[-empyre-] Creativity as a social ontology

[Johannes Birringer]

dear all:

thanks for the clarifications, Helen, and for other comments that followed today, such as Davin's post. 


>>>>>
I think you are right to note that creativity and desire and community
do not always move without conflict.

> This is an interesting portrayal of the mechanics of desire. I agree that desire is a motor for creativity, both individual and collective. But how do we actually move together into these commonly held futures you mention? A quick view on history may show that such moves have seldom been made without ruptures and conflicts. We could try to focus on the expression and actualization of collective desires from the viewpoint of complex systems, in which local interactions generate large scale changes. Politics, then, would emerge from a creative construction of the social actors, with all their common / opposed desires.

I think these are the ontological stakes of consciousness.  What we
think has implications for what do.  What we do has implications for what
we think.  And, if we live in a true community, our ideas and actions
are bound to modify, be modified, contradict, and/or complement the
negotiation of being.  >>


My questions were addressed precisely at these issues of conflict or contradiction, in a poltical and organizational sense, but also at the easy assumption  (a kind of idealism) that networks (communicating via mobiles phone or internet or cybergames) equal communication equal creativity equal art.  Eugenio's example, as well as the backa palanka example, may not indeed answer Julian's commentary on competitve excellence or values (cultural and aesthetic) associated with artistic form, and artistic forms are still being mentioned here without that we all have clear insight into what was performed or exhibited (again, I admit not having seen the creative manifestations). If performing an assemblage ( and i am still not convinced, Helen, that theatre and cyberperformance have much in common according to the rehearsals you describe) is valued here as creativity, then that is all right with me if you explain what kind of "culturally transformative art" (as Julian calls it) is meant,  and whom dies it transform, and how is it accountable to audiences and receivership. One would think that the "desire" to excell" and make a living is fair enough, Julian,  but this may not answer the question (Simon's) whether sharing a method of creating or being creative together (for different ends, perhaps, and not the creation of an artwork), as a social choreography,  can be defined as an ontological principle.  

what is a social choreography, and who benefits from it, and who is experiencing it as physically, emotionally and spiritually enriching in a communal sense (and now we are back to ritual)?  Is there a "relational consciousness" and what would it be like?

regards
Johannes Birringer
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