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Symposium:


Session Title:
  • Creativity as a Social Ontology

Presentation Title:
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Presenter(s):


Abstract:

  • Chair Per­sons: Scott Ret­tberg & Simon Biggs                                                                                           Pre­sen­ters: Ruth Cat­low, James Leach, Talan Mem­mott & Jill Walker Ret­tberg

    Whilst cre­ativ­ity is often per­ceived as the prod­uct of the in­di­vid­ual artist, or cre­ative en­sem­ble, it can also be con­sid­ered an emer­gent phe­nom­e­non of com­mu­ni­ties, dri­ving change and fa­cil­i­tat­ing in­di­vid­ual or en­sem­ble cre­ativ­ity. Cre­ativ­ity can be a per­for­ma­tive ac­tiv­ity re­leased when en­gaged through and by a com­mu­nity and un­der­stood as a process of in­ter­ac­tion. The model of the soli­tary artist, pro­duc­ing arte­facts that em­body cre­ativ­ity, can be con­tested as the ideal method to achieve cre­ative out­comes. The propo­si­tion is that cre­ativ­ity is an ac­tiv­ity of ex­change that en­ables peo­ple and com­mu­ni­ties. We do not pro­pose cre­ativ­ity as in­stru­men­tal, aris­ing from a per­ceived need and seek­ing to de­liver a so­lu­tion or prod­uct, nor as a sup­ply-side “blue skies” ideal, but as an emer­gent prop­erty of com­mu­ni­ties. John Searle de­fines so­cial on­tol­ogy as “both cre­ated by human ac­tions and at­ti­tudes but at the same time (hav­ing) an epis­tem­i­cally ob­jec­tive ex­is­tence and … part of the nat­ural world”.

    Our propo­si­tion is that so­cial on­tol­ogy, the space of in­ter­ac­tions where in­di­vid­u­als and col­lec­tives shape one an­other, ex­ists as an au­topoiesis, an emer­gent cre­ative space. The In­ter­net has been an agent of change in the way we com­mu­ni­cate and share in­for­ma­tion and it has sub­se­quently af­fected the man­ner in which com­mu­ni­ties form. The ad­vent of Web 2.0 has fa­cil­i­tated a ma­te­ri­al­i­sa­tion of the in­ter­net as a so­cial space. As both an aug­ment­ing and rep­re­sen­ta­tional tech­nol­ogy, the in­ter­net al­lows in­sight into how these processes un­fold. In­di­vid­u­als and col­lec­tives can now emerge, shift and shape them­selves within the dy­namic com­mu­ni­ca­tions spaces (pro­to­cols) that de­fine what we now un­der­stand the in­ter­net to be, each pos­sess­ing a dis­tinc­tive dis­cur­sive and on­to­log­i­cal char­ac­ter. Elec­tronic lit­er­a­ture and the dig­i­tal arts are ex­em­plary of cre­ative prac­tices that cross media and cul­tural di­vides. The media em­ployed by prac­ti­tion­ers in these do­mains are in­trin­si­cally con­ver­gent, tech­ni­cally and cul­tur­ally. These prac­ti­tion­ers are often highly tech­ni­cally lit­er­ate and, in some in­stances, have con­tributed to the de­vel­op­ment of the tech­nolo­gies that they, and oth­ers, em­ploy. Prac­ti­tion­ers work­ing in these fields have often de­vel­oped their aims and meth­ods through in­ter­act­ing with one an­other within on­line cre­ative com­mu­ni­ties.

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