Creativity: The Monolithic Entity

Neuron: Artline Pen Sketch, Matt Bacon

I have been reading an article on by Arne Dietrich about cognitive neuroscience and creativity. His basic premises is that science still doesn’t have a handle on how creativity occurs in the brain or even where it occurs.
For the past 50 years the disciplines of pycology and near science have, according to Dietrich, been barking up the wrong tree and perpetuating misnomers about creativity.

The four main areas which need to be re-framed are:

1. Creativity is divergent thinking
2. Creativity is in the right brain
3. Creativity occurs in a state of defocused attention
4. Altered states of consciousness facilitate creativity

1. At a basic level Divergent thinking is allowing as many different ideas as possible to be generated from which to find a direction. ie. Brainstorming, mind-mapping, journaling. Bt it itself is not creativity, as divergent thinking also occurs in conjunction with convergent thinking to produce creative results.

2. There is no left brain, right brain. There’s just your brain. Really creativity occurs throughout the brain. The brain is not divided but is a networked group of creative pockets.

3. Creativity not only occurs in a state of defocused attention i.e. I had a most amazing idea when I wasn’t thinking about the problem. But it also occurs in a focused state of attention. i.e. specifically focussing attention on a particular problem that needs a creative solution.

4. Altered states (drug induced, specific meditation or mental illness) may enable you see things differently but don’t actually foster creativity. The altered state may be creative but cannot continuously produce creativity.
After debunking these four ideas which have much traction in the creativity research field, Dietrich, in conclusion, espouses the need for creativity to be seen not as a “monolithic entity” which can be pin-pointed to one area of the mind or one expressive output but as a conglomerate of processes and neurological parts working together.

Arne Dietrich, Who’s Afraid of a Cognitive Neuroscience of Creativity?, http://www.harford.de/arne/articles/Reprint%20CNC%20Methods.pdf

Constraint, Toy Story and the Uncanny Valley

Toy Story: The Art and Making of the Animated Film

I recently picked up a terrific book by John Lasseter “Toy Story: The Art and Making of the Animated Film”. Thinking about creative process always drives me towards the animation industry and in particular Pixar Studios. Their ability to maintain a creative edge over an extended period of time is an exemplar of creative process under constraints.

It had been a while since I had looked at Toy Story, the catalyst of Pixar's rise to fame, that I decided to revisit the original work. Apart from the wide breadth of concept work that went into the construction of the film a passage by John Lasseter stood out to  me.

“To me there's no object that can't become a personality" pg14

Lasseter is referring here to the inanimate objects that were cunningly brought to life in the making of the film. However in order to make the personality fit the object, Lasseter goes on to say that you have to apply certain restrictions to your character. He reflects that in the design of the toy soldiers from the film he decided that the soldiers had to move according to their basic state. ie. a plastic soldier cannot move like a regular flash and blood human. The movement is constrained by the nature of the object. A more recent example is that of Lightning McQueen. A car cannot suddenly grow hands and stand up on his rear tyres like a biped. He must move like a real car would.

In a sense the great sense of character that imbues a lot of Pixar’s work comes from constraint. Once again the imposition of limitations provides fertile stimulus for creative output.

This leads me onto the idea of constraint leading us away from the “Uncanny Valley”. The Uncanny Valley is a theory that states “when human replicas look and act almost, but not perfectly, like actual human beings, it causes a response of revulsion among human observers.” (Wikipedia) The theory was first presented by Masahiro Mori in 1970. He cited examples of Robots being very close human likeness that people had a adverse reaction to them. His theory has been cited in the field of animation most notably in films such as Polar Express and Beowulf.

The Uncanny Valley. Wikipedia

What is interesting to me is that the abstract nature of characterized inanimate objects by default avoids this problem of repelling the audience. So in a sense can it be said then that constraint can lead us back to reality?















Uncanny valley. (2012, May 8). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 13:16, May 12, 2012, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Uncanny_valley&oldid=491398786

Constructive Improvisation

"Your Brain on Improv" by Charles Limb gives a fascinating insight into the brain and improvisation.


There’s two main areas of scientific research into creativity. Cognitive Psychology and NeuroScience. Both have made attempts at understanding where creativity comes from and where in our heads it is located.

Updates in scanning technology are allowing new information to be found. the use of fRMI scans in particular is giving an insight into what’s happening in our brain during the creative process. The fMRI works by basically photographing the blood flow in the brain. Where a surge of blood flow appears during an activity there is a correlation to the about of activity that part of the brain is doing.

Charles Limb is a Head and Neck Surgeon. Earlier this year he conducted research into creativity with Jazz musicians using fMRI.

He got some of the best Jazz musicians in America to lie inside an MRI scanner with a modified MIDI keyboard on their laps. the participants memorized a piece of pre-written music and played it. Limb took scans of their brain while they were playing. Then he asked them to play the same piece but at certain points to improvise.

Limb discovered that during these points of improvisation self-monitoring went down and self-expression went up. Interestingly the part of the active part of the brain was the same part which connects to auto-biographical information. Limb replicated this experiment with the participation of freestyle rappers. the artist would rap to a pre-written lyrics and then at a specific moment interject with freestyle lyrics. the scan results shown an infusion of blood to the same area of the brain as the Jazz musicians. So there’s a belief that there is a neurological basis for creative.

What I want to connect here is the idea that production artists use different creative methodologies to produce a constructive improvisation which essentially tricks their brain into shutting down these self-monitoring, more analytical, portions of the brain and open up the self-expressive creative parts of the brain.

Are Facts Aesthetic

Ironman: Art Nouveau Aesthetic
http://johntylerchristopher.deviantart.com

 I recently had the opportunity to provide a written response to the question “Are Facts Aesthetic?”. My basic premise is facts are presented within a certain framework and language. If any information is presented in this format that can be construed as facts. I relate this idea of frameworks and language to art aesthetics in art movements. Say for example Art Nouveau. Work can be said to belong to the Art Nouveau movement by it’s form, fitting into a certain set of parameters, which match or mimic other forms and therefore they belong to the group we call Art Nouveau. Modernism, Surrealism, Dadaism, Cubism all have their own frameworks to be adhered to in order that work can be classified as one of them.

This I argue is the same for facts.

Read more if you’re interested. Are Facts Aesthetic Essay? (PDF)

- matt

The Wonder of Art

 Noel Paul Stookey sang “Now a scientist may tell you how night turns into day, but it can never take the wonder away”
(Miracles, Real to Reel)

It never ceases to amaze me that with all the explanations of how our brains work, and the chemical reactions that happen inside us that explain why we react or think the way we do, that art can cut through the ‘scientific self’ and surprise us. We still get that “wow” factor when we see, hear, feel, experience “art”. Science can explain so much of “us” but it cannot take the wonder away.

- matt

Restraint

Restraints would seemly go against the idea of creativity giving you freedom. Art, creativity, design, call it what you will is about freeing the soul of restriction. Often our understanding of creativity is tied up with freedom. Being unfettered to pursue a conceptual idea in anyway we please. How often do limitless options become oppressive to the creative? Building up the expectation of creativity "coming upon us" like a divine muse, waiting for inspiration before the first mark, word or shot is made.

– matt

4 hours of Facing a Blank Wall

Tony Orrico, unison symmetry standing

I came across this wonderful artist and performer Tony Orrico. He lays out large strips of paper, lies down and restricts himself to certain movements. Using graphite pencil over 4 hours creates Massive human spirograph. Or He stands against the wall for 12 hours and restricts his movement to only his arm length. Check it out here: www.tonyorrico.com/PENWALD_DRAWINGS.html

Over the course of this semester I have wanted to investigate creativity under constraint. For in that constraint is where creative decisions are made which produce unexpected but inspirational results. Placing oneself in that position of restriction with the tools at hand (process) turns us (to use a sailing metaphor) toward the wind of resistance and faces us into the storm where we ultimately face off against ourselves to hopefully come out the other side victorious in our efforts to create original work. Tony Orrico is a perfect example.

-matt