THE THREADS OF CREATIVITY CHAPTER 3

'It is music and dancing that makes me at peace with the world, and at peace with myself.' Nelson Mandela.1 Every day and every moment of our waking lives we live with the creativity of the past. It surrounds and envelops us in all that we do whether it is a cultivated garden or park, the architecture in which we live or work, the clothes we wear, the food we cook, the furniture we use, the social and economic expectations we have or the language we speak. Most of the time we do not perceive it – it is just what it is, but we can also focus our minds on it and then a stream of new questions arises. When we ask ourselves what effect does this space have on me, and why? Why do I use this particular word to describe something I feel? Why do I prefer this picture for my wall? Why are some actions acceptable in one culture but are not considered proper in another? These questions are creative in themselves. They take us into new realms. In human history there has always been creativity and this capacity has had a determinative influence on how we lead our lives, but what really changes over time is how we think about this capacity for creativity and make it conscious. In human history there has always been creativity and this capacity has had a determinative influence on how we lead our lives, but what really changes over time is how we think about this capacity for creativity and make it conscious. The contemporary vibrant discussion on the value of creativity and innovation and their connection to our emotional life is not new. However, it is different. Utilising the powers of fire, developing the linguistic skills to communicate, creating the first wheel or clay pot, the discovery of metallurgy, building houses for habitation leading to larger and larger communities, finding ways of coordinating social endeavours and aspirations, have all deeply affected human evolution. The inventions and innovations of today should be measured against the discoveries of the past with certain humility. It is all too easy to have hubris about our present state compared to the achievements of our ancestors. Creativity, from the invention of knitting needles to the manufacture of iPads, is synonymous with our continuously evolving sense of identity. " … never before has the pace of innovation accelerated so dramatically, filling our lives with new fashions, new electronics, new cars, new music, new architecture … And even now a new crop of artists gaze at the Mona Lisa with an eye to turning it into something fresh and dazzlingly creative. The human chain of invention remains unbroken and in our superbly connected world, our singular talent to create races ahead of us. " 2 (Pringle, H. 2013) In this age of frenzied newness we also need an anchor lest the 'race' exhausts us and the 'unbroken chain' is snapped. To find our bearings we need more than ever the salutary thought that someone, somewhere, somehow created this, and what they created becomes, as it were, 'spellbound' in time and material. Then we can create the connectedness between the past and the present that we need. '… our lives increasingly require the ability to deal with conflicting messages, to make judgments in the absence of rule, to cope with ambiguity, and to frame imaginative solutions to problems we face.'3 (Eisner. 2002) '… our lives increasingly require the ability to deal with conflicting messages, to make judgments in the absence of rule, to cope with ambiguity, and to frame imaginative solutions to problems we face.' (Eisner. 2002) The question of 'how " something is created or invented is usually answerable in some form, at least in terms of what has been created since the Renaissance, which was a time when art became self-conscious and a more alert attention began to be paid to an individual's innovative attainments. Those who embarked on a creative career at that time became celebrated for their work, hence overturning St. Augustine's authoritative and stern edict " Creature non potest creare " (a creature should not presume to create). In contrast, Alberti in 15 th century Florence likened the painter's work to that of 'another God' 4(On Painting. 1435). A battle was begun for the human soul and in many ways the battleground is the same now as it was then. This was the starting point of the early modern age in European history of which we are the heirs. We speak about " disruptive technology " when contemplating the changes wrought upon our lives in the last few years but in the longer term the real disruptive technologies are the arts. They cause us to see and experience the world and our fellow human beings differently, and our ways of perception fluctuate with the influence of our times, our changing cultural and natural environment and our sense of selfhood. We speak about " disruptive technology " when contemplating the changes wrought upon our lives in the last few years but in the longer term the real disruptive technologies are the arts. The Ancient Greeks well knew with their theatrical concept of 'catharsis', whereby immersing ourselves in the art of the theatre and the tragic god-given destiny of mythological characters, we are able to find new depths and strengths in ourselves to face the challenges within our individual biographies. They celebrated creativity in their exuberant poetic hymns to Pallas Athene, who combined the interconnected capacity of the hands to produce craftwork and that of the mind that lead to clarity of thought. Human creativity is actually a complex continuum of activity, relationships and inner change. It meanders, flows, doubles back on itself, offers up contradictions, requires nurturing and concentration,

European Psychologist

Taking Creativity Seriously, 2022

Where does creativity come from, and where is it taking us? We live the contradiction of wanting to keep what we already know the way it is while, in the same measure, we yearn for news and changes. But this conflict between being conservative and disruptive is what makes the wheels of culture and society turn. As much as we like what creativity symbolizes today, it is necessary to accept that, like everything else on the planet, it is also constantly changing. With this in mind, this book proposes an interdisciplinary view of creativity, exploring it according to studies in anthropology, psychology, sociology, education, history, arts, sciences, philosophy, and other adjacent areas, which added to the exploration of its past, gives us every reason to be optimistic about its future. But, in addition to simply contemplating a promising future, we must also reflect on whether we are missing an opportunity or neglecting something important. In a modern metaphor, we urgently need to update our creativity software. If we want to become a society that believes in creativity as a raw material for progress and innovation, we need to recognize that we will only thrive if we start to cultivate ecosystems of questioning minds, where the exchange of ideas and the construction of knowledge constitute our most valuable asset. In short, we need to take creativity seriously.

2009

Press. My love and gratitude goes particularly to Sandra, who first introduced me to the world of theories and taught me that doing scholarship is ultimately a leap of faith. I did not know how much I was indebted to her teaching until I began this project, and her lessons will continue to enrich my scholarly attempts in the years to come. Among others, Jane Gaines, Michael Dutton, Lisa Rofel, Meaghan Morris, and Rey Chow have genuinely believed in my endeavor, giving me the needed courage to embark on this almost directionless academic journey. I also want to thank those artists, curators, and filmmakers, including Leung Mee Ping, Li Xianting, Li Feixue, Wang Yan, Zhang Tingjun, and a number of young film directors in Hong Kong whose identities I would like to keep anonymous, who have generously shared with me their works, future ambitions, and current frustrations. Their real-life experiences as creative agents are essential for me to understand the ways creativity is practiced and embedded in their social conditions. Earlier versions of chapters of this book were presented in invited lectures

This year, 2009, is the European Year of Innovation and Creativity. Considering the speed of social, economic, environmental and technological change, the challenge of this millennium is to design a culture of creativity: a culture which is open to all changes and new opportunities and which is able to solve the many serious problems that the world is facing today. A culture in which creative thinking is not only demanded, but also encouraged and stimulated in all professional and private domains and organizations. To better understand this challenge for the future, this paper will describe the evolution of the creativity concept since the 1950's. This will be done in a multidisciplinary approach. Up to the late 1960s, the concept of creativity was dominated by the psychological foundations of Guilford, who introduced the still current concept of ‘Divergent Thinking' as the main ingredient of creativity. Apart from the boom of ‘Creative Techniques’ in the design field, the 1970s were the years in which creativity become an important issue in the development of organizations and commercial success: it saw the start of consultancy work in creativity and the coaching of teams. The most popular concept of this time was De Bono’s concept of 'Lateral Thinking'. From the late 1980s onwards, creativity is no longer a research field for just psychologists and educators, but for researchers in such different domains as physics, biology, neurology, sociology and management. Researchers such as Binnig, Amabile, Csikszentmihalyi or Guntern focused their studies on the evolutionary, social and the systemic perspective of creativity. On a social and political standard, the beginning of the new millennium is characterized by the concept of the 'Creative Age', which replaces a science obsessed era and the focus on marketing. During the mid-1990s, creativity as a broad-based attribute came to be commonplace: terms such as 'Creative Industries', ‘Creative Cities’ and 'Creative Economy' entered the political and popular vocabulary. In this context, in the last decade, several clustering movements and incubation centres have emerged, including in Portugal. At the end of the paper we will speculate about the future: Will the creative age survive into the next 40 years? Which kind of concept of creativity will be dominant? What will be the consequences of the new creativity approach for designers and other professionals in the creative economy?

2013

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention (1996) is a foundational text for understanding the lives and work of eminent creators. The study provides powerful insights into the social nature of creativity and presents those insights through advocacy for an evolutionary systems science view of current global struggles. The book thus offers a fertile context, and includes specific advice, for encouraging everyday creators to make powerful contributions to conscious evolution. This paper expands upon Creativity's ideas by explaining how recent research on everyday creativity, domain specificity, chaos theory and multicultural perspectives enrich our understanding of the conscious evolution of creativity.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF CREATIVITY, 2014

reativity pervades human life. It is the mark of individuality, the vehicle of self-expression, and the engine of progress in every human endeavor. It also raises a wealth of neglected and yet evocative philosophical questions: What is the role of consciousness in the creative process? How does the audience for a work for art influence its creation? How can creativity emerge through childhood pretending? Do great works of literature give us insight into human nature? Can a computer program really be creative? How do we define creativity in the first place? Is it a virtue? What is the difference between creativity in science and art? Can creativity be taught? The new essays that comprise The Philosophy of Creativity take up these and other key questions and, in doing so, illustrate the value of interdisciplinary exchange. Written by leading philosophers and psychologists involved in studying creativity, the essays integrate philosophical insights with empirical research.

Europe’s Journal of Psychology, 2015

Anna Craft, a leading researcher on creativity and education, described a condition that many of us have watched accelerate: "Creativity is an important element of the zeitgeist in the early twenty-first century, worldwide" (2005, p. ix), encompassing discourses on genius and individualism, democracy and politics, the social good, technological advances and educational practice, among others (Banaji, Burn, & Buckingham, 2006 as cited in Craft, 2010). It is important to note just how distinctive our times are in this regard. The ancient world did not subscribe to a psychological view of creativity, and during the Middle Ages in Europe in most places to assert that someone was creative would have been blasphemous (Weiner, 2000). God created. People only made things. In other words, we do not need a psychological concept of creativity to write great literature, develop philosophies, lay the foundations of democracy or build beautiful temples and cathedrals. In addition, the idea of "creating" or being "creative" retained implications of the dangers as well as the promises that come with change until the late nineteenth century. Then a wholly positive view of creativity largely eclipsed its negative connotations as dangerous, hubristic and potentially destructive (Mason, 2003). Since creativity came to be viewed as almost wholly positive, its importance has steadily grown. In particular, an ever-broader range of creativity theories in psychology and sociology have contributed to the creativity zeitgeist. There is a consensus definition of creativity in social science: producing something novel and of value in a context. As it turns out, though, that definition is just a starting point for a wide range of controversies. Early psychological views of creativity included sublimated infantile desires (Freud's views of the sources of creative ideas and motivations), sudden restructuring of perception (Gestalt views of insight) and the traits of divergent thinking (ideational flexibility, fluency and originality). Then the humanistic psychologists argued that creativity was the expression of a universal self-actualizing drive and its development was necessary to be a "fully functioning person" (Rogers, 1969, p. 278). Since the cognitive revolution in the mid-twentieth century, psychologists have developed a range of cognitive views from creativity as systemic evolution of thought (