Demystifying creativity: an assemblage perspective towards artistic creativity
Abstract
Common understandings of creativity reduce it to a flash of insight or to a personal characteristic of a highly-gifted person. This paper develops an alternative way of understanding creativity departing from a series of interviews with local painters by conceptualizing creativity as a process of articulating and getting caught up in a “meshwork” of materials, places, spaces and social encounters. Using assemblage theoretical framework, my perspective examines how different elements (both human and non-human) are brought together in flows of connections. Looking at the art world this paper takes into account also the materiality of the creative process and inquiry into how the materiality of working materials (paint, coal, brushes etc.) and the materiality of the space affect and are affected in the creativity assemblage. As such, departing from an anthropocentric perspective on artistic creativity, that takes only in consideration the meanings attributed by people (especially the artist) to forms, social uses and trajectories of artistic objects.
Article in English.
Kūrybiškumo demistifikavimas: kompleksinė perspektyva meninio kūrybiškumo link
Santrauka
Bendrasis kūrybiškumo supratimas redukuoja jį iki įžvalgos plykstelėjimo ar gabaus asmens asmeninės charakteristikos. Šiame straipsnyje plėtojamas alternatyvus kūrybiškumo supratimo būdas, nukrypstantis nuo daugybės interviu su vietos tapytojais, konceptualizuojančiais kūrybiškumą kaip artikuliavimo procesą bei įstrigdančiais jį medžiagų, vietų, erdvių ir socialinių susitikimų „tinkle“. Pasitelkdama kompleksinį teorinį pagrindą, straipsnio autorė iš savosios perspektyvos tyrinėja, kaip skirtingi elementai (tiek žmogiškieji, tiek nežmogiškieji) suvedami draugėn į sąryšių srautus. Žvelgiant į meno pasaulį, šiame straipsnyje taip pat skiriama dėmesio kūrybinio proceso materialumui ir apklausai, siekiant išsiaiškinti, kaip medžiagos, su kuriomis dirbama (dažai, anglis, teptukai, etc.), bei erdvės materialumas daro įtaką ir yra veikiami kūrybiškumui būdingo kompleksiškumo. Taip atsiplėšiama nuo meninį kūrybiškumą vertinančios antropocentrinės perspektyvos, atsižvelgiančios vien tik į žmonių (ypač menininkų) meno objektų formoms, socialinėms reikmėms ir trajektorijoms priskirtas reikšmes.
Reikšminiai žodžiai: kompleksiškumas, kūrybiškumas, srautai, materialumas, rizoma.
Keyword : assemblage, creativity, flows, materiality, rhizome
How to Cite
Manta, A. (2018). Demystifying creativity: an assemblage perspective towards artistic creativity. Creativity Studies, 11(1), 85-101. https://doi.org/10.3846/cs.2018.542
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
References
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Baudrillard, J. (1988). Selected writings. M. Poster (Ed.). Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Becker, H. S. (1984). Art worlds. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, Ltd.
Botella, M., Glaveanu, V., Zenasni, F., Storme, M., Myszkowski, N., Wolff, M., & Lubart, T. (2013). How artists create: Creative process and multivariate factors. Learning and Individual Differences, 26, 161-170. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2013.02.008
Bourdieu, P. (1984). Distinction: A social critique of the judgement of taste. Harvard, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
Brown, B. (2001). Thing theory. Critical Inquiry, 28(1), 1-22. https://doi.org/10.1086/449030
Brzozowska, B. (2016). “Creative city” as a brand – The case of Łódź. Creativity Studies, 9(1), 3-14. https://doi.org/10.3846/23450479.2015.1112312
Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (1988). A Thousand plateaus: Capitalism and schizophrenia. London: The Athlone Press Ltd.
Durkheim, E. (1982). The Rules of sociological method. S. Lukes, (Ed.). New York, London, Toronto, Sydney: The Free Press. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-16939-9
Elisondo, R. (2016). Creativity is always a social process. Creativity: Theories – Research – Applications, 3(2), 194-210. https://doi.org/10.1515/ctra-2016-0013
Florida, R. (2004). The rise of the creative class. New York: Basic Books.
Fox, N. (2015). Creativity, anti-humanism and the “New Sociology of Art”. Journal of Sociology, 51(3), 522-536. https://doi.org/10.1177/1440783313498947
Gell, A. (1998). Art and agency: An anthropological theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Glăveanu, V. P. (2010). Paradigms in the study of creativity: Introducing the perspective of cultural psychology. New Ideas in Psychology, 28(1), 79-93. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.newideapsych.2009.07.007
Glăveanu, V., & Wagoner, B. (2015). Series editors’ foreword: Socializing creativity. In Reuter, M. E., Creativity – a sociological approach (pp. vi–viii). V. Glăveanu, B. Wagoner (Series Eds.). Series: Palgrave Studies in Creativity and Culture. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Goffman, E. (1967). Interaction ritual: Essays in face to face behavior. Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company.
Hartley, J. (Ed.). (2005). Creative industries. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
Heidegger, M. (2001). The thing. In Poetry, language, thought (pp. 161–184). Series: Harper Perennial Modern Thought. London: Perennial Classics.
Hughes, J. (2009). Deleuze’s difference and repetition: A reader’s guide. Series: Reader’s Guides. Trowbridge: Cromwell Press Ltd.
Ingold, T. (2010). Bringing things to life: Creative entanglements in a world of materials. Working Paper No. 15. NCRM Working Paper Series. Retrieved from http://eprints.ncrm.ac.uk/1306/1/0510_creative_entanglements.pdf
Joas, H. (1990). The Creativity of action and the intersubjectivity of reason: Mead’s pragmatism and social theory. Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society, 26(2), 165-194.
Juzefovič, A. (2016). Creative transformations in visual arts of early French modernism: Treatment of nude body. Creativity Studies, 9(1), 25-41. https://doi.org/10.3846/23450479.2015.1112854
Landry, Ch. (2000). The creative city: A toolkit for urban innovators. London: Earthscan.
Latour, B. (1999). Pandora’s hope: Essays on the reality of science studies. Harvard University Press: Cambridge, Massachusetts, London.
Latour, B. (2005). Reassembling the social: An introduction to actor-network-theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Leckie, G. J., Given, L. M., & Buschman, J. E. (Eds.). (2010). Critical theory for library and information science: Exploring the social from across the disciplines. Santa Barbara, Denver, Oxford: ABC-CLIO, LLC.
Mauss, M. (1966). The gift: Forms and functions of exchange in archaic societies. London: Cohen & West Ltd.
O’Sullivan, S. (2006). Art Encounters Deleuze and Guattari: Thought beyond representation. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230512436
Reimeris, R. (2016). Theoretical features of the creative society. Creativity Studies, 9(1): 15-24. https://doi.org/10.3846/23450479.2015.1088902
Reuter, M. E. (2015). Creativity – A sociological approach. V. Glăveanu, & B. Wagoner (Series Eds.). Series: Palgrave Studies in Creativity and Culture. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137531223
Richards, R. (2010). Everyday creativity: Process and way of life – four key issues. In J. C. Kaufman, & R. J. Sternberg (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of creativity (pp. 189–215). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511763205.013
Shields, R., & Vallee, M. (Eds.). (2012). Demystifying Deleuze: An introductory assemblage of crucial concepts. Ottawa: Red Quill Books.
Tanggaard, L. (2013). The sociomateriality of creativity in everyday life. Culture & Psychology, 19(1), 20-32. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354067X12464987