[-empyre-] Creativity as a social ontology

[Simon Biggs]

The notion of creativity as a social ontology need not be considered only
from an idealistic position. Foucault's panopticon is an expression of
social creativity and collective (un-)consciousness too.

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: Johannes Birringer <Johannes.Birringer at brunel.ac.uk>
> Reply-To: soft_skinned_space <empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
> Date: Thu, 8 Jul 2010 00:02:50 +0100
> To: soft_skinned_space <empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
> Subject: RE: [-empyre-] Creativity as a social ontology
> 
> 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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