Phoenix I’d say. Our creative drive is instigated by the need to break symmetry. If something works then the world becomes bland. We don’t like bland and we’d rather die than conform to a known set of boring rules and regulations.

The creative spirit doesn’t operate within the realm of ‘fear’. Ironically the creativity of anyone is consumed by many, copied, replicated, reiterated, and repeated right up to the point where this previous ‘new energy’ becomes ‘normal and bland’ - all progressive forms brought forth through creativity will inevitably end up being reiterated in dilute form so that the masses are slowly dragged towards its blinding light.

It’s the perpetual cycle of the phoenix. From the ashes of the old creations rise the new creations.

You seem to want to talk about value though. Why?

what constitutes the creative animal, as it were, of todays modern age. What are it's qualities? We have opened the door to new forms of creativity, creating works without use-value. — kudos

I think the creative animal of today is no different than he/she has ever been. I see a sort of Darwinian strain to creativity in the ‘creative animal’ or human, where, like evolution, the creative act throws us forward into the future. So many creative acts fall away, less still create a new paradigm.

I’m a bit unsure of your post. It seems to me that all creative acts have ‘use-value’. Otherwise it’s the act of a particular age or culture that can afford such ‘non-value’ activities.

? Is it a form of slavery to put creative work into something to the benefit of someone else? — kudos

It’s not slavery, it’s the driver of our success, it benefits millions, now and in the future.

Thanks for your response. The analogy to Natural Selection is valid, but then what’s the reason for those individuals to strive for? Is it that creative work is its own reward so to speak? The reward being the equivalent of survival in the animal.

Thanks I fully agree with your thoughts on this. By speaking of ‘we’ ‘our’ I presume you have the belief that creativity is a social act. Nobody should make an art installation only for themself, or videos that only they watch, etc. With some minor exceptions the creative act is social, and in this sense would be subject to forces concurrent with any other social act. I can’t speak for you but it is my observation that humans don’t form into groups and do anything without it being in their interest to do so.

Creative work takes great time and effort to produce for the most part. Are we to expect that for reasons of ‘pure joy of creation’ that a person should work? Surely they can expect some use value to be transferred to the art by the society as is the case everywhere. Otherwise it could with a little imagination be turned into slavery by a particularly crafty capitalist.

I don’t see any reason to assume production of art is for anyone else’s benefit during the creative process. So I’d have to disagree.

If I make a video I want to see my vision manifest. What others think of it will be of concern to some but not all.

I don’t view the artistic endeavor as being about an ‘art product’. I could see in your choice of wording you may not being paying attention to the process of producing art - the creative process - which is a little confusing for me. Maybe I just misunderstood the focus of your OP?

Creative work takes great time and effort to produce for the most part. — kudos

I had thought this post was not about ‘art’ but about the ‘creative animal’. Not about producing art but of acting out the creative impulse which is so instinctual to mankind and makes us who we are. Just the idea, the actual thought, of freedom is a creative act, as is equality and so on.

I’m glad you brought up the creative impulse or instinct. In my world these are two separate entities. The second is more difficult to account for, because we can’t really prove right now that creativity is instinctual. Other animals don’t seem to do it so much in the form we see it in humans. If it were true, what would be the benefit to them to do so? We must be talking about apes, chimpanzees, and other primates.

In response I’d ask if you yourself would produce said video, of $5000 cost for equipment, actors, along with approximately 40 hours (one week) of time if you knew for certain only you would ever watch it? I do not see the point there, if you had the vision already why not simply save yourself the work and make recourse to it whenever you felt like watching it?

what constitutes the creative animal, as it were, of todays modern age. What are it's qualities? — kudos

Are we looking to describe and discuss creativity, in humans, and maybe other animals? [This would be my main interest in this topic.]

We have opened the door to new forms of creativity, creating works without use-value. — kudos

You mean 'art'? Surely not, as art has been around for many centuries.

The creativity of today is both against monetization, but also ascribes virulently to a lottery system of value. Large web-front companies make money of the creative labours of the masses, but what drives us to do it? Are we still driven to do it? Is it a form of slavery to put creative work into something to the benefit of someone else? Does this mean that creativity must be devoid of 'work'? — kudos

Or is this topic about the use to which creative individuals are put by their employers and political masters?

I could see in your choice of wording you may not being paying attention to the process of producing art - the creative process - which is a little confusing for me. Maybe I just misunderstood the focus of your OP? — I like sushi

This goes for me too.

Creativity: basically rearranging things and seeing what it would be like if I put baubles on it versus removing baubles.

I venture to suggest there's a bit more to creativity than putting sprinkles on top of a milk shake. :smile:

As someone who does creative work for a living, working with lots of other creative folks, and who has done that for decades, I don't really think it amounts to more than that.

You're basically rearranging things and seeing what happens when you "put this there" and "try removing this from here" etc.

This is the subject matter I hoped to discuss when I saw the title of this topic, so I hope I'm not pushing the discussion off-topic.

As someone who does creative work for a living, working with lots of other creative folks, and who has done that for decades... — Terrapin Station

I retired four years ago, but before that, I spent 37 years as a firmware designer. Not as open-endedly creative as Tracey Emin, but creative nonetheless. Perhaps we could call what I did 'constrained creativity'?

You're basically rearranging things and seeing what happens when you "put this there" and "try removing this from here" etc. — Terrapin Station

This account seems to assume that the necessary 'parts' are already available, and only their arrangement, relative to one another, remains to be done. This is much less than the creativity of taking a problem - a problem which has not previously been solved, or we'd use the existing solution - and creating a solution.

This account seems to assume that the necessary 'parts' are already available, and only their arrangement, relative to one another, remains to be done. This is much less than the creativity of taking a problem - a problem which has not previously been solved, or we'd use the existing solution - and creating a solution. — Pattern-chaser

The parts are things like pitches, durations (rhythms), timbres, etc. Or colors, shapes, textures. Or characters (with parts like personality traits, etc.) and conflicts/dilemmas and locations, etc.

I don't know enough about programming to mention what would make sense as parts, but it would be something similar--some sort of cache of unique command words for the coding language in question, some cache of logical statements with particular syntax, etc.

If you're needing to solve a particular problem, yeah, that also requires that you rearrange the stuff you're rearranging in a way that it has a pretty specific result . . . which we unfortunately can't at all guarantee in the arts, so we can't focus on that in the same way, although there are some rough limits to meet more broadly-defined ends that we can apply at least. (For example, we're not going to create free jazz a la Albert Ayler for Britney Spears to sing over if we want to try to retain Britney Spears' audience, anything like her current level of success, etc.)

I would if I felt like spending $5000 was worth it to me personally - it would be a risk.

If you don’t see the point then you don’t understand what an artist does or why they do it. Then again, nor do they! Haha! It is a mystery, but I’m damn sure just because others benefit from the production of artwork that that isn’t the sole purpose of producing art.

I am not saying that I, or many others, wouldn’t be seduced by the possibility of admiration. I think you’d find most artists, regardless of genre, tell you that produced their best work when they were unconcerned about who or how many people would like it.

See what I mean now? I probably haven’t addressed your question in the OP fully. I don’t think I can though because it seems tangental to my perspective on art as opposed to material - I thought you were referring to the former when you asked about ‘creativity’ rather than focusing on the ‘creation’.

I'd like to take the opportunity here to discuss the philosophy of creativity. No, I don't mean whether something classifies as art or not, but rather what constitutes the creative animal, as it were, of todays modern age. What are it's qualities? We have opened the door to new forms of creativity, creating works without use-value. The creativity of today is both against monetization, but also ascribes virulently to a lottery system of value. Large web-front companies make money of the creative labours of the masses, but what drives us to do it? Are we still driven to do it? Is it a form of slavery to put creative work into something to the benefit of someone else? Does this mean that creativity must be devoid of 'work'? I ask for your thoughts... — kudos

For me, creativity is not about use-value, but about sharing our subjective view of the universe in a form that pursues at least one of three aims: increased awareness, increased interconnectedness or increased overall achievement/capacity. These aims, I believe, are instinctive at the deepest level of existence, but it is in recognising my uniquely subjective view as valuable in itself to the unfolding universe that enables me to be creative.

Putting creative (uniquely personal) work into something for the benefit of others is precisely what drives creativity in the first place. It is a selfless act at its core. Monetization or any system of value is counterproductive to creativity - the moment a value system begins to influence creative labours, the original impetus is obscured and the creative animal is lured from creativity towards productivity.

Most creativity these days is hedged by the value systems we impose on all our interactions with the universe. Creativity in today’s modern age should be leading us beyond our value systems and increasing our awareness of a broader perspective of the universe.

Let's escape the 'money' connotation of value and settle that it can be any value, even not having value can be considered a value. Lets flip it upside down and say they should at least have the general aim of not becoming a slave, not becoming homeless, rather than becoming graspy, greedy or cynical. If we think of it this way I think it will be more realistic.

I don't know enough about programming to mention what would make sense as parts, but it would be something similar--some sort of cache of unique command words for the coding language in question, some cache of logical statements with particular syntax, etc.

If you're needing to solve a particular problem, yeah, that also requires that you rearrange the stuff you're rearranging in a way that it has a pretty specific result . . . — Terrapin Station

Well the first thing we've learnt is that creative endeavours vary from profession to profession, to the extent that a description of one simply does not apply to the other. :smile: Your conception of program design stops after describing (part of) the very first rung of a ladder that can rise quite high, depending on the project in hand. If program 'design' is limited to the simpler aspects of coding, then your project is already in trouble. It won't seem so at first, but as time goes on.... :wink:

IME, design involves much more than rearrangement of existing building blocks. Often (usually), the building blocks themselves must be designed and implemented before they can be used in the main project.

So how can we progress from here, in our discussion of creativity, when we have discovered how different different strains of creativity can be? :chin:

Well there's the pure act of creativity itself and then there's sub-category of creative industry. Being involved in industry presupposes there's a reason to produce already determined. But being involved in any type of creativity doesn't have to involve producing for the work-return benefits of an industry, which would account for the big difference in these two types. Suppose you were independent, and had decided to make a software app or a painting. What are the reasons why you would do this, pure love of one's neighbour, G-d, or on the other side vanity or glory maybe? I presume the reasons would be similar or comparable in nature despite ending in very different results.

IME, design involves much more than rearrangement of existing building blocks. Often (usually), the building blocks themselves must be designed and implemented before they can be used in the main project. — Pattern-chaser

What are you building the building blocks out of?

Smaller blocks. Like bones are built from cells, I suppose.

Sure. Aren't you rearranging those, then?

Large web-front companies make money of the creative labours of the masses, but what drives us to do it? — kudos

I love how one-sided your post is. It is always the 'big evil corporate' exploiting the small helpless proletariat.' You could easily turn this around and state that labour is exploiting/making money of big tech companies.

The objective view would be that big companies have opened new markets for creative people to do what they love, while simultaneously make money.

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Now to go deeper into the topic you addressed. One could argue that the internet promotes creativity, by sharing ideas (and remixing it) on a massive scale beyond human comprehension.

But I could also see the opposite case be made, namely that the internet, especially social media platforms, kills creativity by creating internet bubbles, echo chambers, where people just seek confirmation instead of challenges to their world view. It is psychologically more comforting to be around people who already agree with you, especially regarding political and moral views.

I am personally leaning more towards the latter.

Hi ritikew, no question my post contains some bias. I don't pretend to escape it, but I do endeavour to.

You bring up the use of technology in process as well as consumption, which is good. To do work itself is easier, and to do large-scale work has been ever increasingly become more 'fun.' Take music for instance, who knows how many fun toy-like devices have come out to create that with, and do things that used to take hours to do with old technologies. In this way, the part of the reward, so to speak, for creative work that is the 'fun' part is greater.

The question is would it be better if there was no 'work' to the process, or not. And the creator was just purely enjoying his/her self? It it my opinion that the process of having that enjoyment is in part derived from the social value of the act itself.

I’m glad you brought up the creative impulse or instinct. In my world these are two separate entities. The second is more difficult to account for, because we can’t really prove right now that creativity is instinctual. Other animals don’t seem to do it so much in the form we see it in humans. If it were true, what would be the benefit to them to do so? We must be talking about apes, chimpanzees, and other primates. — kudos

I’m not convinced that the two are separate entities, though there may be someone out there who could clear it up in a paragraph. The act of starting fire by rubbing sticks or using flints: is that instinct or a creative act? How did it begin? A Chimpanzee using sticks to get at ants for eating, what’s that?

Is it right for us to arbitrarily call one thing ‘instinct’ and another ‘creative’? When a bird uses a rock to break open an egg, what’s that? If it’s instinct then starting a fire is instinct. But the concept of starting a fire has to come from somewhere So creativity is a tool. Therefore Chimpanzees are creative.

But about starting a metaphor? Is that instinct?

Thanks Brett. So your point is that the painting of a picture is not distinguishable from a chimp using a stick to catch birds. The decision of said chimp was from the get-go motivated by need for prey. Thereby the decision was likely of the form ‘if I spend time x to create a stick and do y it will achieve z.’ So would this be any different if the chimp instead of coming up with the idea paid another chimp 30 bananas for their stick and to be trained how to use it. The stick would then have some use-value imparted to it by the first chimp.

Would you expect chimp 1 to give away his stick that he worked for, simply for love of creating sticks? Even if he really loved making them surely he’d realize that was liable to cause him problems.

Would you expect chimp 1 to give away his stick that he worked for, simply for love of creating sticks? — kudos

He wouldn’t have to consider giving it away. The.creative act itself inspires others: they imitate it. One day another Chimp might be inspired to take it a step further. My feeling is that all creative acts have ‘use-value’. In a world of survival no ‘use-value’ means death.

The creative act of people today stems from this. The cave paintings in Lascaux are far removed from artwork today but they’re connected. But today we are far removed from many of our origins. Art today, in relation to its roots is just ‘baubles’. So the use-value’ in art today is largely dependent on style, or trends. Which is not to say that the instinct to create is dead and that people will create purely for the pleasure of it,though that may not be the best word to use.

Putting creative (uniquely personal) work into something for the benefit of others is precisely what drives creativity in the first place. It is a selfless act at its core. — Possibility

I disagree with this. You would need to read my posts to see where I’m coming from, but creativity is a totally selfish act.

I fully agree. Though to be clear one’s object doesn’t really have use-value to them-self.

I get where you’re coming from, and I disagree - although I do concede that creative activity is not totally selfless, and neither can it be said to have evolved out of selflessness.

Creative activity can be motivated externally by a specific problem of survival, but the creative process can also arise from an inherent drive to increase awareness, interconnectedness and overall capacity/achievement. The former does not preclude the latter, and while the former can be totally selfish, the latter is not.

My feeling is that all creative acts have ‘use-value’. In a world of survival no ‘use-value’ means death. — Brett

There is a difference, in my opinion, between a creative act/work and the process of creativity. A creative act without use-value doesn’t sustain - but that’s not to say it cannot exist and have value (without use) within the creative process.

Creative work is ultimately constrained in some way, whether by the materials/parts available or by the discourse or value systems in which they are often required to operate. The creative animal is acutely aware of these constraints and strives to explore just beyond them, to challenge them in the creative process.

The creative process, in my view, is an open-ended interaction with these constraints of subjective experience. This is how we discover new ways of seeing the world, new ways to relate to the world and relate elements of the world to each other, and new capacities or ways to achieve. The creative animal refuses to accept slavery and finds value in pursuing creative acts or works that have no useful end product - even those that mean death, as you say.

All value systems are subjectively imposed except for the potentially infinite diversity of the unfolding universe - and it is here that the creative process operates. That your work demonstrates a different perspective of any aspect of the universe is creative, and therefore has value in that it forms part of the creative process - like any novel rearrangement of parts (which I agree, @Terrapin Station, is pretty much all creative work), and including those temporary creative acts/works that have no use-value at all.

Potential Originality and Effectiveness: The Dynamic Definition of Creativity