[-empyre-] Creativity as a social ontology

[Simon Biggs]

Perhaps there is a distinction to be made between creativity (a trait most,
if not all, humans seem to possess) and art (an activity that emerged a
couple of hundred years ago that places value upon a specific socially
defined mode of creative activity).

As for art being akin to language and both being somehow hard-wired into the
brain...this is contentious territory. This Chomskian view, popular in
neuroscience and other empirical domains, that regards language (and thus
many aspects of self) as determined by cerebral biology is in direct
contradistinction to a view that would regard language and self as emerging
from the social. It is basically the old nature/nurture debate re-hashed.

Do we want to go there?

Best

Simon


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


> From: "G.H. Hovagimyan" <ghh at thing.net>
> Reply-To: soft_skinned_space <empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
> Date: Mon, 5 Jul 2010 09:55:24 -0400
> To: soft_skinned_space <empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
> Subject: Re: [-empyre-] Creativity as a social ontology
> 
> gh comments:
> I believe that all art is based in the language function of the
> brain.   I also think that the cognitive sciences are having a
> profound effect on our understanding of art.  As a corollary I think
> that the form of religion, the creation of the god myths throughout
> the world comes from two separate survival instincts in humans. One is
> the ability to believe that something is there even though we can't
> see it. This is pretty handy when tracking animals on a hunt or
> hearing a noise in the trees and understanding it might be an animal
> about to attack you.  The other part of the brain that is reasoning
> always attaches a causal relationship to events even if one is not
> there.   God exists even though we can't see him/her.  Anyway,  Art
> and aesthetics are abstract functions of language. They are "word
> games" ala Wittgenstein on a certain level.  BUt I also believe that
> artists are experimenters. They make things and do things because they
> want to see what will happen.  An artist usually doesn't know the
> outcome of their creative process. They try to surprise themselves.
> This surprise is the basis of creativity.   It's quite different from
> craft or design where the outcome is known and the process is one of
> advancing to the already known outcome.  This is one of the basic
> problems with art in a capitalist society.  Commodities have to be
> known, fixed and quantifiable  in order to be given value so they can
> be bought and sold.  The more there is a fixed outcome for an artwork
> the easier to attach a value to it but the less creative
> experimentation is involved in the process.
> Considering the topic of art as a social process and a group/community
> effort that point of view and process, engages the language function
> and also spurs on creative experimentation for members of the group.
> I always find that group collaborations strecth my point of view and
> open up news ways of perceiving things and methods of making art.  By
> the way, the other discussion of art as a part of religion is bogus.
> religions go to artists and architects and ask them to come up with a
> language or composition that somehow expresses the unknowable of their
> religious dogma. Art is external to religion it doesn't come from
> religion or a religious impulse.
> On Jul 4, 2010, at 9:36 PM, Yunzi Li wrote:
> 
>> or him, everything is translation, which is closely related to his
>> view that seeing actions as manipulation in "Grammars of creation".
>> Isn't it?
> 
> G.H. Hovagimyan
> http://nujus.net/~gh
> http://artistsmeeting.org
> http://turbulence.org/Works/plazaville
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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