What Conditions and Contexts Enhance Artistic Creativity? (Published in TEXT Special Issue 40) (original) (raw)
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Creating Creativity: Reflections from Fieldwork
Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science, 2011
The present article addresses the question of ‘When can we say something is creative?’ and, in answering it, takes a critical stand towards past and present scientific definitions of creativity. It challenges an implicit assumption in much psychological theory and research that creativity exists as an ‘objective’ feature of persons or products, universally recognised and independent of social agreement and cultural systems of norms and beliefs. Focusing on everyday life creative outcomes, the article includes both theoretical accounts and empirical examples from a research exploring creativity evaluations in the context of folk art. In the end, a multi-layered perspective of creativity assessment emerges, integrating dimensions such as newness and originality, value and usefulness, subjective reception and cultural reception of creative products. Implications for how we understand and study creativity are discussed.
At the Core of Creativity: The Conditions of Learning and the Conditions of Connectivity
Abstract The aim of this chapter is to discuss the findings of a longitudinal international study that sought to explore and understand the ‘habitus conditions’ that had the potential to give rise to creative experiences. The notion of habitus was used as a key axiomatic lens as, for us, it carries the sense that the patterns of thinking and predispositions to be creative arise out of deep familial or familial like patterns of ‘connectivity’. Through a series of qualitative-narrative projects young children, adolescents and adults who were either immersed in supposed creative experiences or who had demonstrated creative output were asked to reflect on the sources of these experiences. Emerging out of this ten-year project involving respondents in the United States, Australia and New Zealand, a ‘grounded theory’ of how creativity can be fostered has begun to emerge. While Cambourne’s concept of the Conditions of Learning were a constant set of emergent themes, the data facets in these ongoing investigation suggests that an existential drive lies at the core of each of our respondents and that the Conditions of Learning were the means which facilitated this drive. Indeed, other conditions for learning and creativity emerged from the data, largely related to socio-emotional awareness. This existential or spiritual awareness appears to be process of reflective inquiry, which also becomes empowered through a mentoring relationship. This web of mentoring social support provides access to the development of visualization and understanding the symbolic within their context of situation, which in turn aids in an emancipatory world view.
Empirical Studies of the Arts, 2010
The creative process in artistic work is examined. The creative process has often been considered in terms of a sequence of stages that leads to a creative product. A dynamic approach to the artistic creative process, including an affective component is proposed. Two studies with art students were conducted. Results support our hypothesis that the creative artistic process is not exclusively sequential and linear. Moreover, students' affects tended to vary at each phase of the creative process.
Exploring Creativity Through Artists’ Reflections
Creativity Studies
The concept of creativity has been theorized and debated for millennia, dating back to the Greek philosopher Plato, who referred to “divine madness” in poets. Debates continue as to whether creativity is a gift or talent, a product of the genius gene, a side effect of mental health conditions, or if it is learned and nurtured through the environments and societies in which an individual grows and develops. While there is a wealth of research that sets out to define the concept of creativity, and numerous theoretical models have emerged since the early part of the 20th century, little of that involves artists reflecting on the concept. In order to explore this area, this study surveyed 314 artists from a range of countries, using an online survey, which invited them to reflect on creativity as a concept and how they understand it within their artistic practice. The findings reveal that creativity is a complex term and there is a range of understandings demonstrated by those who pract...
Creativity, art practice, and knowledge
Communications of the Acm, 2002
Creativity can be characterized as a process toward achieving an outcome recognized as innovative. This definition goes beyond everyday creativity, which is personal to the individual concerned and does not necessarily lead to publicly evaluated outcomes. Conceiving new ideas and making artifacts by any individual may indeed be creative to that person, but the outcomes from personal creative acts are not usually valued as such by others. Boden's distinction between 'P' (psychological) and 'H' (historical) creative is relevant here [1]. A further distinction is needed within 'H' creative between exceptional and outstanding creativity. The outcomes of creative work that are exceptional may be evaluated (and valued) by others, usually the domain experts, but they not necessarily recognized as such outside that knowledgeable group. Outstanding creativity is that which has stood the test of time and has become recognized beyond the specialist community. This is what artists are finally judged by. Further descriptions of the creative process and creative outcomes are found in [1, 5, 11]. One aspect that is important here is stressed by Boden. Creativity does not come out of a vacuum in a sudden and mysterious flash. Typically, the creative step is based upon significant knowl
Common understandings of creativity reduce it to a flash of insight or to a personal characteristic of a highly-gifted person. This paper develops an alternative way of understanding creativity departing from a series of interviews with local painters by conceptualizing creativity as a process of articulating and getting caught up in a “meshwork” of materials, places, spaces and social encounters. Using assemblage theoretical framework, my perspective examines how different elements (both human and non-human) are brought together in flows of connections. Looking at the art world this paper takes into account also the materiality of the creative process and inquiry into how the materiality of working materials (paint, coal, brushes etc.) and the materiality of the space affect and are affected in the creativity assemblage. As such, departing from an anthropocentric perspective on artistic creativity, that takes into consideration only the meanings attributed by people (especially the artist) to forms, social uses and trajectories of artistic objects.