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07/13/2009 04:38:21 PM · #1 |
Killing Creativity Before it is Birthed
This question was asked on a forum I frequent and I felt compelled to reply with the following response. But first the question…
“I’m looking for ideas or concepts such as ‘Trash the Dress’, or ‘his shirt your way’. What other great ideas are there that You know about? This could keep people busy!..”
I will keep this brief. Asking others to give you idea’s will only diminish the credibility of your expression and invalidate your own id. You are giving up on yourself before you have actually begun the process of being creative by doing so. Throw out every preconceived notion you have ever had and let yourself flow. Write anything down that comes to mind, don’t be afraid of yourself and your idea’s. We are often our worst enemies. Most people stymie themselves by criticizing their idea’s before they can be fully realized.
Write EVERYTHING down that comes to mind, even if it has nothing to do with a photo shoot, a painting, a design or anything that requires creative solutions. It does not matter. Keep doing so to eventually unlock your true potential. Eventually ideas will begin flowing unencumbered. Just DON’T pre-judge yourself…PERIOD.
//www.benjaminkanarekblog.com/?p=629
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07/13/2009 04:44:51 PM · #2 |
Originally posted by benjikan:
Killing Creativity Before it is Birthed
This question was asked on a forum I frequent and I felt compelled to reply with the following response. But first the question…
“I’m looking for ideas or concepts such as ‘Trash the Dress’, or ‘his shirt your way’. What other great ideas are there that You know about? This could keep people busy!..”
I will keep this brief. Asking others to give you idea’s will only diminish the credibility of your expression and invalidate your own id. You are giving up on yourself before you have actually begun the process of being creative by doing so. Throw out every preconceived notion you have ever had and let yourself flow. Write anything down that comes to mind, don’t be afraid of yourself and your idea’s. We are often our worst enemies. Most people stymie themselves by criticizing their idea’s before they can be fully realized.
Write EVERYTHING down that comes to mind, even if it has nothing to do with a photo shoot, a painting, a design or anything that requires creative solutions. It does not matter. Keep doing so to eventually unlock your true potential. Eventually ideas will begin flowing unencumbered. Just DON’T pre-judge yourself…PERIOD.
//www.benjaminkanarekblog.com/?p=629 |
Valid and correct IMO.
It almost seems like a pre-validation of one's creativity when you fish for other's ideas.
Hmm, this is a whole new volatile RANT thread you have just seeded!! ;-) |
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07/13/2009 04:46:07 PM · #3 |
| On the other hand, asking others for ideas can just be a launching pad for your own creativity. You don't have to copy what others suggest, just get a push start from them. |
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07/13/2009 04:51:23 PM · #4 |
Originally posted by Yo_Spiff:
On the other hand, asking others for ideas can just be a launching pad for your own creativity. You don't have to copy what others suggest, just get a push start from them. |
True but in many cases its a reformulation of someone else's vision is it not? My truly inspiring ideas come from lord knows where. Its almost accidental and just manifests itself into something brilliant. Only sometimes though. The rest of the time is repackaging. |
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07/13/2009 04:57:34 PM · #5 |
Originally posted by Ivo:
Originally posted by Yo_Spiff:
On the other hand, asking others for ideas can just be a launching pad for your own creativity. You don't have to copy what others suggest, just get a push start from them. |
True but in many cases its a reformulation of someone else's vision is it not? My truly inspiring ideas come from lord knows where. Its almost accidental and just manifests itself into something brilliant. Only sometimes though. The rest of the time is repackaging. |
I might add that what I believe you are saying is that it is the "Epiphany" that makes us divine...
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07/13/2009 05:03:24 PM · #6 |
Originally posted by Ivo:
True but in many cases its a reformulation of someone else's vision is it not? My truly inspiring ideas come from lord knows where. Its almost accidental and just manifests itself into something brilliant. Only sometimes though. The rest of the time is repackaging. |
My most creative and inspired epiphany's generally come in pretty low around here.
But I love them nonetheless. |
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07/13/2009 05:07:10 PM · #7 |
| There is nothing new under the sun. Creativity is merely combining existing ideas in new ways. There is nothing wrong with casting about for ideas. The trick is how you cook the fish. |
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07/13/2009 05:07:53 PM · #8 |
Originally posted by Yo_Spiff:
Originally posted by Ivo:
True but in many cases its a reformulation of someone else's vision is it not? My truly inspiring ideas come from lord knows where. Its almost accidental and just manifests itself into something brilliant. Only sometimes though. The rest of the time is repackaging. |
My most creative and inspired epiphany's generally come in pretty low around here.
But I love them nonetheless. |
I dont know how to express my sheer admiration for the eloquent social statement you have made with this divinely galvanized rendition of role reversal. I always felt lil red was a bit rigid and Tom was a good selection for the role. Is it a Michael Jackson original and if so, I'll give you 5 million!! ;-)
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07/13/2009 05:11:38 PM · #9 |
Originally posted by Ivo:
I dont know how to express my sheer admiration for the eloquent social statement you have made with this divinely galvanized rendition of role reversal. I always felt lil red was a bit rigid and Tom was a good selection for the role. Is it a Michael Jackson original and if so, I'll give you 5 million!! ;-) |
A) Who is Tom?
B) This has nothing to do with Michael Jackson. It is my brown ribbon winning entry from the "Brothers Grimm" challenge.
C) What social statement did I make? I thought this was just my usual ridiculous brand of humor. |
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07/13/2009 05:28:33 PM · #10 |
Originally posted by Yo_Spiff:
Originally posted by Ivo:
I dont know how to express my sheer admiration for the eloquent social statement you have made with this divinely galvanized rendition of role reversal. I always felt lil red was a bit rigid and Tom was a good selection for the role. Is it a Michael Jackson original and if so, I'll give you 5 million!! ;-) |
A) Who is Tom?
B) This has nothing to do with Michael Jackson. It is my brown ribbon winning entry from the "Brothers Grimm" challenge.
C) What social statement did I make? I thought this was just my usual ridiculous brand of humor. |
I am speechless. ;-) |
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07/13/2009 05:52:38 PM · #11 |
Originally posted by posthumous:
There is nothing new under the sun. Creativity is merely combining existing ideas in new ways. There is nothing wrong with casting about for ideas. The trick is how you cook the fish. |
Ah, jeez, not Ecclesiastes. I have to disagree that creativity is just "combining existing ideas." You're giving very little credit to creative geniuses present and past, and even to us more common folk.
I *do* agree that ignoring existing thought is not necessarily a superior avenue, though. The trick, sometimes, is to use thoughts from outside your field, things that apply tangentially as opposed to directly. Other times existing thought shows us what does *not* work for us, allowing us to focus more on roads not traveled. |
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07/13/2009 06:27:25 PM · #12 |
Originally posted by Ivo:
I am speechless. ;-) |
And I give up. I jumped into the wrong discussion! |
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07/13/2009 06:40:04 PM · #13 |
Wrong thread, LOL.
Message edited by author 2009-07-13 18:40:22. |
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07/13/2009 06:54:00 PM · #14 |
Originally posted by posthumous:
There is nothing new under the sun. Creativity is merely combining existing ideas in new ways. There is nothing wrong with casting about for ideas. The trick is how you cook the fish. |
I thought you were a poet?
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07/13/2009 06:58:06 PM · #15 |
Originally posted by kirbic:
Originally posted by posthumous:
There is nothing new under the sun. Creativity is merely combining existing ideas in new ways. There is nothing wrong with casting about for ideas. The trick is how you cook the fish. |
Ah, jeez, not Ecclesiastes. I have to disagree that creativity is just "combining existing ideas." You're giving very little credit to creative geniuses present and past, and even to us more common folk.
I *do* agree that ignoring existing thought is not necessarily a superior avenue, though. The trick, sometimes, is to use thoughts from outside your field, things that apply tangentially as opposed to directly. Other times existing thought shows us what does *not* work for us, allowing us to focus more on roads not traveled. |
Would love to see some examples of totally non-derivative creativity. Road not travelled... if it's a road, it's already been travelled by someone or something. |
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07/13/2009 08:55:07 PM · #16 |
Originally posted by kirbic:
Originally posted by posthumous:
There is nothing new under the sun. Creativity is merely combining existing ideas in new ways. There is nothing wrong with casting about for ideas. The trick is how you cook the fish. |
Ah, jeez, not Ecclesiastes. I have to disagree that creativity is just "combining existing ideas." You're giving very little credit to creative geniuses present and past, and even to us more common folk.
I *do* agree that ignoring existing thought is not necessarily a superior avenue, though. The trick, sometimes, is to use thoughts from outside your field, things that apply tangentially as opposed to directly. Other times existing thought shows us what does *not* work for us, allowing us to focus more on roads not traveled. |
Our agreement is far more significant than our disagreement, which is virtually meaningless. Einstein already knew about relativistic philosophies. He knew about sound waves. He knew about particles. He had Newton.
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07/13/2009 09:09:13 PM · #17 |
Originally posted by yanko:
Originally posted by posthumous:
There is nothing new under the sun. Creativity is merely combining existing ideas in new ways. There is nothing wrong with casting about for ideas. The trick is how you cook the fish. |
I thought you were a poet? |
You can be a poetic fisherman/chef! Um...can't you?
:-))
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07/13/2009 10:00:27 PM · #18 |
Originally posted by posthumous:
There is nothing new under the sun. Creativity is merely combining existing ideas in new ways. There is nothing wrong with casting about for ideas. The trick is how you cook the fish. |
True that.....
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07/13/2009 11:39:00 PM · #19 |
Originally posted by skewsme:
Would love to see some examples of totally non-derivative creativity. |
How about a thought exercise instead... if all creativity were completely derivative, then the sum total progress of science would always be zero. Or another exercise. If an artist works in a medium never before used, can their work possibly be totally derivative?
BTW, I never said that there existed such a thing as "totally non-derivative" creativity. Since we are human, we carry all the baggage of being, well, human beings, immersed in our cultural and genetic heritage. So our creative output in some way *must* reflect that, and as such is partly derivative.
What the Ecclesiastical quote implies is that *all* creativity is nothing more than rehash, and that is patently false.
Originally posted by skewsme:
Road not travelled... if it's a road, it's already been travelled by someone or something. |
LOL, there's a literalist in every crowd!
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07/14/2009 12:56:56 AM · #20 |
Originally posted by kirbic:
Originally posted by skewsme:
Would love to see some examples of totally non-derivative creativity. |
How about a thought exercise instead... if all creativity were completely derivative, then the sum total progress of science would always be zero. Or another exercise. If an artist works in a medium never before used, can their work possibly be totally derivative?
BTW, I never said that there existed such a thing as "totally non-derivative" creativity. Since we are human, we carry all the baggage of being, well, human beings, immersed in our cultural and genetic heritage. So our creative output in some way *must* reflect that, and as such is partly derivative. What the Ecclesiastical quote implies is that *all* creativity is nothing more than rehash, and that is patently false. |
Science (and scientific method) thrives on empiricism. It is happily derivative. Scientists rarely make such statements about alls and nones because they don't tend to hold water. If an artist works in a medium never before used (btw, was it derived from another application?), their work is derivative if they incorporate a subject/theme/treatment/etc. that has been used before. When you stated that you disagree that creativity is just "combining existing ideas", you implied that there exists a creativity that is not derived from existing ideas. That's why I asked you for examples of totally non-derivative creativity. But derivative is not an insult - I believe one measure of genius is how cleverly a person can synthesize disparate, pre-existing ideas into a new one that doesn't taste like chicken.
Originally posted by skewsme:
Road not travelled... if it's a road, it's already been travelled by someone or something. |
Originally posted by kirbic:
LOL, there's a literalist in every crowd! |
Anyone would be hard-pressed to call me a literalist - I believe in creative interpretation and I have the 4's to prove it! However, I do dislike imprecise, misleading and/or arrogant language, at least from others, unless they're goofin' off ;-) Sorry to the rest of the thread if this was a sidetrack. |
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07/14/2009 02:10:06 AM · #21 |
First catch the fish; then cook it very gently humming something poetic. You may or may not order up a Mongolian cocktail before, during or after. Of course the fish will have to be cleaned, and that requires knowing something about fish: you may learn that yourself or from someone else.
We step but do not step into the same river twice.
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07/14/2009 03:28:25 AM · #22 |
Originally posted by skewsme:
Originally posted by kirbic:
Originally posted by skewsme:
Would love to see some examples of totally non-derivative creativity. |
How about a thought exercise instead... if all creativity were completely derivative, then the sum total progress of science would always be zero. Or another exercise. If an artist works in a medium never before used, can their work possibly be totally derivative?
BTW, I never said that there existed such a thing as "totally non-derivative" creativity. Since we are human, we carry all the baggage of being, well, human beings, immersed in our cultural and genetic heritage. So our creative output in some way *must* reflect that, and as such is partly derivative. What the Ecclesiastical quote implies is that *all* creativity is nothing more than rehash, and that is patently false. |
Science (and scientific method) thrives on empiricism. It is happily derivative. Scientists rarely make such statements about alls and nones because they don't tend to hold water. If an artist works in a medium never before used (btw, was it derived from another application?), their work is derivative if they incorporate a subject/theme/treatment/etc. that has been used before. When you stated that you disagree that creativity is just "combining existing ideas", you implied that there exists a creativity that is not derived from existing ideas. That's why I asked you for examples of totally non-derivative creativity. But derivative is not an insult - I believe one measure of genius is how cleverly a person can synthesize disparate, pre-existing ideas into a new one that doesn't taste like chicken.
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So for example someone like Darwin gets introduced to the cutting edge ideas about geology at the time - that maybe the Earth is formed and shaped through a process of gradual change. He wanders off and travels for a bit, and at some point it clicks that this might also apply to the living world. The ideas were there, but reaching the right synthesis of them was the magic act of creativity. For scientists it's actually pretty imperative to acknowledge that if it's a road it's already been travelled - you wander around continually reinventing the wheel otherwise.
But anyway, as  skewsme said, science is indeed happily derivative, and that's not really the centre of the argument here. The thing is, my impression from looking at things like photography and history of art is that even though there are no constraints to be evidence based like there are in the sciences (i.e. there's more scope for creativity), the arts function in largely the same fashion. So certain styles and schools of painting develop over time, and people experiment with what has been developed before them and maybe come up with something new in the process. But the new has an awareness of the past, uses complex combinatorics, and yes, at the end has a touch of something magic and divine. People draw inspiration from all sorts of places and in all sorts of ways, but I'm not sure I really believe in blank pages. |
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07/14/2009 04:50:32 AM · #23 |
Originally posted by kirbic:
How about a thought exercise instead... if all creativity were completely derivative, then the sum total progress of science would always be zero. Or another exercise. If an artist works in a medium never before used, can their work possibly be totally derivative?
BTW, I never said that there existed such a thing as "totally non-derivative" creativity. Since we are human, we carry all the baggage of being, well, human beings, immersed in our cultural and genetic heritage. So our creative output in some way *must* reflect that, and as such is partly derivative.
What the Ecclesiastical quote implies is that *all* creativity is nothing more than rehash, and that is patently false. |
Q.E.D. |
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07/14/2009 08:52:12 AM · #24 |
Originally posted by kirbic:
Originally posted by posthumous:
There is nothing new under the sun. Creativity is merely combining existing ideas in new ways. There is nothing wrong with casting about for ideas. The trick is how you cook the fish. |
Ah, jeez, not Ecclesiastes. I have to disagree that creativity is just "combining existing ideas." You're giving very little credit to creative geniuses present and past, and even to us more common folk.
I *do* agree that ignoring existing thought is not necessarily a superior avenue, though. The trick, sometimes, is to use thoughts from outside your field, things that apply tangentially as opposed to directly. Other times existing thought shows us what does *not* work for us, allowing us to focus more on roads not traveled. |
I suppose that technically there are only so many atoms in the universe, only so many musical notes, only so many letters in the alphabet, and only so many colors discernable to us. So theoretically, we all can only do what already exists in some way.
However the truely creative among us seem to manage to do it in ways that if we ever thought along those lines, we never seemed to be able to bring it to fruition; and never as wonderful and glorius as the truly creative can manage.
A good examples are a couple of my favorite phographers. Adams, who took black and white pictures of landscapes. Been done before, but never like that. Our own JoeyL. He tends to take pictures of people. Portraits are done every day. But his make you stop, look, and think.
Maybe there isn't anything new under the sun. But like the guy who wanted to close the patent office in the 1800's because everything had already been invented, there are a few people doing things in ways that notbody else seems to.
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07/14/2009 09:03:57 AM · #25 |
Originally posted by skewsme:
Originally posted by kirbic:
LOL, there's a literalist in every crowd! |
Anyone would be hard-pressed to call me a literalist - I believe in creative interpretation and I have the 4's to prove it! However, I do dislike imprecise, misleading and/or arrogant language, at least from others, unless they're goofin' off ;-) Sorry to the rest of the thread if this was a sidetrack. |
So, Jackson Pollock's work was derivative the moment he laid down a canvas, assuming he was the very, very first splatter dude...?
It's funny but the one thing I notice about most Digital Art is that you can smell the Photoshop through and through lending it a derivative air. But I'd say somewhere after atoms, air, brush, canvas, clay and Photoshop we can draw a line and call things original, with a clear conscience.
...I think?
To the OP. I believe you can fish for ideas but it depends where you do your fishing. First, the people you're asking for advice should probably have some idea what is original and what's been done, or better, have a sense of originality themselves. There are amazing people out there that can help foster creativity but not many and those who can are probably found at institutions of higher learning, not the internet. The internet is fine but you need to do a good deal of culling to get the right answers.
Andrew Keens: Cult Of The Amateur deals with this topic in great depth as it relates to the internet and mass media.
eta:better link to the book
Message edited by author 2009-07-14 15:15:48. |
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