Creativity or the creative process  

The creative process starts with original thinking and ideas in response to a stimulus. We use our imaginations and mind wandering as we have done to survive and...to become human. That is incredible. This may be a fast, inspirational process or we may take some time dicarding and modifying , but as Sir Ken Robinson states, when we are putting ideas to work we are being creative. He explains that we can infinitely play with the good ideas but daydreaming in itself goes nowhere. Selected ideas are worked on and we then go on to develop them through trial and error, through testing and performance. Please take your time to look through the video clips on this and the following sections. They tell the story of creativity better than I could ever do. 

 

Failed experiments and performances need resilience.

 “If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original.”

Sir Ken Robinson 

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Risk failure, embrace mistakes, tweak, toil and pass the test*, and keep going. Sleep on it. Start again. Artists, writers and designers constantly revisit or redraft and improve until it is right.

 

"The waste paper basket is your friend. It was invented for you by God!"

Margaret Atwood. 

 

Persistence and resilience are essential qualities, but one must recognise when to stop entirely or change direction according to what the evidence clearly shows, to what critical friends are telling you. It sometimes takes the annoying person at the back of the room to illuminate the truth of the situation. 

However, of course, there is a however! When it comes to innovation, something that breaks the rules, when something is radically new, then you need your gut - you are telling yourself it is right. You will have questioned yourself a thousand times and modified things a hundred, you have your rationale. You are clear and exhausted.  

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Critical thinking- what is it and why is it important? 

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In a nutshell, critical thinkers are open-minded and look at alternatives, analyzing, assessing and reconstructing ideas. They question assumptions, implications and practical consequences. Critical thinking is self-directed, self-disciplined, self-monitored, and self-corrective. However, a collaboration of critical thinkers can modify and improve the outcome or strengthen the resolve of the originator.

The kinds of questions critical thinkers ask,

 

• “Whatever the creative outcome is, or is envisaged to be, is it original?

• Is it able to make people think again?

• Is it remarkable?

• Does it have an emotional impact?

• Does make people think differently and talk differently and act differently.

• Is it relevant? Is it significant? Why?

• What is the reality that drives it? 

• What is the moral and ethical stance that drives you?

• Are the messages, even those deemed to be subliminal, clear and rational? Does it have to be if it is received as weird, wonderful and fun?

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        We encourage critical thinking at CrE8ive place.  However, you may not wish to open up to this. That's fine. 

 

Collaboration

It may only be important to me and me alone at this time. I could just decide to do that myself. I might go back to it tomorrow, or whenever. Later, others might be emotionally affected and some may be invited in to be involved, modifying and improving it further as a team. Working with others, when it involves empathy, understanding and critical thinking becomes a creative process and the end result can be powerful and innovative

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Paul McCartney and his team pushed that process further.  In the mid-90's the the

remaining Beatles and the team made several attempts to resurrect a lost and

valued John Lennon demo tape.  Finally, in 2023, Peter Jackson used AI to "demix"

the unpleasant piano sound that masked Lennon's voice. Jackson argued that by AI doing

its job, the creativity others had put into the work in 1994 and in 2023 was able to be released

resulting in a wonderful piece of creative work. It may or may not have been the Beatles most important track, but it was, arguably, as innovative as St.Pepper had been innovative back in 1967. This was a hybrid of machine learning and human creativity. Perhaps this is where we are going next.

People, like  artist like Refik Anadol are doing this right now. He has used machine intelligence to interpret and transform the complete art data at the Museum of Modern Art to create new forms creating ground-breaking digital artworks that unfold in real time, continuously generating new and otherworldly forms that envelop viewers. They are constantly changing. He did that. He imagined and designed the input, not the output. Who knows what the creative mind can do in using its potential? I can certainly see the advantages of AI becoming the filter between patient and doctor, only offering the doctor the choice if there is a choice to be made. Prescribing directly to patient when it is intelligently obvious, having passed through the required lines of questioning, physical assessment, and logic gates. Quicker, cheaper, accurate - leaving the doctor to use creative human thinking only when required. New creatives will use their own creativity to get the best out of AI. That's what humans do. Some will attempt to mis-use AI for the wrong reasons of course if not controlled, but that is where regulation and law matters. A discussion for another platform.

Solitude

Collaboration is not compulsory! The initial development of ideas is often a solitary occupation. Then best ideas need to be worked on by bouncing them off trusted others. By trial and error. By testing the prototypes with the team and by a director's or audience feedback, through critical conversations that matter. However, to say that "collaboration is an essential component of creativity" is a misnomer. Many great innovations and innovative works have been the result of deeper solitary thinking and experimenting. The influences and experiences are multifarious, but the work, for many, can still be best done in soulful isolation. We will make sure that working is uninterrupted when this is appropriate. But then, there is the essential part of the human experience. Everyone will come to a point where a meeting of minds through meaningful and joyous conversations is "a happening". All of this is a delicate balancing act. We will work with you to get this right.

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There are times when isolation can become counter-productive or, in extremis, harmful. Nelson Mandela knew the harm of forced isolation, but through incredible strength of character he was still able to become the "mature man," and used that terrible incarceration to some benefit: 

"It is never my custom to use words lightly. If twenty-seven years in prison has done anything to us, it was to use the silence of solitude to make us understand how precious words are and how real speech is in its impact on the way people live and die." ~ Nelson Mandela speaking during the Closing Address at the XIII International AIDS Conference, Durban, South Africa, 14 July 2000   

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Using the Stimulus - returning to it to amend and improve over time. 

 

There can be several versions of works developed from the same stimulus improved, or not, over time. Van Gogh made eleven final versions of his beloved sunflowers. Rembrandt made several versions of his elf portrait over his lifetime. Excusing the oxymoron, Tracey Emin meticulously remade her unmade bed for several exhibitions. Taking it to the extreme the distinctive profile of the Montagne Sainte-Victoire appears in over sixty watercolours and oil paintings by Cézanne. Designers and inventors continuously improve. We are currently on version 15 of the Dyson

vacuum cleaner and version 14 of the open-source operating system Android 14. There is no better

example of collaborative working than open-source products. Only perhaps eclipsed by the intense

collaboration of the scientific community to produce a successful COVID-19 vaccine. Collaboration

works better in most instances. Heads up! 

Perhaps a creative idea is enough in itself to get others working collaboratively as

happens in new scientific theories or when moving from prototypes to a working

(scalable) model in technology.  This may be just the beginning as you go on to

develop a new "product," or a "new way" or "new art".  If they see what I see it just might be of value, or even sell!

 

The sweat of the trials and errors involved in the creative process often result in failures until it goes in the bin or something more important emerges.

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This is also true when creating a new, and (not a dirty word!) marketable product - a hit! Or it may be a highly effective new way of doing things. Etcetera. However, the creative process itself is always measured by the end product.

Modern adaptations and interpretation 

Arts and sciences follow the same rules. Both "magpie" what's gone before using the best of useful knowledge, searching it out wherever it may come from. "Nothing is truly original" they say. That's what the human brain does and s/he says "I can use that like this!" Archimedes summed it up in one - "Eureka" which interestingly translates to "I've found it" rather than I've invented it. Even he will have observed natural phenomena such as the liquid vortex and local artisans using screw methods. 

Sometimes, the work is constantly changing in front of you and that is the art. 

Jazz and, perhaps to a lesser extent other live music performances and live comedy celebrate human "imperfections," in real time. It can be quite exhilarating to witness how these artists showcase the creative process happening live. That process is the art. It is both refreshing and unique, every time. For more see "intuition, spontaneity and gut" on the next page.