Lecture 8//Creative Rhetorics

 'Different artists often have quite divergent conceptions of what they  are doing' 

Illustrated; The blank sheet project

• Rutger Hauer
• Sir John Hegarty
• Renzo Rosso
• Neville Brody
• Kati Howe 

• Creative Flow
• Blade runner 
• Renzo Rosso's creative Rhetoric
• Founder of Diesel

The way Rosso talks about creativity

• Practice baed beginning (school of fashion)
• Best idea-always next creativity 'dynamic'
• Be stupid-using heart, not head
• Rosso- romantic genius?
• Work in teams-creative process of diesel.

Mimesis

• Plato’s (427 BC - 346 BC ) problem with creativity 
• Republic – ideal society (critique of democracy) 
• Metaphysics – forms 
• Physical world mimics the real 
• Art imitates an imitation 
• Art mimics the sensory world 
• Creativity merely a technical skill - techne (GK) 
• Denied creativity's knowledge-producing capability 
• Dichotomy physical not mental activity

• Gombrich (1950) The popular view is that Western civilization begins Ancient Greeks
• Bernal (1991) argues Classical civilization has deep roots in Afroasiatic cultures - history  suppressed since 18c. 
• Classical Greeks, did not see their philosophy, as original, but derived from the East and Egypt.

Evidence classification of GK Art

Striving to imitate nature better:

• Archaic  
• Classical
• Hellenistic

Classicism 

• Roman Art (315 AD) Constantine 
• Republic period realism (after Gks) Imperial period stylized
• Art followed spirit of Gks
• Suggesting Greeks reached some sort of apex.
• Sentiment found in histories of art Gombrich 

Romanticism 

• Kant wrote about artistic movement
• 18c literary and visual 
• Redefined the role of the artist
• Creative genius

Transformed

• Movement changed ideas and language about art & creativity
• Rejecting Platonic theory, Nietzsche and Schopenhauer (German philosophers) posited art as the most important knowledge-generating discipline.

The Creative

• Romanticism redefined the status of the artist
• Valued the originality of work, in terms of reflecting a subjective vision of artist
• Artist a creator – not imitator
• Artist should stand aside from rules
• The artist is rule breaker & definer

FutureEverything 2012

• Abundance research new media profound change on creatives & citizens. 
• ‘people can collaborate…across networks to create…or participate in social revolutions’ 

Art and Design Education changed

• Brown (2012) digital technology, event horizon 
• Epistemological shift. 
• Global community created the cloud single body of knowledge.
• Ownership of content has changed  implications A & D Education 
• One- to –many outmoded
• Inverted many-to-one
• eStudio 

eStudio 

Online extension studio

Mimics the professional studio in its online form and creative collaborations

Year tutor; curriculum development

Findings

• 75% (P) agreed that that new media has given rise to a new type of collaborative creativity.
• 81% (P) agreed that discussion forums and chat rooms are supportive to idea generation.
• 87% (L) and 93% (P) agreed that working online in teams was a valuable skill for undergraduate creatives to practice. 

Play and creativity

• Divergent thinking activities 
• Image surfing 
• Brainstorming
• Improvisational theatre
• 100 –mile-an-hour thinking
• Free- thinking
• Creativity as a type of thinking

Creativity and cognition

• Csikzentmihayli (1990) Flow 
• Psycho-cultural perspective of creativity:
• Refers to psychological condition of being creative. 
• Enjoyment changes perception of time ‘loose-one’s-self’
• Occurs when challenges & skills are high
• Sawyer (2008) posits flow essential ingredient to creativity
• Most common place flow experienced is when one is in conversation.
• Creativity is (and always has been) collaborative

…a principle that I adhere to when directing is that I make good use of everything my staff creates... animation is a fundamentally developmental process for Miyazaki, it is also, no less crucially, an eminently collaborative effort”
(Cavallaro, 2006, p134)

Visualising Creativity

• Creative affordances/possibilities technology; 
• Capturing creativity in real time SHOWstudio Carine Gilson's Flora LiveStudio (5^th Dec, 2012)
• Creativity is now massive, open and online
• The Blank Sheet project – objectives to expose creativity
• D&AD new initiative Making Your Mark similar thinking
• VC topic commission at Liverpool Biennial 2012 (largest contemporary arts event in UK) The Source  Doug Aiken 
• Installation help to summarise the threads of the lecture

Talking about creativity

• What is the source of a creative idea?
• Installation collaboration with David Adjaye
• Visitors enter a pavilion with screens projecting artists; Jack White, Tilda Winton (actress) and others discussing the roots of their creativity with Doug Aiken.