The Creativity Continuum

April 11th, 2006 Fred McVittie

Quote:

Creativity is usually figured as a highly unusual episode in human behaviour, a rupture or breakthrough in an otherwise seamless, continuous, relatively predictable stream of thought and action. Most theoretical models of individual creativity match this intuition, containing such elements as ‘illumination’ in which hidden processes somehow intervene in our normal cognition and provide, for example, the creative answer to a problem, the idea for an artwork, the outline of a new invention or theory.

Perkins, D. N. (1981). The mind’s best work. Cambridge, Mass.; London, Harvard University Press.

Unquote

This is more like it. The presentation was concise and well illustrated with examples.

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Can a Brain be Creative, and would we know

April 19th, 2006 Fred McVittie

Last night’s paper (presented at midnight in a disused church for some reason!)

In ‘Can a robot be creative, and would we know’, Margeret Boden (in Ford, 1996) identifies two types of creativity, each associated with different domains. That which she calls ‘H-creativity’ (for Historical) is associated with actions and artifacts which have never been produced before anywhere (or at lease not anywhere in the culture). These artifacts are usually applauded as genuinely original; unique solutions to old problems, new scientific theories, patentable inventions, copyrightable artworks etc. What Boden refers to as ‘P-creativity’ (for Personal) is only creative in the limited domain of personal experience. Although the person carrying out the creative act may be doing it for the first time, the actions and artifacts produced already exist in the wider domain of culture. It follows from this that whilst all instances of H-creativity are also P-creative, the reverse is not true.

Ford, K. M., C. N. Glymour, et al. (1995). Android epistemology. Menlo Park Cambridge, Mass., AAAI Press; MIT Press.

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Creativity and Selective Forgetting

April 22nd, 2006 Fred McVittie

The moment of ‘illumination’ within a creative process in which a sudden insight, breakthrough, or intuitive leap is made, has been show to be decomposable into a number of discreet conscious stages. This contradicts the naive experience (and romantic mythology) of these moments, in which the creative outcome is usually reported as emerging fully-formed into consciousness, having been produced through non-conscious, non-personal means, (these means usually involving ‘the unconscious’, or occasionally a deity or muse. The feeling of ‘illumination’ furthermore, has been shown to occur after these conscious stages have been gone through and is accompanied by a kind of selective forgetting, in which, unless particular attention is paid, the intervening stages between problem and solution are forgotten, leaving only the illuminated moment. This phenomenon will be discussed in the context of the Baars Global Workspace model of consciousness.

Baars, B. (1997). In the theater of consciousness: The workspace of the mind. New York, Oxford University Press.

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Hints and Allegations (Hallelujah)

May 1st, 2006 Fred McVittie

This presentation will report on a trial looking at the functionality of ‘hints’ or clues in the solving of certain logical problems associated with creativity. It will be demonstrated that, in problems which require remote associations between widely different and non-obvious data sources to be forged in order for a solution to be found, the giving of a hint allows the solution to be found by a greater number of subjects than when no hint is provided, although the actual content of the hint is not necessarily significant.

Problems were given which did not respond well to deductive logical methods of solving, but rather needed a more lateral or intuitive response. An example of such a problem is as follows:

Mary and Marjory were born to the same mother and the same father on the same day of the same month of the same year, yet they are not twins. Explain.

Typically, subjects either solved the problem almost immediately, experiencing a ‘moment of illumination’, or did not solve it at all. When presented with a hint, however, many of the subjects who had previously been unable to solve the problem spontaneously came up with the solution, again experiencing the sudden flash of ‘illumination’, or even ‘enlightenment’.

A particularly interesting aspect of this research was that the actual hint itself did not need to relate to the problem at all, and a random set of prompt words, when offered as hints, had an equal level of success in prompting a successful solving of the problem. This phenomenon will be discussed and various hypotheses offered to account for this.

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Overlapping concepts using the metaphor of light

May 15th, 2006 Fred McVittie

It is proposed that a key metaphor linking consciousness, presence, creativity, and enlightenment is that of light. Metaphorically they concepts all draw upon the image of moving into the light and out of the darkness.

1. The ‘light’ of consciousness is contrasted with the eldritch (and possibly forbidding) darkness of the unconscious.
2. Illumination is the stage of a creative process when a breakthrough or solution emerges into the light of consciousness, often characterised as a ‘light bulb moment’, or a ‘flash’ of inspiration.
3. Presence is the theatrical phenomenon of being entirely there, in the light of the present moment, (and often in the literal spotlight), as opposed to being partially or entirely elsewhere; in the wings, in the dressing room, offstage.
4. Enlightenment is the state of being in which one can see clearly through the shadows of illusion and ego that make up the world and the self.

This overlap of conceptual structure will be discussed, particularly in relation to the well known metaphorical relationship between seeing and knowing.

Posted in Consciousness, Creativity, Enlightenment, Illumination, Knowledge, Light, Metaphor, Presence, Seeing, Theatre | No Comments »

Extended Illumination

June 7th, 2006 Fred McVittie

The individual creative process is usually described as having a number of relatively distinct phases involving both conscious and non-conscious processes. Most models of creativity include a stage often referred to as ‘illumination’. This is the ‘Eureka’, or ‘light bulb’ stage and is understood ontologically as a moment of breakthrough or transition. This illumination stage does not typically have duration or internal structure, but rather marks a boundary between a stage before the creative insight emerges, and the stage immediately after. The facility for creative behaviour can be greatly enhanced by extending the liminal ‘moment’ of illumination such that it becomes a more sustained mode of consciousness, a form of awareness in which one is ‘primed’ in such a way that creative breakthroughs are potentiated. (1)

The desired state is pre-conceptual and is characterised by the absence of a specific object of focussed attention, combined with a heightened general sense of significance and meaningfulness. When one is inhabiting this mode of consciousness, in addition to a greater facility for creative behaviour, one is likely to experience a number of other characteristic symptoms;

• A greater awareness of coincidences and synchronicities (and often a greater attribution of significance to these coincidences)
• An increased sensitivity to ‘luck’, good or bad
• More frequent experience of synaesthesia
• Heightened intuitive feelings about others (a feeling of good or bad ‘vibes’)
• More frequent deja vu and jamais vu experiences
• Better recall of dreams
• Increased apophenia and pareidolia
• Increased visits from the ‘library angel’ (coming across exactly the book you need at the most fortuitous time)

It should be noted, that there may be no real significance in any of these phenomena, and the ‘information’ about the world offered by such symptoms cannot necessarily be regarded as valid. It is most likely that these seemingly meaningful events are simply artefacts of the process, useful for confiming the presence of a particular mode of consciousness related to creativity, but not insights in their own right.

1. This state has been likened to the ‘aura’ which precedes the onset of certain types of epileptic seizure, immediately prior to the ‘kindling’ which marks the onset of the seizure itself.

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Synaptic Connectivity and the Creative Cycle

June 13th, 2006 Fred McVittie

Neurological maturity consists not only of the forging of new neuronal associations but also, significantly, of the ‘pruning’ of existing connections within the brain. Between early childhood and adolescence up to 50% of synapses are lost. This developmental period is also one in which forms of thinking change. Early childhood is characterised by thinking styles which incorporate plurality, intuition, play, and ‘magic’. After adolescence these styles cease to dominate and are largely replaced by the cognitive habits of linearity, causality, deduction, and logic.

These different thinking styles are also characteristic of different phases in the typical creative process. At the beginning of a process (or cycle within a process), when there is a need to identify a particular problem, construct criteria, locate resources, etc. linear logical styles are most appropriate. This mode of cognition is also most appropriate at the end of a process or cycle, when the onus is on verification, organisation (of data, of expression etc), and elaboration. During the interim phases, usually referred to as the ‘incubation’ and ‘illumination’ stages, another style of thinking is more conducive in which intuition, play, and ‘magic’ are available. This corresponds to a mode of thought particularly available prior to the ‘pruning’ of synaptic connections, a mode in which connectivity between ideas is maximised, along with a hightened and distributed sense of significance or meaningfulness across this maximal synaptic network.

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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.

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Creativity and Presence

July 13th, 2006 Fred McVittie

There seem to be two key strands of concern that I am developing an interest in, at least to the extent that I keep finding myself at presentations concerning these ideas; these are presence and creativy. I guess something I would like to do would be to find a way of thinking of them as part of the same gestalt, or having a similarity of structure. There does seem to be a relationship of shared metaphor, particularly in relation to the metaphor of light, which (sort of) figures in both concepts. For now, I am assuming there is a link between theatrical presence (i.e. an assessment of presence carried out be an outside observer or audience) and presence as signifying an individual, phenomenological feeling of being exactly here, precisely now.

In performances which have presence, the moment of continuous becoming which marks the ‘being in the moment’ of performance, can be considered as a constant ’stepping into the light’, a state of wakefulness and breaking consciousness.

In creative processes there is (usually) a moment in which connections are made, solutions are revealed, intuitive leaps are made, and this moment is often termed illumination. In this case the light is that of conscious awareness. There is a feeling that the creative process has been proceeding in the darkness of unconscious processing, and that the end result is forced up or brought forth into the light.

In terms of training, assuming that these metaphors have any validity, there is clearly a benefit to be gained by both performers seeking to improve their presence and others wishing to improve their creativity by working on this shared moment of enlightenment.

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Mind, Performance, Creativity, Attention

July 30th, 2006 Fred McVittie

There is a high level of correlation between the following phenomena and concepts:

• experienced states of mind
• brainwave patterns
• use of attentional resources (energy)
• phases in creative processes
• phases in the performance of a task (including theatrical or art tasks)

These correlations suggest the functioning of a common process which, in all likelihood, in partly material and partly metaphorical. A greater awareness of this process should allow for the development of techniques for greater control over the process, and a consequent enhancement or optimisation of the performance of a range of tasks (including theatrical tasks) and enhanced creativity.

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Moments of Change in Creativity metaphors

August 6th, 2006 Fred McVittie

The dominant metaphors of creative processes all contain a phase during which a rapid change is affected. This might be variously described as a ‘breakthrough’, a ‘turning point’, or as a moment of ‘illumination’ depending upon which metaphor is being invoked. This moment of change, which is usually assumed to be indivisible and of short time span, is not present in metaphors for processes which we are regarded as less creative; building, ‘handicrafts’, folk art, etc.

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Unconsciousnesses

August 28th, 2006 Fred McVittie

The term unconscious, at least since Freud, has tended to signify a singular part of the mind, almost a second self which is hidden behind the brightly lit facade of conscious thought. This second self is variously represented as benign or malignant, helping us out by providing the Eureka moments of creativity or embarrassing us by slipping obscenities into our dreams and our language. Contemporary brain science, however, tends to model the unconscious differently, regarding the unconscious not as a singular space, agent, or archive, but not as a ‘the’ at all. Rather, it can be said that a wide range of mental processes are simply ‘not conscious’. This might include the various machinations of the Freudian psyche, but would also include numerous other routine processes which are required for the operation and maintenance or the body/person.

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A Natural History of Innovation

September 4th, 2006 Fred McVittie

The ability to innovate, to produce novel behaviour, is primarily a human faculty. For the most part this ability has a clear use function; when combined with good critical and evaluative faculties the ability to produce new behaviour is how we solve problems, identify more efficient ways of satisfying needs, and gain an edge on competitors. For these reasons it is likely that this ability confers upon those who possess it a distinct adaptive advantage. In terms of evolutionary history, those members of a population who are able to think ‘creatively’ are more likely to survive and reproduce than those whose behaviours are bound to habit and instinct. Adaptive traits which confer a reproductive advantage on those who have such a trait tend to be manifest in the individual as an emotional and physical response experienced as pleasure. So, for example, the adaptive trait which allowed our ancestors to identify nutritious food is experienced as the pleasurable sensation we call ‘taste’. Similarly, sexual congress, which is self-evidently adaptive in that those who engage in it are those most likely to reproduce, and those who do not are unlikely to, is also accompanied by pleasure. These pleasures are both the bait and the signal for adaptive behaviour. In terms of creativity and innovation, if such a trait is adaptive we would expect it to also be accompanied by feelings of pleasure, and this is indeed the case. Surveys of artists, scientists, inventors and all other innovators demonstrate that the act of creation has its own intrinsic satisfactions and pleasures over and above whatever functional products may result from such acts.

Given that human beings are a pack animal, the innovations produced by one individual may benefit not only that individual but also other members of the community or group (other than direct competitors). Individuals in the group who were able to recognise and exploit the creativity of others could also profit from this creativity, gaining the same adaptive advantage and increasing the likelihood of their own survival and reproductive success. This suggests that in addition to the pleasures of creation itself, it is possible that evolutionary history may have conferred upon us an ability to recognise innovation and to experience pleasure from that recognition, again over and above whatever product may result from such creativity. Not only does being creative feel good, but watching the creativity of others feels good too.

The development of the arts since the end of the 19th century has been partly characterised by an almost obsessive demand for the new. And whilst this has undoubtedly been driven partly by a rampant consumerism and an increasingly profitably art industry, it is nevertheless likely that the appeal of innovative art lies not only in the ultimate market value of that art, or the status it confers, or in the traditional sensory channels of the aesthetic response. A significant appeal lies in what might be called the ‘aesthetics of innovation’.

Posted in Aesthetics, Art, Creativity, Evolution, History | No Comments »

Create and Perform

October 11th, 2006 Fred McVittie

‘Performance’, in addition to signifying a particular set of cultural practices associated with entertainment, display, ritual etc, can also be understood as a moment or phase in the cycle of a creative process, and indeed all behavioral sequences. Robert Crease revealingly uses this term to indicate the actual carrying out of an experiment in the sequence of events which make up a scientific enquiry, distinguishing it from other phases in which, for example, hypotheses are developed, results analysed etc.

In terms of creativity, the moment of performance corresponds to the ‘illumination’ stage (Wallas), in which the idea or problem that is the subject of creative attention emerges from the wings of non-conscious cognition onto the stage of conscious awareness.

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Performance Creativity Consciousness

October 12th, 2006 Fred McVittie

The metaphor of performance, including the various entailments of that metaphor concerning the production and evaluation of performance, provides a structure for understanding a wide range of individual and social processes. This metaphor, whilst not overt, seems to underpin (or at least revealingly correspond to) proposed structures for the workings of;

• individual creativity
• social creative processes
• the scientific experimental method
• the functioning of human consciousness

This understanding of performance presents it as a prototypical phase not only in the production of theatrical events, but also in cycles of creative production which include the individual psychology of creativity, the public processes of creative evaluation and legitimisation, the scientific method, and the emergence of consciousness.

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Cosmology and Creativity

October 24th, 2006 Fred McVittie

The whole-hearted performance of any activity, including the smooth functioning of the creative intellect, is facilitated by the internalisation of a supportive cosmology or ‘big picture’ of the universe and one’s place within it.

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Post-Performance Creativity

November 22nd, 2006 Fred McVittie

Creative processes involve a cycling through various phases, with the created ‘product’ (an idea, image, text etc) emerging onto the stage of consciousness after a period of initial research and ‘incubation’. Wallas refers to this emergence as ‘illumination’, although it is referred to differently by different theorists. In all understanding of the creative processes this illumination phase is followed by a terminal phase in which the events or products are evaluated, verified, or elaborated. This final phase in when the second draft of the novel are written, the bugs are ironed out of the invention, the experimental results are analysed.

As has been noted earlier, the creative cycle operates at a number of scales, the overall process has an arc or trajectory, and within this arc there are numerous other, smaller cycles (1). It is interesting to note that each of these smaller cycles of development has the characteristic cyclical form described above, and the entirety of a process, from initial inception through to final analysis also moves through the same phases. Constantly throughout a process, we are typically allowing small ‘illuminations’ to drive the work forward, one emergent idea forming part of the the ‘preparation’ for the next. At a larger scale, the same cycles is also present; the final ‘verification’ or ‘elaboration’ phase taking place after the object of the cycle, the created product, has emerged into the public domain and is, to that extent, a ‘finished’ product.

The fact that, at this larger scale, the final phase in the cycle exists post performance, after the apparently final illuminated moment of public display, tends to separate this phase from the preceding phases. It is common to regard any engagement with the created object after its revealing as an additional, possibly superfluous act disconnected from the rest of the creative process. In some ways this is clearly correct; from the perspective of the wider culture the artefact has been newly introduced as a discreet element into that culture and must now enter into the various cultural processes of production and consumption. Just as the individual, during the earlier phases of the creative cycle, employed the mechanism of individual thought and feeling to carry out an ongoing evaluation of their own illuminations, their own ideas, so the social organism has its own mechanisms for verifying the validity of the big idea, the ‘finished’ artifact. These processes include critique, documentation, archiving, curation, valuation, sale, collection, publication etc. Because of the fact that the artefact has now moved into this different domain these processes are typically carried out by other individuals than those involved into its original creation.

1. (It could argued that corresponding cycles also can be found at the level of individual human psychology, in which the operation of mind has this general form, with the ongoing state we call ‘consciousness’ being a standing wave of illumination preceded and anteceded by unconscious processes paralleling the other phases in the cycle).

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Silence - Silence

November 30th, 2006 Fred McVittie

Posted in Consciousness, Creativity, Enlightenment, Illumination, Pain, Silence | No Comments »

Mini Aha

December 9th, 2006 Fred McVittie

Animations are constructed in which pictures, which begin as abstract mosaics, progressively resolve into recognisable images; faces, buildings, objects. The moment at which the image is recognised is accompanied by a feeling of heightened consciousness; a mini Aha! As the succession of animations, and the successions of Aha! continues, the time which the picture takes to resolve is reduced so that it becomes recognisable quicker and quicker. At a certain point there is no noticable period in which the image is unrecognisable, and at this point the Aha moment corresponds to normal waking consciousness.

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Waiting for AHA

December 10th, 2006 Fred McVittie

An experiment in which an abstract picture slowly resolves itself, producing an AHA! moment of raised consciousness, demonstrates the continuum which exists between this creatively illuminated moment of enhanced cognition and the constant ‘lights on’ feeling of normal waking consciousness. In addition, it also hints at the relationship between the type of cognition which exists just preceding the recognition of the image and the strength of the AHA! moment when recognition itself takes place. When there is no noticeable delay between the initial perception of the image and its recognition, (or rather when the time delay is set only by the organs of perception and visual processing), then the observation is characterised as being accompanied by standard consciousness. However, when recognition is delayed, the time delay, and the corresponding amount of anticipation and ‘waiting’ which occurs in the moments before the image resolves, seems to be in proportion to the strength of the AHA! which follows.

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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.

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Performing in the Light

February 3rd, 2007 Fred McVittie

The act of performance, standing in the light before a group of people sitting in the dark, is prototypical of a particular moment in the creative process of artists of all stripes, and indeed of all levels of creativity from enlightenment to normal waking consciousness.

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Wallas and Wordsworth

May 28th, 2007 Fred McVittie

William Wordsworth in the introduction to the second edition of Lyrical Ballads in 1802 described poetry as ‘the spontaneous outflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origins from emotion recollected in tranquillity’. This remark, often held to be an example of the Romanticism which dominated much (English) poetry of the period, also suggests that poetry, as a creative act (perhaps the creative act) requires the poet to move through a series of psychological stages. Also the mention of a ’spontaneous outflow’ points toward a model of creative production which is hydraulic or pneumatic, involving some metaphorical substance that is accumulating within the mind of the poet, a mind possibly limited in capacity. The limited capacity of the mind causes the substance to be compressed and alchemically transformed into its most dense state and the eventual inevitable result of this continued accumulation is the overflowing or bursting forth of this transformed substance. The mechanism by which this accumulation and transformation takes place has a number of stages. ‘Emotion recollected in tranquility’ points to two of these stages. The ‘emotion’ stage is one in which one is immersed in the experience that is the source of the poem, it might be considered a ‘preparatory’ stage or even a period of ‘research’ (although this term suggests an emotionally-disconnected activity this is not an accurate conception of research, or indeed of any form of experiential cognition. See Damasio 2005). The ‘emotion’ stage is when the object of study is given over to the senses, it is when one metaphorically runs one’s hands over the experience, gathering subtle feelings and sensations. This is followed by a period in which one is separated from the experience, the phrase ‘recollected in tranquility’ suggests a period of calm, in which the poet is not directly involved in the conscious exploration or examination of the experience, but that other, non-conscious cognitive processes are active. It is during this period presumably that the ’substance’ circulating in the mind of the poet undergoes processes of accretion and accumulation, compression and condensation, such that it eventually overflows the container of the mind. At this point the third stage in the poetic process is entered in which the tranquility is replaced by a mental state corresponding to the bursting forth of this ’spontaneous outflow’ .

These stages show some correspondence to the stages of the creative process identified by Wallas (1923) and others since. These are the phases of Preparation, Incubation, Illumination, and Elaboration. Whereas Wallas uses the metaphor of light to relate this process, Wordsworth uses a metaphor of liquid. For Wallas, the moment of creative insight when the poet witnesses the emergence of the creative artifact into his own consciousness is seen as the sudden switching on of a light (Illumination). For Wordsworth this moment is the equally sudden breaking of a dam and the flooding of the stage of consciousness with the liquid of creativity.

Posted in Alchemy, Creativity, Damasio, Antonio, Emotion, Liquid, Metaphor, Transformation, Wallas, Graham, Wordsworth, William | No Comments »

Cognitive Operators and Synectic Triggers

June 7th, 2007 Fred McVittie

The so-called ‘Cognitive Operators’ identified by D’Aquili and Newberg (2005) which organise perceptions into concepts and thoughts have a high degree of correlation with the Synectic Triggers utilised in formal creativity training. Synectic Triggers are routine processes that one might apply to any source text or input such that the text or input is transformed in some way. This is usually followed by an evaluative process in which the results of such transformations are assessed. A common list of these ‘triggers’ includes the following processes.

• Subtract
• Add
• Transfer
• Empathise
• Animate
• Superimpose
• Change
• Scale
• Substitute
• Fragment
• Isolate
• Distort
• Disguise
• Contradict
• Parody
• Prevaricate
• Analogise
• Hybridise
• Metamorphose
• Symbolise
• Mythologise
• Fantasise
• Repeat
• Combine

The degree of overlap between these terms and the processes actuated by the ‘Cognitive Operators’ suggests that these cognitive operations can be brought under conscious control and accentuated for specific creative purposes beyond the routine creative construction of everyday perception and thought. An alternative account is that these Cognitive Operators are fictional constructs mapped from fully conscious experiences and techniques particularly familiar to artists and ‘creative thinkers’. Either way, it is interesting to note that, whilst Synectic Triggers includes metaphorical operations, no such Operator is posited by D’Aquili and Newberg as a (possibly hard-wired) system in the mind/brain.

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Forming Consciousness

June 21st, 2007 Fred McVittie

Creativity, at all of the levels at which it operates, is marked by a particular state of mind in which new formations of knowledge are allowed to seep into consciousness. In terms of artistic or inventive creativity this seepage is variously referred to as ‘insight’, ‘intuition’, ‘illumination’ etc, and has a set of emotional and experiential properties attached to it which are familiar to anyone who has ever had an idea. These feelings are of relief and excitement, of strength and connectedness, almost akin to the feeling of love and sexual arousal. Having an idea, particularly a really really good idea, raises the heart rate, raises goosebumps on the skin (particularly the scalp, as if one’s hair is about to stand on end), dilates the pupils of the eyes, changes the skin’s conductivity, and affects muscle tone right across the body. At the level of biochemistry, there is an adrenalin rush which readies the body for a response and a wave of neurotransmitters across parts of the brain. It is significant that the formation of this emotionally-charged knowledge precedes consciousness, and that its emergence corresponds to a particularly intense conscious state. In fact it may be more accurate to consider that this knowledge does not emerge, or seep, into consciousness at all, but rather that it is itself constitutive of consciousness.

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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’.

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95% of Contemporary Art is Crap

July 9th, 2007 Fred McVittie

The science fiction writer Theodore Sturgeon, when asked at a cocktail party how he could stand his work being published in magazines in which the contents were ‘95% crap’, is reputed to have replied that ‘95% of everything is crap’. This remark has been enshrined in some quarters as ‘Sturgeon’s Law’ and has been applied not only to literature but also to people and to ‘Web 2.0′.

An area that this aphorism most clearly applies to is that of Contemporary Art, a fact evidenced by the most cursory glance around our galleries, trawl through our theatres, or listening experience in auditoria. Disappointment and a sense of anticlimax are the dominant emotions one has on exiting these experiences, possibly coupled with an irritation at the money wasted and the hours mis-spent. The bathos associated with Contemporary Art is worsened by the apparent upward spiral of hyperbole which accompanies its promotion, advertising, and dissemination. Every new exhibition, performance, choreography, composition, or literary work is inevitably ‘ground-breaking’ and a work of huge personal and social significance.

The irony of this is that it is exactly as it should be. If all is going well then most of what we see should be disappointing, deflating, underwhelming, and an appropriate target for mockery, insult, and violence.

Creativity in the arts, as elsewhere, is only partly an individual process. It is, to a large extent contingent on the social and cultural processes through which the wheat is separated from the chaff, through which the elegant solution to the mission-critical problem is separated from the impractical solution to the non-existent problem. History is the great curator of all creative endeavour and ‘contemporary’ is the name we give to all those artworks submitted to history’s sword. When we look at or study Contemporary Art we are not looking at a fully conceived body of practice, and we are certainly not looking at a particular genre of that practice. Studying Contemporary Art is studying the falling blade of history. The body of Contemporary Art is bloated, malformed, and full of crap. Let the sword fall, for it is only through this beheading that we will know what deserves to put raised on the pike and paraded through the city. We should sit in the theatres gleefully knitting while the tumbrell cart brings the next piece of ‘art’ before us. Our visits to galleries should be made with the sole purpose of mocking the afflicted, pointing to the inelegant and bastard mooncalves that line the walls, and relishing their demise.

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Existential Zugzwang

October 5th, 2007 Fred McVittie

Borges writes about the infinite library of Babel, in which all possible volumes are contained All combinations of characters are combined in the books of this library, so all arguments are made, all thoughts expressed, all narratives told and retold. This universal library, which seems at first fist to be pregnant with promise, is a dystopian vision however. The sheer number of books is so vast and the overwhelming preponderance of books which contain only gibberish, or untranslatable cryptographs, or which are written in dead languages, means that the chances of locating a text which is even readable, let alone useful, approaches zero. The librarians of this hellish repository have long since lost faith in ever finding meaning in their universe of books; they are a dying breed, prone to suicide and existential angst.

There is no evidence that such conditions afflict artists in this world, at least notyet. And this is despite the fact that creative practices have been compared to the wanderings one might make within a space similar to the library of Babel, as indeed has the natural creative processes of evolution and adaptation. Dawkins notes that ’searching for something within a sufficiently large conceptual space is indistinguishable from creation’. By inference, artistic creation is a kind of searching through the conceptual space of all possible artworks, with the work of the artist being akin to that of an explorer or colonist; each innovation a beachhead, each artwork a landmark, each genre a new found land.

A significant difference between the aimless wanderings of the librarians of Babel and the evolutionary perigrinations of the natural world is that whilst the former are cursed to go without map and compass, the evolutionary journey of exploration is significantly guided. Every step that life has taken has been accompanied by the ‘warmer, warmer’ whispering of the environment, such that these steps never lead to random and meaningless places, which is the curse of Babel. Evolution never lets any creature evolve to a location in conceptual space where it makes no sense; there are no existential zugzwangs in the natural library of possibilities. This is not to say, of course, that individual beings are not doomed to die, possibly alone and unloved. Not is it suggested that evolution has any kind of ultimate goal, there is no equivalent in evolution of the divine book at the centre of the library of Babel that Borges describes as ‘a great circular book, whose spine is continuous and which follows the complete circle of the walls.’ Each step in evolutionary history falls on the spot which is appropriate at that moment. The journey is always at an end, each point is the centre and the end of creation as it exists at that moment.

The travels of the artist through conceptual space does not fall neatly into either of these schema. The individual artist is neither doomed to a lifetime of unguided search, which would entail the relentless production of random artifacts. nor is there an environmental voice calling forth these artifacts by winnowing each step and thought.

‘From a computational point of view, evolution is simply a special kind of search algorithm. Some argue that for evolution to be considered creative, it must traverse its search spaces in a creative manner, i.e. it must be innovative or efficient in its search. Exhaustive search and random search are examples of noncreative techniques. Evolutionary algorithms are good examples of creative search.’
http://www.cs.ucl.ac.uk/staff/P.Bentley/BEC6.pdf

Posted in Art, Borges, Jorge Louis, Centre, Creativity, Evolution, Space, Writing | No Comments »

Creative Cycles and the Illuminated Moment

October 6th, 2007 Fred McVittie

A dominant image within most formulations of the creative process is that of the cycle. Typically, artistic production, for example, is seen as structured with a number of sequential phases, each representing a particular part of the overall process and each requiring a different set of behaviours and sensibilities on the part of the artist. These various phases, which are named differently according to the various schemata invoked, include such activities as; research, play, analysis, data collection, improvisation, experiment, hypothesis generation, measurement of efficacy, review, etc. Many (although not all) models for the creative process involve a phase, (sometimes conceptualised as an atemporal ‘moment’) at which a breakthrough occurs. This is the moment of illumination, enlightenment, and realisation. It is the stereotypical moment when the lightbulb appears above the inventor’s head and the solution dawns on the mind of the scientist. It is a moment which has entered the mythology of creativity via Archimedes bath and Kekule’s serpent. Widely criticised as a product of the romantic imagination, and often considered relatively irrelevant in the greater scheme of things, the illuminated moment of inspiration has been consigned by many to the 5% status of whimsy, drowning in the 95% flood of the Real Work of creative perspiration. This paper will attempt to recover this washed out loser from it ignominious fate and relight the lantern that has shone over most of the greatest events in human history.

Posted in Conference Abstract, Creativity, Cycle, Illumination, Re-entry | No Comments »

Flow of Creativity

October 7th, 2007 Fred McVittie

It is widely understood that individual creative processes go through several stages. Activities which mark the early stages of a process are different to those which dominate later. It is further noted that the creative process is not linear, beginning with a particular problem or stimulus and working in an orderly fashion toward a final conclusion or response, but is chaotic and lacking clear boundaries. Inasmuch as there is an end to a creative process, perhaps in the revealing of a product of some kind, this end is likely also to be the beginning of others. Moreover, it is noted that the stages of a creative process tend not to be sequential and singular, but rather are multiple and cyclical. During any period of creative activity, the individual is typically working on different parts of the problem simultaneously, and the results of one activity tend to be recycled into other parts of the process. Also, these cycles within the creative process tend to occupy different scales, with some involving large formations of material undergoing massive transformations, whilst at the same time small problems are being creatively solved and tiny questions answered. We can visualise the creative process, then, as a tumble of circulating material and ideas, rather like the flowing of a river through rocks, with currents entering and re-entering the flow.

Posted in Boundary, Creativity, Liquid, Re-entry, Transformation | No Comments »

Three Types of Knowledge

October 10th, 2007 Fred McVittie

In ‘Beyond Understanding’, a keynote speech at the symposium on Threshold Concepts at Strathclyde University in 2006, David Perkins lays out a taxonomy of knowledge and its application to teaching and learning. He describes knowledge as located as in three ontologically distinct forms. Video here. Symposium programme here.

The first he describes as ‘possessive’ knowledge, in which the object of knowledge is felt to be owned by the individual and can be produced on request. So, for example, we might be asked in what year Columbus landed in the New World and we might retrieve the date 1492 and display this known fact, rather as one might take a rock out of one’s pocket and hold it up for inspection. Similarly, the question ‘Who who wrote the novel on which the film “Solaris” is based?’ might solicit the response ‘Stanislaw Lem”. In each of these instances the item of knowledge is considered as possessed by the individual and this possession is, in turn, conceived of as a kind of object, a rock, a book, that can be produced on demand. This metaphorical mapping of the concept of knowledge as object has the effect of awarding other object-like properties to the knowledge item. Objects tend to be relatively solid, clearly bounded, and consistent over time. Similarly, knowledge which has this character of a possessed object is also intuitively experienced as solid, bounded, stationary, and permanent. So, for example, the date of Columbus’ arrival on the shores of New Found Land is felt to be a ‘hard fact’; there is no sense in which we feel that fact to be ’slippery’ or ‘fluid’. Also, that experienced fact is clearly delineated; we do not feel that the edges of it blur into other facts, in fact it is difficult to imagine what this ‘blurring’ might mean. It is also experienced as still and intransient, that this article of knowledge is not wavering or changing its place in the index of human information, and it will continue to occupy this place, in history, in geography, in cartography, forever. This fact, as object-like, and as objective, as a rock, is something we feel we can hold, unchanging and fully graspable. We can take ownership of it and consider ourselves in possession of this fact. We can put this fact in our pocket and produce it on demand. Similar object status might be awarded to the authorship of the book on which the film ‘Solaris’ is based and the response to any question on any TV game show.

The second form of knowledge that Perkins introduces is that which he considers ‘performative’. This type of knowing goes beyond the rote recitation of solid items of data and begins to use this data, these facts, not as objects of thought but as tools to think with. Knowledge, in this formulation, becomes less like a set of solid, separate, inert entities and more like living dynamic structures, capable of breeding, hybridising, fissioning, fusing, and blending. Performative knowledge responds to situations in a way which is not hard and resistant, but which is flexible and yielding, and the clearest examples of this knowledge is its ability to respond to creative or problem-solving situations. Possessed object-like knowledge is speechless when faced with a question such as ‘In what way is the film “Solaris” a commentary on the exploration and conquest of the New World? The individual isolated facts which characterise a possessed knowledge approach do not allow the kind of analysis and creative thinking which the question demands. Performative knowing, on the other hand, is well equipped to make a response to this situation. This may be through, for example, allowing the live information structures which make up the knowledge of Stanislaw Lem’s book, and the film of that book, to mingle with those of Columbus and his first footfall in the Americas. One can imagine a text that brings out the mutability of culture and the act of projective imagination that allows us to conceive of such things as ‘nations’ and ’states’ being born from this miscegenation. This ability of what Perkins calls performative knowledge to dynamically construct novel solutions to problems and creative responses to situations is referred to frequently in literature on creativity and innovation. Koestler calls it ‘bisociation’, elsewhere it is formalised into knowledge generation systems and training routines such as Triz, Synectics, Scamper, etc. Performative knowledge is very good at responding to set briefs, solving problems, fulfulling creative criteria, and producing novel answers to well-framed questions.

The third type of knowledge which Perkins introduces, and the one which adds the most to current understanding of knowledge, is what he terms ‘proactive’. This form of knowing, as the name implies, is neither inert nor reactive or responsive, but rather is actively engaged in the processes of its own implementation. Individuals who are able to mobilise proactive knowledge resources are not ‘problem solvers’ they are ‘problem finders’, that is, the knowledge that they embody (possess is too passive a term) seems to constantly engage with the world around them looking for opportunities to perform. Proactive knowledge does not simply appear on demand when a question is posed or a problem is set, but is out there in the world looking for opportunities. This type of knowledge seems largely to be dispositional; certain attitudes or habits of behaviour need to be in place in order for proactivity to emerge, and whilst such disposition can be learned or cultivated it is likely that some individuals would find this easier than others. Proactive knowledge users, whether by accident of nature or design of education, are constantly asking questions of the world, noticing small irregularities in the fabric of society, finding new uses for old objects, coining new words and phrases because they like the taste of language. They make extensive and joyful use of metaphor and analogy, and are incontinent inventors. Give a proactive knower a new word or a new idea, and watch them scurry around looking for some way to use it.

This continuum of knowledge, from the possessive at one extreme to the most proactive at the other, is complementary to the continuum of objectivity and subjectivity. Possessive knowledge, constitutive of object-like facts, appears, unsurprisingly, at the objective end of the spectrum. It is experienced as distant, removed, existing in interpersonal space. Proactive knowledge, conversely, is felt against the surface of the body, or even inside the body, and is inseparable from the experience of being. It is part of the subjective phenomenological experience of one’s self concept.

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