[-empyre-] Creativity as a social ontology

Wed Jul 7 03:31:51 EST 2010

Simon,

I think this is a valid question if we don't let it insist on a firm
resolution.  At times, it certainly does seem like people want to go
somewhere.  At other times it seems as though we can be quite content
where we are.  This points back to Eugenio Tisselli's comments
regarding the "theological" underpinnings of creativity as creation ex
nihilo, which presents us with a philosophical brick wall, when we are
trying to explore the idea of creation and art.

I rather like Bernard Stiegler's account of technics (which, itself,
is in "default," in that its novelty is certainly not its own, but in
its synthesis).  Stiegler points in his work to the various instances
in which emerging technical arrangements do not emerge simply as
positive eruptions from nothing.  Urbanization is something which
arises alongside ruralization.  The individual exist when the
collective is realized.  To be human is to need a supplement (to be
without essence).  Etc.

But if we get back to that question of relationality and process
(especially recent discussions on empyre), I think there is something
to be gained from looking at the idea of desire, which does provide a
motive for creation, even if it is not original creation.  I would be
disappointed to arrive at a definition of consciousness which does not
include desire.  For some, this would be close to essentialist, but in
terms of essentialisms, desire really describes a process of cognitive
behavior oriented towards some anticipated future state.  It is at
this moment when the functions of the brain are directed in the
present, to ponder the past, and imagine a future.  But this doesn't
even really tell the full story....  as it is difficult to imagine
this consciousness outside of language.  Situated in our own personal
archive (individual memory), we reach into the collective archive
(culture).  Thinking of our individual futures (self-determination),
we move into a commonly held future (politics).  (Here, my thinking
really breaks down...  my imagination fails....  maybe our language
fails?)

But, the upshot of this, I think, is that, perhaps, the reality of
creation is social and relational.  The process of art, both as
something emerging from language (Hovagimyan) and as an effort to
reach beyond the perceived limits of representation (Tisselli), sits
on that crucible of desire.  What is it that makes people want to
manifest ideas?  To fabricate methods for representing them to an
other?  This is why we call the substance in which art is expressed a
medium, because it is interstitial, relational, between subject
positions, etc, a point which Jamieson makes in relation to UpStage.

Not to get theological, but this is not entirely unlike Leonardo
Boff's discussion of deity, which is entirely relational--the idea
that what makes us who we are is the same principle that is involved
with creation as a discursive process.  I rather like this idea,
because there is often an implied lessening of art when it is declared
somehow "derivative," as if humble acts of communication are not
themselves spectacular in their effects!  Is the myth of the modern
artist somehow more important than using a familiar word to achieve an
ethical purpose?  What could be more cliched than the first word a
child tries to master--  "NO!"  Yet it is precisely at this moment of
the expression that the child tries to enter into human community--to
realize him or herself within a community.  The child who says, "No,"
wants to participate on equal terms, through communication.

To get back to Tisselli's expressed wariness with creativity.  I will
try to get my hands on Steiner's book.  I think that your wariness is
merited, if society insists that we operate from a skewed definition
of creativity.  If creativity has to follow the paradigm of pure
originality....  then we are telling tales.  And those of us who are
artists (or critics) working under this paradigm, are being dishonest.
 However, if creativity is a human process of desire, an expression of
our consciousness, consistently repeated, using what's available to
reach into the social beyond the limited position of the
individual....  then I think creativity is, ultimately, something more
powerful.

In any case, I have very high hopes for July.

Peace!

Davin

P.S.  If I am silent, it is only because I am traveling.  But I WILL
be reading carefully.

On Tue, Jul 6, 2010 at 4:20 AM, Simon Biggs <s.biggs at eca.ac.uk> wrote:
> 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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>> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
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