Creativity systems and social dynamics

Much of the research on creativity is focused on the individual. Neurological research does provide fascinating glimpses of the complexity of processes involved in the surfacing of insight at a synaptic scale, but we, as human beings, have been social animals and collaborative problem solvers for all of our known evolutionary history and some level of collective endeavor is significant in every act of human creativity. Individual genius remains alluring as a topic of study partly because of the clarity of definition of the subject. More complex is the issue of creativity at social, industrial and, ultimately, human scale. Whilst all creative ideas emerge from specific brains, all creativity requires a social structure for reception and recognition, and some may emerge through shared endeavour. 

Like many, I'm interested in creativity structures, systems and social dynamics. This encompasses areas of research including workforce development, corporate systems, motivation and drive, working space design, data management, communications, linguistics, psychology, cultural studies, sociology, education, politics, and economics. Rather than try to develop some form of 'grand unified theory' of collective human creativity, the aim here is simply to outline some of my thoughts as I move to expand on some areas of research and focus on more defined points.

The computing, internet and portable smart-device revolution has fundamentally redefined the nature of 'interaction' and 'exchange'. The speed of ideas is increasing exponentially and the temptation to equate increasing communication connectivity as analogous to some form of collective neurological integration is strong. From Open Education Resources (OER) to growing campaigns for open access information, never before has more information be available to so many so immediately. The collective power of online communities, pressure groups, and social media networks is perhaps one of the most significant changes in human interaction of the past 10000 years.

The recent Harlem Shake meme is an entertaining example of creative adaptation and speed of cultural communication. Adapted rapidly to different cultural and practical contexts, the humour remains the consistent factor and the change of situation the impetus for further reinvention. These spikes of creative alignment represent an important form of large-scale creative interaction and information exchange. However, whilst the opportunity to interact with millions is clearly of growing significance in any analysis of collaborative or networked creativity, I am mindful of the continued significance of small-scale interactions, of geography, and the need to at least develop some form of framework through which to consider different scales of interaction and cooperation more generally and more consistently.

The graphic above is my first attempt to map a framework for considering different scales of creative interaction and production. Drawing heavily from James Kaufman's ideas about the 'micro-c' to 'Big-C' spectrum, and Margaret Boden's work on levels of creativity, the aim is to frame thinking rather than represent reality. Whilst I'm already beginning to consider more nuanced categories between 'Individual' and 'Industrial' (family unit/parental instruction, informal associations, amateurism, semi-professionalism, educational instruction, training and simulation), I think this basic framework does suffice in clarifying the underlying scales of creative interaction for analytical purposes:

1. Individual creativity I define as that emerging primarily from individuals. Recognising the need for groups to identify and validate creative ideas, the distinction here is one of creativity emerging through lone working rather than explicitly collaborative or through group structures. This level would encompass everything from the creativity of itinerant and idiosyncratic garden shed inventors, composers and artists, to the physical creativity of rope-less climbers.
2. Group creativity refers to any collaborative interaction between more that two people. This encompasses many small-scale organisational, discipline-based, and ensemble creativity from collaborative song writing partnerships to lab-based team scientific research. Limits of collaborative scale are slightly difficult to determine in precise terms but I consider the upper end of 'group' to relate to subcultural level but the primary focus to be smaller teams.
3. Industrial level creativity relates to large-scale systems-based organisations with defined professional roles, deliberative and command structures. Within a defined industrial sector with international recognition, technology corporations such as IBM or Toshiba as well as educational institutions and political systems would characterise context for 'Industrial' level creativity.
4. Cultural creativity can be considered as both international and intra-national in scale. Relating both to diaspora and geographically concentrated groups, incorporating a wide range of cultural institutions, social practices and conventions, 'cultural' creativity relates to processes including fashion, language, architecture, religion and ideology.
   
5. Global creativity is perhaps the most complex scale of creativity to specify. It may be arguable that no truly collective act of creativity has yet emerged. Correspondingly, it is arguable that all acts of human creativity, of all scales, are the direct consequence of collective knowledge and understanding. Whilst some isolated human communities still remain in parts of South America, the vast majority of human creativity emerges through fully social structures and processes.
   

The issue of scale may require thinking differently about the interactions between different levels in different contexts. The truth is that we all operate across a range of different social structures and apply our creativity in an array of situations and environments. In any given day we can move rapidly from the creativity of play with children, to professional creativity in the workplace, and back to personal creativity in art or research, with boundaries often clearly marked by the closing of doors and periods of movement, but often blurred by communication technology and wandering minds.

I am interested to explore how it is that we are socially creative. Any musician in a band will testify to the tensions and electrifying possibilities of focused group collaboration and creative interaction. Most poets have reveled in isolation and introspection with sharing ideas as the projected outcome. Tech companies the world over reveal the creative potential of larger more coordinated groups. Creativity occurs at different scales of human interaction and in different ways for different people.

This blog will be updated...

Creative stress and inventiveness under pressure (reflections on the Format Festival multimedia installation)

I like being busy. I'd much rather swim than go fishing, or drive than be driven. I can even find myself 'observing' energetically. I'm much happier doing something than nothing. But sometimes things can become so busy, frenetic, and fragmented, that you almost feel like you're watching yourself live than actively participating in any meaningful sense. Like staring out of the train window, the horizon (your 'life') appears still, whilst pace increases and clarity reduces towards the foreground (the 'stuff' you're actually doing). Beyond a certain conceptual and practical frame rate things become blurred.

As a father, husband, academic, musician, composer, artist, researcher, teacher, tutor, author, blogger/tweeter, cricket fan, film buff, avid reader, campaigner, traveller, cook, cleaner, daydreamer, mender of machines and broken cats, presenter, publisher, performer, (extends in progressively smaller print into the distance...), I very rarely have opportunities for boredom. I claim no monopoly on busyness or pressure though. I recognise that increasing working hours, work-related stress and psychological illness are serious concerns for many, in most parts of the world, and that most human beings face far greater and more basic challenges of survival than I will (hopefully) ever experience. These are serious creativity topics but beyond the scope of this particular blog entry. I'm more concerned here with exploring how pressure and stress impact creativity, in my experience.

At the time of writing this blog entry, I have recently completed a performance installation for the opening conference of the Format International Photography Festival in Derby (http://www.formatfestival.com). Themed around the festival, Factory is a two hour event involving large-scale video projection, 16-speaker ambisonic sound array, live electroacoustic piano and theatrical performance elements. Developed collaboratively with my colleague and collaborative partner Michael Brown in our 'PRISM' guise, the work was developed during a frenetic period of university work. Despite this, Factory became an extremely cohesive and rich creative project (in my opinion--Youtube clips will be published after the performance). My question is, have I/we been creative despite great pressure on time and space? Or have I/we been creative because of these constraints?

The Format International Photography festival is one of the cultural highlights of Derby's calendar. Drawing the world's best photographers and visitors from around the world, the event has become a major cultural event for the city. Launched this year on March 8th, we were commissioned to produce a performance event to open the festival at the reception for the festival conference. The festival theme being 'the factory' (Derby's 'Silk Mill' being the world's oldest factory and the cradle of the industrial revolution), we had the opportunity and permission to explore and to use amazing photographs by exhibitors. We worked in our PRISM way (not a secret but not really necessary to describe in detail here), and developed a sonic, videographic, image-based, and performance elements in response to the images and broader theme. We distorted, manipulated, animated, sonified, and creatively responded to the ideas of the photographs and to each other.

Often overlooked, we were, of course, dependent on the technical, logistical, and creative input of others. We enjoyed the excellent technical support of our sound, lighting and computer technicians, the creative input of our excellent Sound, Light and Live Event Technology students (http://www.derby.ac.uk/courses/sound-light-and-live-event-technology-bsc-hons/), and amazing support from academic colleagues. A great big thanks to Bruce Wiggins (http://tinyurl.com/d8z7d2a) for his ambisonic plugins and surround-sound know-how, Adam Hill for organising and supporting his excellent student team, and to Mark, Richard, Ray, Jason, and Jayne, for helping to move things, put things in the right place, and make sure there wasn't someone else in the place).

We provided terrible specifications guidance in every case (because we didn't know what we were doing and only completed the creative process minutes before the performance event) and yet several teams responded immediately and instinctively to the challenge. At set up we started to project the animation component, play back some ambisonic sound textures through the surround-sound array, and rehearse some of the performance elements (prepared piano with marbles, percussion equipment and composed elements). The team responded in highly creative ways and 'followed our lead' in inventive ways. Things were 'moved about', lighting colours were changed, bits of 'stuff' were found for putting one thing on top of another, other 'things' were sourced from unusual sources and strange places. And then, it was ready.

The event itself was well received. We certainly enjoyed the performance and were happy with the end results. Certain things didn't work as anticipated, many things changed, and certain discoveries and unanticipated processes emerged in real-time. Despite tight deadlines and infinite distractions, something creative emerged.

This wasn't entirely 'despite' the lack of time. Much was 'because' of the pressure. As with many university students working on assignments, we had to work late into the night, in fragmentary ways, and to decide quickly, work quickly and 'guess' spontaneously when certain 'next steps' were not clear. Whilst this frequently led to the repetition of developed (fall-back) patterns, there were numerous occasions both when context, stimulus, and urgency led to inauguration of new ideas and end results. We haven't really had the time to reflect properly on whether this was as good as it could have been, but we're certain it's something that could otherwise not have been.

Whilst I do like the old adage--"Needs driven creativity grows flowers, discover led creativity grows trees"--and think James Kaufman's little-c/Big-C/Pro-C module of creativity is extremely useful in defining context to creativity, I think the issue of what constitutes 'favorable circumstances' for creative insight might be a rich area for further research.

From the incredible engineering creativity of the Apollo 13 crew (for example), to the general issue of creativity in military combat and human survival, there are numerous examples of great innovation 'under fire'. It may that stress, pressure, distraction, and other limitations can be generally considered unfavorable for creativity to emerge, but what if extreme pressures, paucity of resources or heightened stress lead to creativity in different ways?

I suspect that 'open creativity' (such as when I decide to sit down and compose some music during a holiday break) can produce creative insight moments when I am able to appreciate the moment, reflect immediately, and 'bank' the experience as further evidence for the need for reduced stress to promote creativity. The 'creative insight in the shower' meme is also explainable for this reason; Don't we just 'feel' more creative when we're in 'down time' because we have the time to notice?