Lecture Eight - Creative Rhetorics.

• "Different artists often have quite divergent conceptions of what they are doing"

Objectives

• Clarify how creativity is talked about
• Enable us to talk with precision about creativity
• Develop practice; techniques/definitions
• Potentially expand discipline

Illustrated; The Blank Sheet Project

• Rutger Hauer
• Sir John Hegarty
• Renzo Rosso
• Neville Brody
• Kati Howe

Renzo Rosso's creative rhetoric

• Practice based beginning - (School of Fashion) studio-pedagogy (supports creativity) Arts & Crafts/Bauhaus
• Best idea – always next creativity 'dynamic' George Dickie (1971) art is beyond definition constantly changing (history of aesthetics)
• Be Stupid – using heart not head expressionist theory – linked to Romanticism idea that creativity is a knowledge-obtaining activity opposition to rational sciences
• Rosso - Romantic Genius?
• Work in teams – creative process Diesel, collaborative

Miemis

• Plato’s (427 BC - 346 BC ) problem with creativity 
• Republic – ideal society (critique of democracy)
• Metaphysics – forms
• Physical world mimics the real Art imitates an imitation
• Art mimics the sensory world
• Creativity merely a technical skill - techne (GK)
• Denied creativity's knowledge-producing capability
• Dichotomy physical not mental activity

Ancient Greece

• Gombrich (1950) - the popular view is that western civilisation begins with the Ancient Greeks
• Bernal (1991) argues Classical civilisation has deep roots in Afroasiatic cultures - history suppressed since 18c.
• Classical Greeks, did not see their philosophy, as original, but derived from the East and Egypt.
• Evidence classification of GK art
• striving to imitate nature better
• archaic
• classical
• hellenistic

Nine rhetorics of creativity

• creative genius
• found in aesthetics Area of philosophy
• term originates in mid 18c Derived from the aesthesis (perception)
• involves looking at how judgements about art and creativity are made.
• democratic and political creativity
• ubiquitous creativity
• creativity as a basic skill to find solutions to problems in 21st life, being resourceful, flexible – contributing to society
• society (crowd) made up of online Communities of Practice VCOP Group(s) of people, which have an interest in the same topic and are engaged in an activity of sharing their opinions on this topic (creating the cloud)
• website, wiki blogs, social networks, micro-blogging
• creativity for social good
• Only The Brave Foundation can be seen as CSR
• David Jones CEO Havas (2012) brands today find creative ways to be socially responsible 
• in this sense CSR fits with the Rhetoric of creativity as a social good;
• ‘involving co-operative activity and as socially and personally empowering’ (Banaji et al, 2006 p25) 
• why? What society wants and demands
• D&AD Student Awards: Unilever open brief link campaign of brand to a social or environmental issue
• creativity as economic imperative
• Digital Britain (2009) Report
• creative skills particularly important to UK economy
• facilitating creative skills particularly important to economy
• today’s most innovative companies... succeed by designing their organisations to maximize collaboration’ (Sawyer, 2008 xiii)
• Google & Ideo (dominant creative models)
• creative teams practice improvisation (on & offline)
• good improv involves deep listening skills – working as one, idea goes places wouldn’t as an individual
• play and creativity
• divergent thinking activities
• image surfing
• brainstorming 
• improvisational theatre 100 –mile-an-hour thinking 
• free thinking 
• creativity as a type of thinking
• creativity and cognition
• Csikzentmihayli (1990) Flow
• psycho-cultural perspective of creativity
• refers to psychological condition of being creative
• enjoyment changes perception of time ‘loose-one’s-self’
• occurs when challenges & skills are high
• Sawyer (2008) posits flow essential ingredient to creativity
• most common place flow experienced is when one is in conversation
• creativity is (and always has been) collaborative 
• the creative affordances of technology
• covered OCC new model of creativity (industry)
• influenced creative curriculum
• flattening social hierarchies, empowering and connecting creatives
• communities of practice across disciplines & geography asynchronously or synchronously 
• new initiative launched next summer ‘connect’ D&AD community ‘richer deeper engagement education and industry’
• new and exciting opportunities for creatives
• the creative classroom
• the Survival of Creativity (2000)
• traces history of state-funded Art & Design Education
• first Academies of Art in Italy 14c
• classical rules perspective, orders of architecture etc
• scholarly activity ‘fine’ 16c
• french Academy & Atelier 19c
• british Art Schools, Arts & Craft: LCA

Art and Design Education

• Brown (2012) digital technology, event horizon Epistemological shift
• global community created the cloud single body of knowledge
• ownership of content has changed implications A & D Education
• one to many outmoded
• e-studio
• online extension studio
• mimics the professional studio in its online form and creative collaboratives

How do you talk about your creativity?

• Residues of Mimesis may remain
• contemporary literature suggests creativity is spoken about by creatives as a thinking and knowledge-generating activity
• OCC sits in opposition to the Creative Genius rhetoric, where creativity is an innate aptitude for individuals. 
• the has led to a dualist perspective of real individual creativity against a communal other. 
• consequences; any form of collaborative creativity is considered of inferior value to independent practice
• Sawyer (2008) and others argue the opposite that collaborative creativity is a superior type that increases innovation and suits the contemporary networked economy.