe, and it was the first time in my life that I’d ever been asked to join a group of any kind. You’re the size of an ant in a fortress, and when everyone showed up to greet me, they asked if I wanted to climb the wall as a kind of initiation. I looked up, and [saw] that it stretched for miles up to the sky above. It took four hours to reach the top, and when I looked down below, I had a moment. The wall was part of the fortress, and from atop this virtual summit, I saw a world of icicles floating below, but more significantly, in that moment I realized I could ignore the objective of the game and what I could do was make art.

A city view done by artist Oliver Warden. Photo Courtesy of: Oliver Warden.

GALO: Do you ever get mixed up between Oliver Warden and ROBOTBIGFOOT? How do you distinguish between the two?

OW: I had a friend over some time ago, and as we were looking at one of my images, I told him, “I’ve been down that hallway a thousand times.” Immediately, he responded, “No, you haven’t.” He revealed the fact that my mind was in the Matrix, so to speak. My memories of the past are a mix of trips I’ve taken and places I’ve never physically been [to]. It’s a little confusing. The emotions are there, but I have to remind myself what’s real and how it’s real.

mes?

OW: I was pulled out of class in first grade for a drawing I made, and was taken to the principal’s office. I drew a leprechaun dancing in a room but I had drawn the room in full one-point perspective. I guess this was unusual, because he called my parents that day and told them to enroll me in art classes. I started at the Cleveland Museum’s Saturday classes and practically grew up there. From there, I went to the Cleveland Institute of Art’s special classes, Baldwin Wallace’s college courses and ended up in night classes drawing nudes, all before graduating from high school. After that, I went to Otis Parsons Art Institute in LA, then a midway transfer to The School of Visual Arts in NYC for my BFA, and NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) for my masters — somewhere, in all that, was a lot of LEGOs, drawing, movies and video games.

I’ve enjoyed playing video games since childhood. I used to play ping pong in my grandma’s basement every week. One day, I came over, and she asked if I wanted to play in the living room. It made no sense. I went in and there was an Atari 2600 with Pong on the screen. From that point on, it was over, as in “game over.” I wrote my first “choose your adventure” game on Radio Shack’s TSR80 when I was a teen and have kept playing for over 30 years. Nowadays, if you hear someone screaming at you in Left4Dead 2, it’s probably me, playing as my avatar for the last 12 years, ROBOTBIGFOOT.

GALO: Since your work disassociates the camera from photography, how do you consider “camera-less photography” qualifying as photography, and what is your artistic process?

OW: It’s making photographic images by not using a camera. Photography is the tool of documentation. For me, the screen grabs documents, the pixel replaces the grain, and the monitor becomes the camera as a porthole into “the other world.” I manipulate the screen grab in Photoshop, using motifs from the history of photography, and then print it on archival paper. People’s faces drop when they realize what they’re looking at isn’t real, even though they’ve invested in it as being real. They’ve had an authentic emotional and intellectual response, but then question their own experience. Truth in photography is tough. The ultimate question is: “how do we see?” The camera is a construct, reflecting the mind’s eye.

GALO: Rumor has it that you play upwards of 40 hours of video games a week in order to find your artistic subjects. How do you know when you’ve found something worthy of an art piece?

OW: Forty is nothing. I make art; it’s my work, my passion, and my recreation. If I was, say, a book editor reading 40 hours a week you’d think, ‘Of course, yeah, that makes sense.’ It’s the same thing. I’m looking for inspiration that sits outside of the designer’s intentions and the game’s objectives. This usually manifests itself as something off the playable area, a breakdown in the game’s design, or more importantly, a moment or action that inspires contemplation or discovery exterior to the gameplay. This all usually happens after playing for hundreds of hours. I literally exhaust all the possibilities and then, if I’m paying attention, something unique emerges, and often it’s art. In other words, I start playing not as a gamer, but as an artist. It’s a weird moment when that transference occurs.

GALO: Your black and white No Man’s Land and Respawn series are markedly different from your other works. What inspired their distinctly somber and ominous tones?

OW: In 2006, I started making artwork from the game Counter-Strike: Source (Valve). I wanted to contribute to the rich history of making art during wartime and I thought using a war simulator would be an interesting way to address fluctuating moments during the war in Iraq. The first body of work, titled No Man’s Land (2006), featured images of closed doors and abandoned hallways. I wanted to lock the viewer into the immobility of a photograph of a space that was usually interactive. I followed up in 2008 with a new trio of pieces entitled Respawn. During the presidential race, McCain and Obama were both promising resolution to the war in Iraq, the first through victory and The Surge, and the second through withdrawal and hope. I created three “lights at the end of the tunnel” to illustrate their ambitions but entitled them The Pledge, The Turn, and The Prestige, which are the three motions in a magic act. The Prestige appeared at Danziger Projects (now Danziger Gallery) in January 2010, along with Rush DD.

GALO: Your photograph of the World Trade Center is printed on Kodak Endura paper, making it look and feel like an actual photograph, perhaps to a disturbing effect. Is that why you decided to include the date and time?

OW: The World Trade Center image came from an Australian designer, David Boddy, who was creating a virtual map of the scene of 9/11. I contacted him, asking to have the image, but removed everything else, except for what remains in the picture now. Being able to imagine a world in which the Towers still existed was powerful to me. It’s a representation of an alternate reality.

GALO: You’ve stalked people in Central Park at midnight to “capture” them on video, lived in a school wall for a week, and sat inside a chair while people unknowingly sat on your lap. What kind of artistic boundaries are you looking to cross or challenge? Is discomfort or “taboo” something you generally and deliberately involve in your work?

OW: I would never hurt anyone physically, but I do want to destroy your idea of what art is; it’s my lifelong ambition. Video games, the Internet and all online experiences, change how we see [things], which in turn affects the ideas we create and the stories we tell. Understanding “how we see” has been a pursuit of art, and of course, a cornerstone of photography for 150 years. So, in a sense, I’m conservatively upholding a tradition. Where it becomes liberating and challenging is how we match the expansion of our perception with our consciousness. In my work, ignoring the objective of a game becomes a metaphor for questioning authority, including our own. In other words, how do we understand our intellectual and emotional responses to an image of something we think is real, when we learn shortly after that it is false? What does that mean in terms of the authenticity of our experience? I hope [that by] making people question their firm understanding of “the real” [it becomes] discomforting.

GALO: Your first series, Edge of the World, seems to most explicitly reference its basis in video games. How did it develop?

OW: Inside the game Tribes, there was usually a football field sized arena where all the game play would occur. After I played that to exhaustion, I spent hundreds of hours exploring the vast landscapes surrounding the area that the designers would plop the playable arena onto. This had nothing to do with the original intention of the game or its objectives, but I enjoyed not having any goals, except to explore. I came across many things out there, weird breakdowns in the game’s geometry, coding bugs, and even discarded items by the designers themselves (Twin Monoliths). The thing I discovered that was the most interesting was the edge of the world; the maps were limited and actually stopped and beyond that was an infinite fall into oblivion. Even though this was part of the original design of the maps, coming across this place that man had mythologized and searched for thousands of years inside this virtual space, [it] was an odd sensation. I think it spoke to how immersed inside the spaces I felt. The sensation was not unlike the sensation of real discovery, like finding a jewel in a junkyard or something of sentiment in a ghost town. To make this body of work, I shot nearly 1,600 images and settled on 14. My final collection of shots of the edge of the world and the monoliths, best captured my sensation of discovery.

As I dug deeper, my emotions and “otherly” sensations started to become profound, and I began to think of it in terms of the search for the sublime. Inspired by the works of [landscape artist] Frederick Church, I saw this as an opportunity to see the sublime in relation to fictional landscapes (Heart of the Andes, 1859). As my emotions grew deeper, I also felt like referring to this space as “virtual reality,” as the outdated “cyber space” was inadequate. I started calling it “The Other World,” and still do to this day. Therefore, I feel one’s computer monitor is simply a porthole on which to look at the other world. In addition, if you think of these spaces as reflections of our mind’s eye, of our collective desires and imagination, then one could argue that the other world is this world, and I do, all the time."

Every artist has projects that have been discarded, were pushed to the back-burners or were one-off experiments in mediums or ideas. Warden reveals several here in an effort to be transparent about how the artist works. Learning from his trials, Warden places as much value on "failure", for lack of a better word, as "success".

Warden writes: "One does not learn solely from finished, successful projects. If you're not taking risks, you will learn half as much at half the speed. Sometimes those risks mean you aren't going to finish for whatever reason. However, if you are always succeeding, you're not being ambitious enough."