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Creative/non-creative (fragment) Can creative
process be conceptualized? A good starting point for the answer would be a closer
look at the distinction between "creative" and "non-creative". This may appear
obvious and not much to discuss about, but things are not that simple. The
degree of distinction between "creative" and
"non-creative" that is pursued, can play important role, in "creative
industry" companies, for example. First, activities can be seen as
falling into two classes of totally different nature: "creative
activities" and activites that are considered not creative. Non-creative
activities include things like project management, client interviews to find out
client's requirements, technical implementation of design ideas, polishing
the product, presentation of the work product to client. Creative activities
include finding the design concept, developing main features of the creative
product, solving various contradictions that occur in the work process,
integrating everything into a balanced whole. Design company that adheres to
this conceptualization (it seems that that distinction is quite popular)
builds its work process accordingly. The work process is viewed as a network
of non-creative and creative activities. The two types of activities are
managed differently, and in larger companies – staffed differently. Non-creative
activites lend easier to rational management techniques like detailed task
analysis. Creative activities, in extreme cases, are left to souvereign domain
of the creative (person who does creative work). Where attempts are made to
regulate the creative work, the techniques differ significantly to what is
considered effective for non-creative activities (principles versus
procedures).
Why is this
dichotomy used? In principle, all work can viewed as creative (or
non-creative). It seems that the relatively strong differentiation between
"creative" and "non-creative" somehow allows the design
firm to combine structure and discipline with dynamism and flexibility. It would be
interesting to look at the creative/non-creative (C/N) differentiation from
the glasses of structuralist semiotic theory (Claude Lévi-Strauss, Y.Lotman).
The strength of structuralism lies in drawing attention to structures that
are either hidden from everyday consciousness or too obvious to be considered
worth of thought.
One point that
draws attention immediately is temporal length of the "creative"
work. Design company can conceptualize creative work as activity taking
hours. But this is not the only way. One can reduce one's understanding of creativity to "creative
moments". Then, creativity is always momentary. It can come under
various names: the moment of inspiration, the flash, the moment when thing
fall into places, the emergence, the touch of angel, the gestalt.
Would anybody be believe
into "creative moments" and fully reject the creative process that
extends in time? The received view of the creative process seems to be that it consists of periods of subconscious germination
that can lead to flash-like, unpredictable emergence of solutions. This can
be represented schematically as two paths – conscious, non-creative activity
(N), and creative activity (C) , that run in in the same direction but are
not identical. When the two mental paths cross, a moment of creativity is
experienced.
Claudio Ciborra, a
highly original scholar of information systems, in article Notes on improvisation and time in
organizations (later published as a chapter in book Labyrinths of Information), presents very interesting views that
relate directly to the temporal character of creative/non-creative. Ciborra
begins from critical view of neo-Tayloristic business process reengineering
(BPR) and focuses on the concept of organizational improvisation (dichotomy
"planned/improvisational"). (For temporal analysis point of view, creativity
and improvisation seem to be very similar processes.) Ciborra draws attention
to the importance of the notion of time (the nature of time) for the
understanding of what improvisation means. The article is
also very valuable in linking the argument to parallel ideas on several
important thinkers, from ancient Greek concept of 'kairos' to philosophers of
the age of Modernism (H.Bergson, M.Heidegger) to avant garde composer P.Boulez
(Ciborra knows the matter; several large works of his were informed by Heidegger's
ideas). "Note that improvisation
in Latin is referred to as 'extempore actio' ... In contrast to the idea of a
slow, judicious decision, improvisation retains the qualities of suddenness
and extemporaneousness. Improvisation does not belong to a regular chronology
where each ‘now’ lies on a continuum between the ‘already been’ and the ‘not
yet now’, in a linear sequence of events. Indeed, according to the modern
composer Pierre Boulez, improvisation is ‘Einbruch’, i.e. irruption. The idea
of ‘Einbruch’ includes the images of surprise and breaking of plans. Let us
consider these characteristics more closely. First, extemporaneousness means literally: outside the flow of time. Improvisation occurs in a moment, which is not just the normal ‘now’, but is a ‘now’ that is ‘sudden’, not expected or planned for. ... Are there, then, two sorts of ‘now’? Or, more in general, are there two temporalities, i.e. two different ways for time to unfold? ... Time tends to be looked at as a homogeneous entity that can be manipulated, very much like space or money. On the other hand, improvisation, with its character of irrupting surprise, has very little to
do with such a quantitative idea of time and the relevant methods to manage
it: improvisation defies measurement and method. It surfaces and vanishes ‘on
the spur of the moment’." [Ciborra, op.cit,
p. 86] Ciborra uses two
schemes to visualize his argument:
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