User:Janis Klimanovs/Review

About engines. How to run Your creative engine?

In this review I am going to have a look on some of my influential authorities and their opinion about the process of being creative and see how they define creativity. Also I am going to talk about my personal development of ideas and see what I find in common with my influences. Everybody has the creative potential, why not every one is using it, it is probably because for some it is more easier to access and run the engine of creativity than others. Do I actually understand how the muscles of creativity work and how can I train them?

What used to materialize exclusively as object or product—as (art) work—now tends to appear as activity or performance. Today the traditional work of art has been largely supplemented by art as a process—as an occupation. Generally speaking, art is a part of an uneven global system, one that under develops some parts of the world, while overdeveloping others—and the boundaries between both areas interlock and overlap. Artistic autonomy was meant to separate art from the zone of daily routine—from mundane life, intentionality, utility, production, and instrumental reason—in order to distance it from rules of efficiency and social coercion.

One of the reasons has to do with a rather paradoxical development at the root of artistic autonomy. According to Peter Bürger, art acquired a special status within the bourgeois capitalist system because artists somehow refused to follow the specialization required by other professions. While in its time this contributed to claims for artistic autonomy, more recent advances in neoliberal modes of production in many occupational fields started to reverse the division of labor. Now, to free an art space from art-as-occupation seems a paradoxical task, especially when art spaces extend beyond the traditional gallery.

Occupation: it's everything that is surrounding us. These are the things that we are doing and seeing 24/7 and it is just the matter of our interpretation of things. The interpretation is important because for everybody it works different depending on lots of aspects: experience, point of view, way of thinking, preferences, attitude, way how we perceive things and so on. It is sort of an autonomous, original approach how to make things happen, and there is no one single way how to make things happen, for everyone it works different, the order of tasks, management, motivation and so on.

We can connect different things together in one, think hard or maybe do not think at all, but if we want to change something or think about a better solution, for to create something new, to have an idea, it is important to be able to work out and run the muscles of creativity. UK based creative designer Michael Wolff defines them as abilities: inquisitiveness, appreciation and imagination. People enjoy to see and hear innovations, smart opinions, it makes sense why people share ideas, why there are TED talks all around the world, a platform that gathers together different professionals who spread their ideas. There is always audience - consumers who are willing to pay a ridiculous large sums of money just for to be there and see the discussions live. Nowadays, in the age of information, every day there are new design solutions for things, new technical solutions in robotics, software, medicine and so on. To be able to generate ideas is an amazing process that not everybody can do. It is very personal and even intimate, every creative is looking for the perfect way how to find this place in Your mind where suddenly the pressure gets high and a big explosion happens. The art is to be able to communicate it down, control the processes, be awake and collect the thoughts. Creative individuals are describing it differently, from their personal point of view, in my review I am looking for the similarities of the processes and how they describe these moments of the creative explosions.

Philosopher Csikszentmihalyi made a research about the creative processes and defined creativity from his point of view.

Creativity - a combination of factors, arises from the synergy of many sources and not only from the mind of one person. Important sources that humanity shares are raised from creative processes. When You are involved in a creative process it brings You up and fulfills Your life. In these processes one of the most important things is curiosity. Curiosity makes think harder and enjoy the process when there is some struggle which can reveal the real mystery and make an step towards solving an problem and be able to produce an successful idea. Learning during an process is rewarded even if the result in public space is an failure. Sometimes the most important part is the development stage and learning process. The process can be also the outcome. Results of creativity - impose our desires on reality, face the struggle and make our dreams become real; Understanding creativity - results from the interaction of a system composed of a culture that contains symbolic rules, a person who brings novelty into the symbolic domain, and a field of experts who recognize and validate the innovation.

Creativity is defined also as the cultural genetic change, not automatically passed on, but by learning; Having the prior knowledge it is important to be in the right environment, social network stimulates thinking and recognizes innovations. The process is changing a symbolic domain in the culture. It is about innovation in existing and new things. There are limited time resources for a person who wants to improve things, because first of all she/he needs to be aware about the public domain before changing it. Surplus attention is necessary! The consequences of a limited tension in a certain domain tends to make the impression that creative individuals are odd, selfish, arrogant, insensitive and ruthless. The paradox is that in reality these people are the opposite. The results of creativity enrich the culture and indirectly improves the quality of all our lives. Creativity provides an exciting model for living our life, curiosity and appreciation of things leads to imagination and it can continue to instincts which makes enjoying novelty and risk for to create something. The most important thing to learn from creative people: how to find purpose and enjoyment in the chaos of existence.

Questions:

How to define creativity? What is this process from the point of view of influential creative people who are my authorities, where creativity is coming from? Describe, where creativity and creative impulses are coming for me? What are the ways to develop the creative skills? Describe the process how creative ideas are developed? If I hack my source of creativity and define it, how creativity can be usable consciously? What do I expect from it? Can I make it work for me and be economically rewarded?

Producing art works to exploit or make use of them, for the sake of economic growth, that means putting a price tag on it and making it an instrument instead of art being a goal in itself. The whole idea about creating art is deformed in way that initially "art as an activity and as experience has a value that is beyond measure and therefore clashes with the form of money" (Klamer, 1996:29)

Bibliography:

Hito Steyerl Art as Occupation: Claims for an Autonomy of Life

Csikszentmihalyi, M. p.1-21 Setting the stage. About creativity.

https://vimeo.com/20483271 UK design guru: MICHAEL WOLFF, IS THIS A GOOD TIME FOR CREATIVITY?