Research, Art, and the Performance of Creativity

July 1st, 2006 Fred McVittie

One of the ways in which performance is routinely talked about is in terms of its distinctions and divisions. Theatrical performance, particularly, is distinguished from ‘cultural performance’, those aspects of interpersonal behaviour which can be spoken of using the theatrical metaphors of role, scene, and script. Also, the use of the term ‘performance’ within a range of other activities, including business, technology, and sport, is strongly distinguished from the theatrical use of the term, the implication being that the shared terminology is only coincidental and does not indicate a shared ontology, (but see Mackenzie 2001). And of course, a conventional distinction that is made when discussing art and theatre, is their oppositional relationship to the sciences.

Philosopher of science Robert Crease in ‘The Play of Nature’ proposes an interesting model which subverts this division. In this model he uses the concept of ‘performance’ to talk about both art and science. Rather than make a distinction between performances which take place in theatres, auditoria etc, and those which happen elsewhere, so-called ‘cultural performance’, or distinguishing between the term performance as it is used in the different domains, he divides the various acts which have been named ‘performance’ into four types; failed, mechanical, standardised, and artistic, and applies these terms to the activities of the studio, the theatre, and the laboratory. The first three terms; failed, mechanical, and standardised, as the words imply, either repeat performances that have gone before or do not ‘perform’ at all. In all of these contexts it is the latter term he regards as the most significant. Artistic performance;

“coaxes into being something which has not previously appeared. It is beyond the standardized program; it is action at the limit of the already controlled and understood; it is risk. The artistry of experimentation involves bringing a phenomenon into material presence in a way which requires more than passive forms of preparation, yet in a way so that one nevertheless has confidence that one recognizes the phenomenon for what it is. Artistic objects ‘impose’ themselves–they announce their presence as being completely or incompletely realized–but this imposition is not independent of the judgments and actions of the artist.”

This identification of performances which are ‘at the limit of the already controlled’ corresponds with terms such as ‘innovation’ and particularly ‘research’, but it is significant that Crease identifies this moment with art. Here art is not (only) the set of cultural institutions and histories which provide certain specific contexts for specific types of looking, but is the performance of creativity.

Posted in Art, Crease, Robert, Creativity, Mackenzie, John, Performance, Science, Sport, Theatre | No Comments »

Presence, Performance, and the Management of Nuance

November 14th, 2006 Fred McVittie

One understanding of the term ‘Performance’ is as a moment within all creative processes corresponding to that of ‘illumination’ in Wallas’ model. This understanding has been applied to the process of scientific enquiry (Crease) in which the actual carrying out of an experiment is the ‘performance’. (It is revealing to note that Crease further describes a highly effective scientific experiment as ‘artistic’). If we can allow the term ‘performance’ to adopt this meaning, then it might be useful to consider what another terms/concepts used within the context of theatrical performance might come to mean when given this wider application. One term which lends itself to this consideration might be presence; the theatrical quality of being able to attract attention, also referred to as charisma.

It has been hypothesised elsewhere that presence is a function of a set of behavioural nuances which, taken together, convey a certain impression, even if the exact method of this conveyance is not recognised. We do not routinely note why a certain person possesses charisma, we recognise it non-consciously and feel ourselves affected by it. If we are to take this concept of the mechanisms of presence and apply it more broadly we would be led to conclude that the correlate of presence in non-theatrical creative processes would involve a similar management of subtle nuances. In a scientific process for example, particularly in the ‘performance’ moment of the scientific experiment, presence would consist of an attention to detail that might be thought of as requiring an artistic sensibility.

Posted in Attention, Charisma, Crease, Robert, Performance, Presence, Wallas, Graham | No Comments »

Paradigmatic Performance

December 18th, 2006 Fred McVittie

There is a stage in all (creative) processes, including the processes of both art and science, where the practice moves from the preparatory to the actual; from the potential to the the real. In science this is the moment of the experiment (which, as Robert Crease points out, may, if carried out correctly, constitute the performance). In the visual and plastic (and some of the digital) arts, this moment is distributed across a number of moments in the making, and in the performing arts, unsurprisingly, it takes the paradigmatic form of the performance itself. In terms of the processes, whilst there may be differences in form, tradition, histories, and practice, all have this moment. What distinguishes ‘performing’ as a particular artform is not in the fact of its having this evanescent moment, but rather in the access that it gives to this moment. Whereas other creative practices prioritise and give access to the traces of this event, performing arts dramatises the event and includes it as part of the experience. We not only see the event, we see it as an event illuminated by the light of its own (apparent) appearance. A secondary effect is the coincidental placing of this moment with a parallel moment in the mind of the audience, the moment in which the performance is received and realised.

Posted in Art, Crease, Robert, Creativity, Illumination, Performance | No Comments »

Good Science Approaches the Condition of Art

July 1st, 2007 Fred McVittie

The drive to create new knowledge is, presumably, rooted in the human universal desire to acquire that knowledge. Ultimately this is a cognitive imperative reinforced by the sense of pleasure accompanying discovery/creation, and the sense of stress accompanying not knowing. We try to know things because knowing feels good and not knowing feels bad. This equation of knowing and feeling is easily placed within an evolutionary narrative in which such a cognitive imperative would emerge as an adaptive trait. In fact it may be the most significant adaptive trait in the emergence of human being as we understand it. The implication of this relationship between knowing and feeling is that the acquisition of knowledge through research is, at heart, an aesthetic activity in which a satisfactory conclusion, outcome, or insight is arrived at because of the very satisfaction that accompanies it. The individual feelings which accompany research, in the context of scientific discovery for example, are reported by those involved to be a prime motivator in the continuance of that research, and the high points of these research processes in which significant breakthroughs or insights are made are spoken of in glowing experiential terms. This experience, the feeling of what happens during the research process, is indistinguishable from certain experiences in artmaking and other activity considered ‘expressive’, or as Suzanne Langer refers to it, as having ‘vital import’. At its best, research in all fields approaches the condition of art.

This idea is reminiscent of Robert Crease’s observation that scientific discovery and experimentation can be considered a ‘performance’, with the most profound and elegant research in the sciences achieving a standard he refers to as ‘artistic’.

Posted in Art, Crease, Robert, Creativity, Langer, Suzanne, Performance, Science | No Comments »