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Underground > Head Shop >

Requirements of art and creativity

Nick's Experimental Wrongness

09:54 / 09.04.02

There seems to be a great deal of resistance here to the idea that the creation of art requires a certain mood and/or a degree of safety. My impression is that there's a feeling that artists are precious and want to be coddled - and that they're somehow not worth the trouble; that the notion of 'artist' is inherently pretensious.

So: to what degree do artists deserve leeway? To what point is creativity fragile and how far should its fragility be respected.

Is creativity even a good thing? Or is it a symptom of or contributory factor in lousy societal shapes?

A Haus of Minions
(prev. Jenna Elfman's Hollywood Haus)

10:53 / 09.04.02

And is the conflation of "creativity" and "the creation of artifacts generally associated with the idea of 'artworks' - pictures, poems, plays et hoc genus omne" in itself a dangerous thing?

In what sense is the "creativity" displayed by a programmer or an engineer different to the "creativity" displayed by a poet or artist? And could the engineer or programmer be entitled to insist that has work not be criticised too harshly while it is being developed?

11:14 / 09.04.02

Nick, this sounds like an interesting topic but I'm not sure where you're coming from with this "there seems to be a lot of resistance here..." - probably a thread I skipped. Can you point me to some loci for this?

A Haus of Minions
(prev. Jenna Elfman's Hollywood Haus)

11:26 / 09.04.02

I'm not sure about a "lot of resistance", but Flux=Radiating Menace did express some opinions which could be said to support such conclusions here.

11:37 / 09.04.02

Well, Pandemic Rise's "self destruction" thread, in this forum, has touched on the idea of the 'tortured genius', and Glint's written an interesting post disputing the elevated status of 'artists' which has been posted in both the Art & Design and Creation fora.

It seems to me that there are closely related, but distinct, issues that can be raised from this topic:

Do artists have a special access to, and ability to reveal, truth and/or beauty?
Is the type of creative process artists employ/ are subject to somehow 'higher' than that of, to use Haus's examples, a programmer or engineer?

Nick, could you explain a little more about what you mean by this?:"Or is it a symptom of or contributory factor in lousy societal shapes?"

11:49 / 09.04.02

lentil, I like your set of questions & will return to them I hope, once I've checked out your references.

In the meantime, I just wanted to say in reference to the thread Haus has linked to, that I for one can feel like I'm taking insane risks when I post to the Head Shop (or, for that matter, the Conversation), and have been known to lose sleep, get strange itching sensations in my skin as if I were physically exposed, and/or not be able to check threads for responses for some days.

I never post work in the Creation because the technical competence of the community is insufficient (not enough Blake's 7 fans), but I can't imagine it could feel any scarier than posting creative theory or creative responses or creative conversation.

Myself, I think that any interaction on the board is, to cannibalize an old metaphor of Nick's, taking a kind of bodily risk or creating a kind of three-way interface with both a 'world' and an 'audience'. Creativity is fragile like any other interface is fragile, and needs respect in terms of the rules of its own language game, like any other form of expression or creativity on the board.

Nick's Experimental Wrongness

12:52 / 09.04.02

Deva: A somewhat more rarified and accurate formulation of my starting point in the Creation - that in order for the forum to function, a degree of leeway is necessary. Perhaps that leeway should be accorded elsewhere as well with 'new' ideas and formulations - certainly it's crossed my mind in the past. In the context of the Creation I'm a little upset at the moment because there has been that kind of tolerance on show until now and it seems to be dissipating rather.

Haus: I don't think there is a great deal of qualitative difference between the creative work done by an engineer and that done by an artist - certainly not in the nascent stages. That's partly my point - young ideas are fragile. If you want creativity, you have to offer it some safe territory in which to function. On the other hand, the product of an engineer's labours can more readily be judged against the real world. A design for a hydroelectric dam may or may not be aesthetically pleasing, but it must hold water and produce power efficiently. Similarly, an engineer is likely to be able to point to a body of expertise s/he possesses, endorsed by a school. Such endorsement in writing and art is rather more troublesome, and therefore artists are more vulnerable to random criticism: where an engineer might shrug off 'you're no good at this', an artist has no immediate response.

It's also possible that the psychologies of engineers differ from those of, for example, landscape artists. The same aspect of identity which casused them to choose to become an engineer rather than a painter may make them less prone to being discouraged.

And by the way, if you're going to accuse me of taking refuge in 'abstruse quotations' as you did the other night, best not resort to latin too often, eh?

A Haus of Minions
(prev. Jenna Elfman's Hollywood Haus)

13:28 / 09.04.02

Ah, Nick, Nick, Nick. How very kind of you to (and here comes the Latin, fact fans) extend the faint lack of conviction in your refutations of using ad hominem (thankyou, here all week, enjoy the veal) arguments to the point of actually taking things that I said to you ad faciem (to one's face, dog-Latin fans) at a party, not aware that it seems I am permanently on the record. Classy.

However, et hoc genus omne is not an "abstruse quotation". It is a tag, of the same kind as et cetera (and the others) and ibid (abbr. "ibidem", in the same place), and as such has an accepted place in English usage. If you do not happen to know it, then I am sure a brief consultation of Fowler's Modern English Usage (OUP) will be enlightening. Possibly if Fowler, the tribe of Fowlers, et hoc genus omne had received a more unkind critical reception to his creative attempts to include it in the first place, it would never have been so noted, but there we go.

The Planet of Sound

13:34 / 09.04.02

Christ.

A Haus of Minions
(prev. Jenna Elfman's Hollywood Haus)

13:51 / 09.04.02

Well, quite. What a waste of time. Back on topic, anyone?

I think Deva's point about theory being creative (a form of performance, to look at it another way) and thus just as much of a "high risk" or "personally invested" process is an interesting one.

I am also interested, wrt performance, by the fact that this topic actually covers the fragility both of creation (the process) and Creation (the place). Given that they have the same name, what is the difference between criticising or damaging creation and criticising or damaging Creation?

No star here laces

15:03 / 09.04.02

I happen to agree with Nick about the Creation, but not because I see it as some kind of nursery for genius, but rather that it is supposed to be about inclusion, play and enjoying being imaginative without needing to make quality judgements on what is produced.

I could certainly be accused of "artist-bashing" at times on this board, however, and would uphold those views here.

I hate the idea of the 'artist' as a being qualitatively different (and by implication better) than someone who is merely 'human'. Without wanting to be a hippy - to be human is to be creative, all human activity contains an element of creativity. Take sex - the actual act is so mundane as to be ridiculous, even insects do it, but between humans it is certainly creative (and lots of other things. It isn't something that can be exhibited or judged, but is still creative.

The 'artist' is no different from anyone else, it's just that for whatever reason s/he gets to devote far more time to the things s/he enjoys creating (whether that's because they are a trustafarian, or because what they create is commercially viable).

But this incredibly precious and superficial 'cult of creativity' has grown up around the artist which appears to place all sorts of demands and limitations on creativity - it must be 'self-expression', it must be 'original', it should be 'respected' by others, just for being art.

To which I say, fuck that.

If people commenting on your work upsets you then that is a comment on your self-esteem and commitment, not on your creativity. You are taking up their time with your creation and can therefore reciprocate and accept their criticism. If you truly have something you want to create, criticism won't stop you (cue endless cheesy examples of writers under totalitarian regimes...)

15:15 / 09.04.02

We-e-ell, I suppose my contribution is more confessional than head-shoppy... but as someone who nearly destroyed her creative self via running roughshod over said self, I have become a proponent of the safe space for creativity a la the moms against drunk driving. But my particular problem was that I did not have a "safe space" within myself for writing, and I think you have to have that--at least that, and maybe only that. So my writing now has a totally self-indulgent initial phase when I'm doing the mental equivalent of sensuously massaging myself with fragrant oils and whispering compliments into my own ear, as sick as that sounds.

However, that's not something I do in view of others & the board and the Creation forum counts as others in my mind. Hmmm. I guess per Haus's comment above, that raises in my mind whether "creation" (private) can happen in "Creation" (public). Or can Creation be devised to mimic the internal creation, and cui bono? Because there are subsequent phases to my personal creativity past the oils-and-compliments phase, one wouldn't want to stop there as pleasant as it is.

Sorry this is kind of choppy, I'm dashing this off and now I have to get out of my bathrobe & make ready for the new thing in my life, "work."

gozer the destructor

15:20 / 09.04.02

Totally agree, the act of creativity is not there FOR response it is there as YOUR response to something, either an urge to create or because of neccesity (a job etc.)

AND if you start deliberately showing people crappy poems/paintings/songs etc then you take their criticism without crying, explain if need be, but don't cry.

A Haus of Minions
(prev. Jenna Elfman's Hollywood Haus)

15:31 / 09.04.02

Hoom - in terms of the big-C Creation, even though Billy Corgan is playing the others like a mandolin the "Poetrial" thread is presumably quite a good example of what I assume Nick is worried about. Apart from owt else, it becomes fairly clear that the level of critical discussion of poetry available is in itself limited and degrades very quickly into personal abuse or utterly unsupported sniping like "your rhythms seem to follow a guitar strumming which (thankfully) the rest of us cannot hear". Now, does that mean that the rhythm is lyric, or that the rhythm is unsuitable to guitar acompaniment (so thank Gods we can't hear the dreadful guitar accompaniment that it would necessitate having) or that it is suitable to guitar strumming, but only *bad* guitar strumming...it's just all a bit counterproductive.

15:44 / 09.04.02

Doesn't seem, then, that "creation" is the frame for this debate? Seems more like an issue of criticism & not being an asshole in the process of? Criticism itself can be done well or badly... if there were a Criticism forum, one would not want it populated by comments of the nature "YR WERK SUX." Perhaps the Creation forum needs a "Serious replies only" caveat as in the personal ads. Why not? People get booted from Head Shop to Conversation for not being serious enough.

More to say, but I am definitely out of time now.

16:07 / 09.04.02

I used to draw (until my hands stopped obeying me, they very rarely do anymore). I had very good technical skills, and it was easy to show off because what I was doing was very true-to-life and was therefore very resistant to criticism. "hey, that looks just like a bear!" while it could have been put into the "creation" category, really, my drawings lacked any real imagination or feeling and therefore wasnt really very creative

its so much harder to say "ouch, my heart hurts/Im in love/this is gorgeous or great and I want to share and here it is, weaved into words or pictures or paintings (or whatever)", and then to show it to people. its opening yourself up to a further hurt, and I think its very unfair - even cruel - to ridicule someone for that.

however. I think if you put your work out for people to see, you have to realize that no one else sees it quite like you do. and someone is going to dislike it. AND I think its up to the person who dislikes it, or just thinks it needs a tweaking, to be as respectful, as mindful of the emotional/creative/etc intent behind the work as they can manage.

its not about coddling someones feelings (we all know thats bullshit), its about not stifling someones (perceived) creativity because you dont appreciate their expression

The Planet of Sound

16:56 / 09.04.02

To spin off (or probe in) slightly, I'm often involved in near-violent arguments with a friend of mine about imagination in science. He refuses to acknowledge that imagination plays any part in scientific theory, despite my quoting Einstein on the subject at him. To him, it's all about method (testing, testing, testing), and he point-blank refuses to see that imagination (read: creativity, read: fantasy (?)) plays any part in the process. A fairly simple process (imagination-idea-let's test it!)...
Could it be that there are very different kinds of minds out there (eg writers, painters, scientists, computer programmers, house-painters...etc) who perceive creativity in entirely different ways?
A footballer, for example, might have described his last goal as 'creative'. Is there any, conceivable quantitative or qualitative way to compare that form of creativity with others? Even if we accept that 'creativity' can be seperated from 'destructivity', or simple 'achieving of aims/production of end result'?

17:06 / 09.04.02

Your friend is woefully out of date in the literature of science. No one seriously debates that anymore. Tell them to do their own research, or ignore them.