[-empyre-] Creativity as a social ontology

[Simon Biggs]

July on empyre soft-skinned space

CREATIVITY AS A SOCIAL ONTOLOGY
http://www.subtle.net/empyre

Moderated by Simon Biggs (UK/Australia) with invited discussants Eugenio
Tisselli (Mexico/Spain), Helen Varley Jamieson (New Zealand/UK), James Leach
(UK), Kriss Ravetto-Biagioli  (USA/UK), Ruth Catlow (UK), Magnus Lawrie
(UK), Scott Rettberg (Norway/USA)

Dear empyre subscribers,

Creativity is often perceived as a product of individual, or group, creative
activity. However, it might also be considered an emergent phenomenon of
communities, driving change and facilitating individual and ensemble
creativity. Expanded concepts of agency allow us to question who, or what,
can be an active participant in creative social interactions, providing
diverse models for authorship. Creativity might be regarded as social
interaction in reflexive mediation.

How might we understand creativity as interaction, as sets of discursive
relations? Creativity can be a performative activity released when engaged
through and by a community. In this context the model of the solitary
artist, who produces artefacts which embody creativity, can be questioned as
an ideal for achieving creative outcomes. Creativity can be proposed as an
activity of exchange that enables (creates) people and communities.

In his book Creative Land, anthropologist James Leach (one of this month's
guests) describes cultural practices where the creation of new things, and
the ritualised forms of exchange (the performative) enacted around them,
function to "create" individuals and their social relations, "creating" the
community they inhabit. Leach's argument suggests it is possible to conceive
of creativity as emergent from and innate to the interactions of people.
Such an understanding functions to combat instrumentalist views of
creativity that demand it have social (e.g.: "economic") value. Creativity
need not be valued as satisfying a perceived need nor need it be
romantically situated as a supply-side "blue skies" ideal. An alternate
model can be proposed where creativity is considered an emergent property of
community; an ontology.

Does the internet, the networks of people it facilitates and the communities
that emerge through it, render these processes more explicit than they might
otherwise appear? Does the internet facilitate the creation of communities
where new modalities of creativity, authorship and exchange emerge? Do
online communities, such as Furtherfield, 7-11, Nettime and empyre, present
models and insights for novel social relations and creativity?

During the month of July we will discuss the issues that relate to these
questions concerning creativity and community. Our guests are:

Eugenio Tisselli (Mexico/Spain):
Born in Mexico City, 1972. Writer and programmer. Areas of interest include
artistic software, social technologies and digital narratives. His work
(installation, performance, software and text) has been featured in many
publications, festivals and exhibitions around the world. He collaborates
regularly with artist Antoni Abad at http://megafone.net. He was an
associate researcher at Sony Computer Science Lab in Paris and is currently
co-director of the Master in Digital Arts at the Pompeu Fabra University in
Barcelona. His work can be found at http://www.motorhueso.net.

Helen Varley Jamieson (New Zealand):
http://www.creative-catalyst.com
Helen Varley Jamieson is a writer, theatre practitioner and digital artist
from New Zealand, currently based in Europe. She holds a Master of Arts
(research) in cyberformance - live performance on the internet ­ a form of
networked performance which she has developed and presented internationally
for over a decade. Helen is a founding member of the globally-dispersed
cyberformance troupe Avatar Body Collision; project manager of UpStage, an
open source web-based cyberformance platform; has co-curated online
festivals involving artists and audiences around the world; and is the "web
queen" of the Magdalena Project, an international network of women in
theatre.

James Leach (UK):
James Leach is a Social Anthropologist. His areas of interest centre on
creativity, innovation, intellectual property and on knowledge exchange
across cultures, disciplines and contexts. Building on long term fieldwork
in Papua New Guinea, recent work has drawn understandings and relationships
from that region into research on free software, interdisciplinary
collaborations, the design of technological objects and choreography. James
is currently Professor and Head of Anthropology at the University of
Aberdeen.

Kriss Ravetto-Biagioli (USA/UK/Italy):
Kriss Ravetto-Biagioli is an Associate Professor at the University of
Edinburgh in Film Studies.  She is the author of The Unmaking of Fascist
Aesthetics, and has published articles on digital and performance art,
modernism, feminism, nationalism, representations of violence and
post-socialist cinema. She is currently working on a manuscript entitled
Mythopoetic Cinema at The Margins of Europe.

Ruth Catlow (UK):
Ruth is an artist and curator working at the intersection of art, technology
and social change. As co-founder, with Marc Garrett, of Furtherfield.org, a
grass roots media arts organisation, online community and HTTP Gallery in
North London, she works with international DIY artists, hackers, curators,
musicians, programmers, writers, activists and thinkers. Her current focus
is on practices that engage an ecological approach featuring an interest in
the interrelation of technological and natural processes.  Ruth has been
involved with developing networked participatory arts infrastructures such
as VisitorsStudio and NODE.London. Ruth has worked in Higher Education for
over 15 years and is currently running degrees in Digital Art and Design
Practice and developing a new MA in Fine Art and Environment at Writtle
School of Design.

Magnus Lawrie (UK):
Magnus Lawrie has, over the past 15 years, been involved in creative and
politically motivated urban communities in the UK, Germany and Spain. This
engagement has resulted from a peripatetic lifestyle and an interest in
grassroots action deriving from his background in visual arts (BA & MFA Fine
Art 1991-97), DIY culture and - by a circuitous route - web design,
programming, systems administration, GNU/Linux and Free Software. In
September 2010 Magnus will begin a doctoral research studentship at
Edinburgh College of Art as part of the pan-European Electronic Literature
as a Model for Creativity and Innovation in Practice (ELMCIP) project.

Scott Rettberg (Norway/USA):
Scott Rettberg is a Chicago native who now lives in Norway. He writes, and
writes about, new media and electronic literature. Rettberg is co-founder of
the Electronic Literature Organization. His work is widely published,
including by MIT Press, The Iowa Review Web and the Electronic Book Review.
He was co-editor with N. Katherine Hayles, Nick Montfort, and Stephanie
Strickland of the Electronic Literature Collection, Volume One. He is an
associate professor of digital culture at the University of Bergen.


Simon Biggs
s.biggs at eca.ac.uk  simon at littlepig.org.uk
Skype: simonbiggsuk
http://www.littlepig.org.uk/

Research Professor  edinburgh college of art
http://www.eca.ac.uk/
Creative Interdisciplinary Research into CoLlaborative Environments
http://www.eca.ac.uk/circle/
Electronic Literature as a Model of Creativity and Innovation in Practice
http://www.elmcip.net/
Centre for Film, Performance and Media Arts
http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/film-performance-media-arts



Edinburgh College of Art (eca) is a charity registered in Scotland, number SC009201