[-empyre-] Creativity as a social ontology

Tue Jul 6 17:26:23 EST 2010

Hi all,

Helen, I find that UpStage is a very interesting example of an online community, since it states its scope (and thus its borders) quite clearly from the beginning. Networks like this make a lot of sense, as they can really help people with common and specific interests come together and collaborate. The fact that people in UpStage all relate to cyberformance may create a basis of familiarity, in which trust can be built from the bottom up. Do you agree? This may also happen within other networks where a common interest is made explicit right from the start. However, in "bigger" networks (ie. Facebook, MySpace) there is a tendency towards dispersiveness: there are myriads of groups, but they don't seem to be strong enough to generate a sense of community. 

In order to find out how networks can facilitate the emergence of creative communities, maybe we could start by proposing a taxonomy of networks. We would certainly find that some types of networks favor the cohesion of focused, collaborative communities more than others. I am not aware if such a taxonomy already exists... I will look into this. However, let me propose an initial set of traits which may help kick start a general characterization of networks:

- Entry threshold: Can anyone join? Do new users have to be invited? Is there any kind of filtering?
- Openness towards emergent topics: Does the network allow its participants to create new topics, or is there a set of pre-existent ones which can't be modified?
- Openness towards group forming: Does the network allow the formation of groups of people with common interests?

Would you like to add to this list?

Melody: Although I haven't read "After Babel", I can imagine that Steiner maintains a certain coherence throughout his books. In that case, it might be interesting to study the relation of his ideas of "translation" in communication and "invention" in the arts. The concepts you mention do point towards an idea of creativity which is quite close to Steiner's "invention".

G.H. Hovagimyan: The points you make are very interesting. Can you elaborate a little bit more on the relation between art and language? I find that artworks can also arise from the sense of an impotence in language.

Eugenio Tisselli Vélez
cubo23 at yahoo.com
http://www.motorhueso.net

--- El lun, 7/5/10, helen varley jamieson <helen at creative-catalyst.com> escribió:

> De: helen varley jamieson <helen at creative-catalyst.com>
> Asunto: Re: [-empyre-] Creativity as a social ontology
> A: empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> Fecha: lunes, 5 de julio de 2010, 06:26 pm
> hi everyone,
> thank you simon & renate for the invitation to be part
> of this discussion, & thanks eugenio for starting things
> off : )
> 
> speaking as a live performance/theatre artist, i'm also of
> the opinion that creativity doesn't happen in isolation or
> on our own; we are always building on what has gone before.
> in this sense, creativity can be understood as interaction
> & conversation, or even a translation (interpretation)
> ... my work is pretty much always dialogic, it is a creative
> exchange between performer(s) & audience in a shared
> moment (whether we are physically or virtually present, the
> time is shared).
> 
> to begin to respond to simon's questions, in particular
> "Does the internet facilitate the creation of communities
> where new modalities of creativity, authorship and exchange
> emerge?", i'll give as an example one of the projects that
> i've been involved with since 2003: the online cyberformance
> platform UpStage (http://www.upstage.org.nz/). the project
> began with the practical needs/desires of four artists,
> & over the years a thriving community has evolved around
> it. there are about 50 artists currently working with
> UpStage to create performances for the annual festival
> (& there might well be others using UpStage who i don't
> know about), around 300 on the mailing list, & it's used
> in educational situations from primary school through to
> universities. there is a small ongoing developer community
> as well.
> 
> one aspect of the UpStage community that particularly
> delights me is the emergence of cross-collaboration between
> the artists; four of the 19 performances selected for this
> year's festival involve collaborations between artists who
> have met through UpStage (& mostly have not met in the
> flesh). this is similar to my experience with Avatar Body
> Collision - we came together through online networks &
> still have not all met, 8 years & 10 performances later.
> this kind of remote collaboration is not so unusual today,
> but what's different with UpStage is the wider context - the
> ongoing interaction is not only between collaborating
> artists but also between artists, developers & audience
> - there is the sense that we are all cross-pollinating at
> several levels of creation - the performances, the software,
> & the community. each of these three things is being
> created by, & contributing to the creation of, the other
> two in a very organic (ontological?) way.
> 
> to pick up on eugenio's reference to trust - trust is
> central/essential both to communities and to
> theatre/performance. establishing trust is something that
> proximal (i.e. not online) theatre ensembles usually do at
> the start of a project if the members don't already know
> each other - playing games to build familiarity & a
> sense of connection between the individuals (i.e.,
> community). any sort of live performance requires trust
> between the players - from trusting that your co-actor will
> remember their lines, to the confidence that your trapeze
> partner will catch you & not let you fall to the ground.
> online, trust takes on a new signficance. working remotely
> with people you've never met & know little about can
> require a risky leap of trust, but one that has to be taken.
> we also have to place enormous trust in technologies, at the
> same time as knowing that the internet is an unstable
> environment ...
> 
> hmm; i'm not quite sure how to tie that all back into the
> original questions, but i'll send this now anyway as i've
> just been handed 5 bamboo stakes which are desperately
> needed by some rampant tomato plants on the balcony ...
> 
> h : )
> 
> On 5/07/10 12:30 AM, Eugenio Tisselli wrote:
> > Dear all,
> > 
> > First, let me thank Simon and Renate for inviting me,
> I'm very excited to be part of this month's discussion at
> empyre.
> > 
> > Please allow me to be straightforward: lately I have
> grown quite wary of the idea of creativity itself. If I look
> at it in its traditional sense, as the act of producing
> something from out of nothing, I find that there is too much
> theological "background noise" in it. My suspicion
> surrounding creativity stronlgy developed after reading
> George Steiner's book "Grammars of creation" (2001), which
> starts out in an amazing way by saying that "we have no more
> beginnings left". Throughout the book, Steiner argues that
> our western vision of the act of creation is deeply rooted
> in religion; in the idea of the Platonic demiurge, who
> fashions the material world out of chaos. Seen from a
> contemporary perspective, this original idea seems almost
> unsustainable. At some point, Steiner proposes that instead
> of considering our acts as being creative, we should see
> them as being inventive, suggesting that we actually make
> new things only by assembling and manipulating
> >   their constituent elements, which
> already existed before. Of course, Steiner was not the first
> one to question the idea of the artist as a creator: we only
> need to turn towards the well-known "objet trouvé". So, the
> artist as inventor may cause the solitary artist that Simon
> mentions in his introduction to crumble under his/her own
> weight, for an artist is never solitary even if working in
> isolation. The artefacts produced will necessarily be
> polyphonic, and will contain the echo of those who came
> before and provided the raw materials, however hidden they
> may be: the multiple beats within the singular.
> > 
> > Nevertheless, I am willing to accept a contemporary
> idea of creativity that is detached from its Greek-Latin
> roots, and which necessarily implies the interweaving of
> collective threads in innovative ways. I would like to
> address one of Simon's questions, "How might we understand
> creativity as interaction, as sets of discursive
> relations?", by refering to Bruno Latour's book,
> "Reassembling the social". In his book, Latour points out
> that we should not view "the social" as a given entity which
> exists per se, but rather as something that is continuously
> re-created (or re-invented) through the multiple
> interactions of its actors. I largely agree with this
> vision, but I find that this continuous re-making of the
> social is not necessarily a creative act. Everywhere we may
> find groups of people immersed in an array of constant
> interrelations, from which all sorts of destructive actions
> can emerge. I believe that creativity emerges from
> individuals and their
> >   social relations (physical or
> virtual) only when the interaction among them is focused
> constructively, and is based on the idea of a common good,
> mutual trust and shared engagement. Emergent communities
> whose relations are mediated by digital networks may find
> their creative potential increased quantitatively, in terms
> of number of individuals, and qualitatively because of their
> diversity, but I think that building and maintaining trust
> and engagement within them becomes particularly important,
> as these networks tend to promote rather detached/ephemeral
> ("just a click away") modes of interrelation.
> > 
> > Just a few general thoughts to start off...
> > 
> > Looking forward to hearing from you!
> > 
> > Eugenio.
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > Eugenio Tisselli Vélez
> > cubo23 at yahoo.com
> > http://www.motorhueso.net
> > 
> >    
> 
> --
> ____________________________________________________________
> 
> helen varley jamieson: creative catalyst
> helen at creative-catalyst.com
> http://www.creative-catalyst.com
> http://www.avatarbodycollision.org
> http://www.upstage.org.nz
> ____________________________________________________________
> 
> 
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