Post two: Creativity

Creativity:

'Creative thought is a mental process involving creative problem solving and the discovery of new ideas or concepts, or new associations of the existing ideas or concepts, fueled by the process of either conscious or unconscious insight.' - Wikipedia definition of 'creativity'

'I define creativity as the act of turning new and imaginative ideas into reality. Creativity involves two processes: thinking, then producing. Innovation is the production or implementation of an idea. If you have ideas, but don't act on them, you are imaginative but not creative.' - 'What is creativity?' By Linda Naiman


'Creativity is defined as the tendency to generate or recognize ideas, alternatives, or possibilities that may be useful in solving problems, communicating with others, and entertaining ourselves and others.' - 'What is creativity?' By Northridge University

         TASK ONE: A Game Of 'Consequence'

We were split into groups of either 3 or 4, each group was given a piece of paper and a pen. Then the first person wrote down an adjective, fold the paper over so that what we had written couldn't be seen, and pass the paper on to the next person. The next person carried on the process and wrote down a noun, the next a verb, another adjective and then finally the first person wrote down a noun.

The sentence we ended up with:
'The lovely door jumped the rusty cat'

Would you consider the task 'creative'?
We then created an image representative of the above sentence, I personally think that both the sentence and image are creative in the sense that they are 'out of the ordinary' the selected words above would not usually be put into a sentence together. But on the contrary I do not think that the sentence and image are creative as the fact that they would not usually be put together makes them lack in sense, therefore the lack of sense makes them uncreative.

TASK TWO: 'The Pen'

Our next task in creativity was to create a minute long video, we were given a camera and the only stimulus we were given was a pen, we were told that we could film whatever we wanted but it had to involve the pen in some way or another. Although at first I personally found this task as a concept very confusing as the task carried on and we got into 'the swing of things' and begun to forget the very broad outline we were given and just film whatever first came to mind. The part that made this task so difficult was the fact that the clip had to be filmed in its entirety which meant that if a shot went drastically wrong we were forced to begin the filming from scratch, also without the use of 'run-camera-action' simple things such as knowing when to 'cut' became difficult.

Would you consider the task 'creative'?

This task was creative in the general sense that the stimulus allowed us all in our set groups to be relatively original in what ideas we chose to put into action and what kind of direction we chose to go down in terms of our filming. Not having a lot of direction to follow also allowed us all the independence to improve our creative skills. I'd say the concept of the task was creative and parts of the shots we used such as the ending shot were creative but I would not say that overall the video we created was especially creative.

TASK THREE: Independent Study

For this aspect of the work I chose to create a collage presenting what I consider the most important aspects of my life; the activities I enjoy participating in, the places in which I spend the most time, the people with whom I spend the most time with or key/favourable events in my life such as music festivals or holiday destinations. Once i had selected the photographs  In order to create the collage i used my favourite photogrpahs that either I personally had taken or that had been taken of me, the photogrpahs that mean that most to me.

I would label the collage I have created as 'creative' due to the fact that it is original - if other people were to carry out the same task none of the collages would be identical to mine because we are all individuals. Personality factors - differences in likes/dislikes and differences in interests and hobbies would all contribute to the differences in the creation of the collages. 

30/6/10 - I really like your thoughts on the game of consequences and if you were creative. Are you therefore saying that to you can only be creative if it makes sense? If so, not all art work makes sense to me but surely it is creative??? I'd like to see you respond to this comment in your blog. SHIPP

In terms of 'art work' it can be creative without making sense - Not all art work has to make sense to other people but i'd personally say that all art work has to make sense to at least one person, the artist. Although i'm aware of what the message within the image I created is and the message makes sense to me due to the fact that it is based on the sentence I created, I personally do not enjoy looking at the image or find it particularly mentally stimulating or relevant so I would not consider it creative.