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?