More work examples; Photography

Here are a few more work examples from my photomedia unit.

One of our assignments was to capture movement, both frozen and blur. Here are a few of my photos.

Using high shutter speeds, 1/250 and higher, we are able to freeze movement which allowed the sand running through their fingers to look grainy, and cooler. I didn’t use this photo for my assignment but I was really happy with this photo. These four beautiful hands belong to my cousins Elliana, 7, and Bailey, 6, and I really liked that it brought out their youth and innocence in this photo.

Another frozen shot, this time freezing the movement of water. I really enjoyed taking these few photos, it meant I got to completely saturate my little sister! I got my sister to cover her head with her hands as some would do if a bucket of water was being held over your head. Although, the main reason I got her to cover her head and face was because after a few shots of my mum bursting a water balloon over her head, her facial expression hinted she was getting angry and frustrated at me (can you imagine?) so I decided to take this last shot hoping it worked. It did. The problem with this photo and the one above was that it wasn’t all in focus, which meant the shot wasn’t completely frozen and I wouldn’t get as good of a mark. Again, I used a high shutter speed to freeze the water as soon as my Mum burst the balloon, freezing its’ movement before wetting my sister.. again!

Finally, this is the frozen photo I used for my assignment in the end. A trip to the Perth Royal Show with my 10 year old cousin, Jordan, had me experimenting all day with my frozen photos. I went to the show hoping I’d get a good shot of the swings, mid-air, to really emphasise movement even though it’s frozen. I believe I used a high shutter speed of 1/500 to take this photo and I’m glad it turned out alright, after I had developed my film. In the printing process of this photo, I had to use the burning and dodging techniques so I could still see the detail of the clouds in the sky. By this, I had to cover everything in this picture besides from the sky, letting more light onto it to bring out the darkness behind the clouds.

Picturing the dark assignment. For this assignment our task was simply to take photos in the dark, or at night. Sounds pretty easy, right? When you have a film camera, you don’t use flash because it flattens the image, instead we use a torch, light post, any light in the photo or that shines on the photo and we take a light metre reading. A light metre tells us how much light we must let in to the camera for the correct exposure. We have to manually set the aperture, shutter speed and also lie to the camera, changing the ISO from a 400 to 1600, even when we are using 400 ISO film. Then in the process of developing our film, we must use the developer used for the 1600 film and push process our film to get the best results. There are a few different techniques I used for this assignment, which I will talk to you about below.

NB: These are photos I have printed but have not used for my assignment. I don’t have the assignment photos to show you because they are being assessed at the moment.

First, here’s a photo of some sheets hanging up on the washing line with an outside light shining down on the sheets, although not lighting it up that much. My aim was to make this look scary, the sheets being white and, therefore, making the person darker, where you can’t see their eyes, but also creepy because they are staring/spying on you, peeking through a couple of sheets in the middle of the night. Do you think if this person was standing in front of the sheets, it have the same effect? The light metre reading was taken at the side of her face which allows you to still see a bit of detail in her face, enough that you know it’s a person. I once heard someone say, “You’re not afraid of the dark, you’re afraid of what’s in it,” and isn’t that the truth. The connotations that something dangerous might be waiting for you is what terrifies us most, and that’s where I was going with this photo. You see the sheets, you see the outline of this person but everything else is just black, and that’s where the fear comes from. It’s the fear of not knowing what awaits you in the dark and that, my friends, is why I slept with a night light for a lot of my childhood years. It wasn’t that a light was just turned off that worried me, it was the fear that the Boogeyman lived inside my closet.

This is a photo of Fremantle at night, where the street lights and the lights from restaurants are how I got the right light reading. I really liked how the light reflected on the water and how you could see the ferris wheel in the background, so I decided to play with the romantic theme at night. Which brings us back to Week 1’s reading, where Ekirch (2005) described the power of light in the dark, which created romantic sceneries as well as protection from harm etc. The couple on the sidewalk, walking towards the beautiful lit up scenery emphasises the notion of love and romance, where they are standing close together etc. protecting each other. The light metre reading was taken of the whole scenery, although aiming at the water which gives it the most detail.

Last but not least, this photo was my most creative one I believe, and I took this photo for my own experimentation rather than for this unit. This technique is called “painting with light” where you have a torch and you literally paint in the person or thing you want to be visible in the image. For this technique you need to set your aperture whichever lets in the most light, use either a long shutter speed on your camera, or set it to ‘B’ which keeps the shutter open for as long as you hold the shutter open. I set my camera on a tripod (otherwise I would’ve got camera shake), I set it on B, shone the light on the subject to focus before making my exposure, and then I was ready to go. I got my sister to put her hands up straight, and when I turned the light off to move her hands down a little, and then I turned the torch back on and painted the next part of her body, turned the torch off and did it again etc. until her hands were by her side. The tricky part of actually painting something with this is when you shine the torch on the same part of the subject for too long, it burns the film, making it snow white and no detail when you go to print. The first roll of film I had tried this technique but burnt it because i kept the torch in the same position which lit up the whole body every time the torch went back on. Meaning the arms would look okay although there was a big white blurry silhouette where her body was. Now that I knew my problem, I knew how to fix it. With this photo I gave my sister the same instructions but instead I painted the top of her body where her arms were extended, turned off the torch got her to move her arms down and then paint the strip of her body where her arms were extended etc. so I never painted one section for too long. There is no particular reason why I took this image except for my personal achievement to think outside the box and use techniques that are more challenging.

Thanks for reading guys.

City and Colour Album Work

City and Colour Album Design

Another work example from last semester’s Design Practices unit. Our assignment was to create an album cover of another artist, different to the previous assignment. I chose another Canadian band, City and Colour, consisting of frontman Dallas Green. Another favourite band of mine, that I was fortunate enough to see live in concert a few weeks prior to the completion of this assignment, and was, therefore, able to use a picture I had taken on the night, although I edited it and made it circular to fit underneath the cd. I drew the design on the cover and scanned it onto the computer, editing the colours on photoshop. I wanted to make the design look like a crystal ball where you see a dull typical city upside down and smaller and on top, a vibrant fantasy land, depicting where everybody would rather be. I used the roots underneath both lands to make the design look as though our city is underwater. I added the hand behind, holding the ball up, to make the design easier to comprehend, like kids hold the snow balls that you shake and look into a land that doesn’t exist. I used a fantasy-like font all over the design, to continue that theme throughout the artwork.

A little interesting fact for you. Can you figure out why the band is named City and Colour? The city Dallas? and the colour Green?

Tegan and Sara: Sainthood.

An assignment from last semester’s unit, DES2102: Design Practices: Identity, had us designing and creating band posters and album covers, making ourselves familiar with the process of Adobe Indesign. Tutor, Andy, mentored us through the stages of design with his expertise of being a successful designer and magazine producer. The band I chose to represent was the sister act, Tegan and Sara. The canadian twins are an Indie Rock band who have been in the music industry for over a decade, trying to make a name for themselves, although not forgetting where they originated from. As my favourite band, these women sure know how to give you an experience to remember, playing their heart-breaking hits whilst humorously making the audience feel like they are a part of something special. Our task was to create three music posters of the band of our choice, although this is the only one I was happy with. Using font similar to the font on their website, and the limited colour palette of black and white, I wanted to emphasise the title of their album, “Sainthood”, being both dark and calming.

The song, Northshore, is more of a rock track singing “Something’s so sick about this, my misery’s so addictive” which I would probably sing along to if I were angry, whereas with Light Up, the instruments are more calming, a song you could fall asleep to. “Let them say what they will ’cause they will anyhow”. I used the black and white for simplicity, and used black shapes to create the hair and facial features because it amazed me how easily you could make things look more realistic.

Take a look at the Northshore video.

Creativity and Industry

Dominic Power enlightens us, through his text, “Creativity and innovation in the Scandinavian design industry”, of the notion of design in relation to industry and creativity. Power associates design with the “initial stages of developing (or redeveloping) a product”, although the process of design is more complex than people assume, and has since been categorised under the notion mainstream design. Power argues that design reinforces the qualities of “creativity and innovation” through the making of a product; having the ability to creatively design a product that is both technically and aesthetically pleasing.

The design business separates and compares the creative designers from the fewer designers who are also creative but also innovative and internationally competitive, resulting in fierce competitions and rivalries surfacing. The blatant desire to be more successful than your opposition has reinforced the necessity to continuously update and improve your products, improving the design to satisfy and gain more business/income. Competition is, in result, evident within every domain of the design industry including, graphic design, photography, web design, interior design, fashion design etc. motivating local and international design businesses to continue building their business by improving their work ethics and creative outcomes.

Power specifically mentions design in Stockholm as being a high quality design centre within scandinavian design, developing three hypotheses and two additional hypotheses as to why the Stockholm design cluster might support knowledge and creativity. They are:

1. “Knowledge in industrial clusters is created through various forms of local inter-organisational collaborative interaction”. This hypotheses emphasises the power of team work and collaboration within the design industry, and argues that firms willing to collaborate and work with other local firms will, together, innovate more and will be able to motivate designers to produce better and higher quality products. Examples of businesses or companies that collaborations have resulted in success are companies such as Google and Apple. Steve Jobs was an example used in class, where his inspiration for his successful business structure was the infamous band, The Beetles, where individually these four men were great sharing many differences, although together they were immune to the possibility of failure within the music industry at that time. The collaboration of their individual talent and personalities lead them to success and assisted in making them better as a group rather than solo artists. Jobs insisted on using the Beetles collaborative success as motivation to make Apple do the same, collaborating various roles and talents within the design industry to create a name for itself, which of course worked in his favour.

Another example of a great collaboration is one of our own, the band we all knew, Australia’s Savage Garden, where Darren Hayes was just the vocalist and Daniel Jones was the instrumentalist, and creative half of the duo. Their fame struck in 1997 when they were awarded with 10 ARIA music awards because of the pair’s musical connection and collaboration, whereas individually they didn’t have the whole “package”. Without Jones assisting with the song writing, production and instrumental aspects of the band, Hayes could not have possibly got founded as a solo artist. Just like the Beetles, the differences of the boys in Savage Garden, with Hayes always in the spotlight, eventually resulted in their breakup in 2001, and now as individual artists they are lacking the talent they once obtained as a group. Here as the well known video of the single “To the Moon and Back”, where they were at their best although Jones is always in the background.

 

2. The increased competition and intensified rivalry, where the rivalry between firms producing similar products will result in a more competitive and intense environment, forcing and pressuring the company to innovate in order to produce outcomes that will “outdo” other firms. It is more likely, that firms with nearby and local competition will be more innovative than firms which have competitors elsewhere. A well known example of an intensified rivalry of this decade would be the war between Mac and PC, Apple vs. Microsoft. Microsoft’s strive to convince people PC’s are in fact better than a Apple Mac has been listed in the top 10 tech rivalries and still continues today, developing and redeveloping their products to “beat” Apple and win this war. Apple fights back with their creative advertising campaign which has these two computers represented as people where Justin Long, who plays Mac, outlines his strengths and also, John Hodgman, PC’s weaknesses, for example, computer viruses..

 

3. “Knowledge in clusters is created through spill-over effects following from the local mobility and sociability of individuals.” The spill-over effects are the new ideas and contacts that are brought to the firm as the knowledge diffusion between local firms is more rapid than global firms, through the informal interaction between individuals from different jobs or the change of jobs, causing people to spill information that should’ve rested in one firm.

The two additional hypotheses as described by Power:

1. “That Clustered firms will often find specific events as important compliments to the day-to-day dynamics supporting creativity and innovation.” A firm should usually acknowledge the hard work of their designers, and usually showcase their talent by holding events to appreciate what they give to the company.

2.”That social contact networks within a cluster are most likely to be motivated by individuals more concerned about developing their careers than the careers of their employers.” This is when the employees of a firm focus more on the ambitions for themselves rather than their employers.

In completion of this week’s reading, “Creativity and innovation in the Scandinavian design industry”, by Dominic Power, I have gathered the importance of collaboration and team work within a design based working environment, and believe it will lead to greater success and future benefits for the design company.

 

References

Power, D. (2009). Creativity and innovation in the Scandinavian design industry. Designed in Stockholm. Creativity, Innovation and the cultural economy (pp. 200-216). (Eds. Andy C. Pratt Paul Jeffcut). Hoboken: Taylor and Francis.

 

Creativity and Research

“Don’t Give up your Day Job”, by David Throsby, outlines the process of an artist’s career in a number of stages. In the Editorial by Edmonds, he defines art-making as being fundamentally a research process.. “Each art object, performance or realised concept is sometimes seen as an experiment from which the artist learns and from which new ideas and goals emerge.” (Edmonds, E. 2007).

The first and earliest stage of an artist’s career is “often one of uncertainty, as the artist takes the first steps on the road to a professional career.” (Throsby, D. 2003) This step is when the artist is first starting out their career and they become established. Becoming an artist isn’t an overnight process, we all have to start somewhere, the amount of effort and dedication we put in through these early years is crucial in determining our success for our future. As university students, and currently at this stage of our career, we work extremely hard for 13/14 weeks straight juggling up to four units, setting goals and leaving room for improvement, to allow ourselves to become “professionally accepted” within our domain. We study the theory, the smallest aspects, related to graphic design, photography, film etc. so that we gain a much broader understanding of our interests, which impacts on, and helps us improve our personal designs and level of creativity. I am currently in my first year, studying a double major in graphic design and photography, and am shocked at the level of improvement I have achieved from continuously learning new and interesting aspects of being creative, especially in this unit.

The central stage is one of “established practice”, (Throsby, D. 2003), where an artist has fulfilled their professional artistic career. Throsby emphasies full time professional artistic careers isn’t a necessity in this stage, although it is essential to have a degree of commitment and high level of achievement to be able to consider an artist an ‘established practicing professional.’ An example of an established artist, fulfilling their career, is Australian band, Jet.

Jet. Retrieved from: "http://www.theage.com.au/news/music/jet-propelled/2006/09/28/1159337253072.html"

Jet formed in Melbourne, Victoria (2001) and consists of a group of four men. Inspired and influenced by Australian band You Am I, Jet wrote songs about their efforts and failure to get recognised although that was soon to change when Australian Band, The Specimens, offered them “opening act” at one of their tours, where they were signed to Majorbox. They met in LA with Dave Sardy to produce their second album, Get Born, and were soon offered another supporting slot for The Rolling Stones in 2003, leaving them to perform approximately 200 shows that year. Jet established their career globally with the release of Get Born, and their hit single, “Are you gonna be my girl,” which was featured on movies such as, What Happens in Vegas (2008), and animation, Flushed Away (2006). They were then awarded with “Best Rock Video” at the 2004 MTV awards in Miami, where they also performed live at the ceremony. Jet are still making great music, aired across the globe and are, therefore, fulfilling their careers as professional musicians/artists, although, their earlier stages consisted of smaller gigs in the town they were born, Melbourne.

Below is the “Are You Gonna Be My Girl” Music video, that evidently got them recognised and lead them to sucess.

Throsby’s final stage of an artist’s career refers to the “less intense” load of professional work, where an artist is still established and committed to their work although they take lengths of time off from their artistic careers. I believe, for example, this stage would usually relate to elderly artists who have earned above average income in the past and, therefore, have made their mark and no longer need to work at the highest intensity. An example could be the infamous, Meryl Streep. Of course we don’t want to see her departure from the acting industry although would a decrease in the amount of movies she stars in for the next few years really affect her lifestyle or strip her from her fame? A personal hiatus from your professional artistic career won’t force you to start over or lose commitment in your work, it is merely a less intensive compared to the central stage.

Considering both, the research process and the stages of an artist’s career, I believe they are both fundamentally essential in producing a piece of artwork. The research process provides more than a painting, but a message.. creativity! Whereas the stages of an artist’s career provides us with a guideline of becoming recognised/established within our artistic careers.

References

Edmonds, E (2007). Research on and within Creative Practice. Leonardo, 40(4), p. 318.

Throsby, D. Hollister, V. (2003). Dont give up your day job : an economic study of professional artists in Australia (pp. 33-36). Sydney: Australia Council.

Jet. Retrieved from: “http://www.theage.com.au/news/music/jet-propelled/2006/09/28/1159337253072.html”

The Creative Community

Today I will be providing a summary of this week’s reading, The Role of Culture in Community Building by Tom Borrup, and how Borrup discusses the idea of ‘community’ in a creative environment. His book “tracks communities that have transformed their economic, social, and physical infrastructures through the arts, and includes a step-by-step planning guide.” Borrup defines community for the purposes of his book: “the people and the natural and built environments within a geographically defined area.”

Throughout this reading, the role of art and culture is thoroughly discussed, indicating that creative community building relies especially on the impact that the arts and culture have on specific communities. Culture can be defined as having a shared set of values, attitudes and beliefs that persuade you to live your life in a certain way. Culture also involves the underlying assumptions and orientations that exist within a certain environment, although a lot of people unfortunately consider culture as a sense of refinement, something special and no longer a normality in our everyday lifestyles. We need the obvious water, electricity, housing etc, along with employment, healthcare, and education to “sustain livelihood”, however, it is culture that makes a community “work”. Art, “the work of highly skilled artists and the institutions that promote it as a commodity”, is often associated with the term, culture. Borrup explains that there are various tools, strategies and ways of thinking that help assist the process of creative community building, where, in result, individuality is highly respected and we celebrate what makes every community and individual different yet “special” in their own way.

There are so many creative communities that exist in every city you go that are brought and formed together by culture and art, and I believe blogging sites are good examples of this, creating a united community consisting of multiple creative communities all together at one site. My example, Tumblr, is a blogging website that has turned into a globally used social networking site, accessed by millions, currently challenging other blogging sites such as WordPress and Posterous. You follow blogs based on music, tv, fashion, design, photography, local news, which are all part of a particular creative community. Tumblr founder, David Karp mentions “You look in fashion, creative writing, photography, music, so many of these creative circles, and we have these really substantial communities that now live on Tumblr.” Will Tumblr’s strong focus on creative communities lead them to success??

Borrup identifies 10 economic and social development strategies for creative community building, they are:

Economic

1. Create Jobs: To create jobs, it is fundamental that we take care of the artists, arts organisations and small businesses within a specific community to allow room for potential and unique creations and products.
2. Stimulate Trade through cultural tourism: This step is making sure you create a friendly and pleasant environment for cultural tourism to engage new suppliers.
3. Attract Investment by Creativity Live/ Work Zones for Artists: Supporting the artists themselves, along with their working spaces, to use as anchors as you creatively attract local investments.
4. Diversify the Local Economy:To successfully attract and support other economies, it is important to congregate arts organisations as activity generators and retail anchors. When a particular place is recognised for artistic reasons, other artistic based cultures will recognise it. An example of this would be the legal graffiti wall on Hosier Lane in Melbourne, which has attracted many international artists such as Banksy.
   

   Hosier Lane Wall, Melbourne.

5. Improve Property and Enhance Value: Leverage the proximity of cultural amenities and the artists’ touch to improve the property and to increase its value.

Social

1. Promote Interaction in Public Space: Public art displayed and collective cultural experiences in public spaces are able to engage people and, therefore, promote interaction between an individual within a specific culture and the art itself, and in result, forming a community.
2. Increase Civic Participation through Cultural Celebrations: Strengthening the connections between neighbours through cultural celebrations and festivals. These celebrations and festivals to do with a certain community are able to unite a large group of individuals who share the same values, attitudes and beliefs, as they have the same interests. This may be a music festival, an art exhibition, fashion festival etc. where people associated with a specific community come and interact together. An example of this would be the Perth Fashion Festival that was held recently in Perth, which gave people the opportunity to meet people who share the same interests etc.
3. Engage Youth: I believe engaging people when they are younger is essential so they can experience and find potential for their future within a specific community.
4. Promote Stewardship of Place: Develop pride within the environment of the community and responsibility through good “place making” and design practices.
5. Broaden Participation in the Civic Agenda: Expand involvement in civic issues and governance through community- centred arts and cultural practices.

In conclusion, after reading this week’s reading by Tom Borrup, I believe that culture, art, the individual and place assist in the formation of effectively building creative communities.

 

Tom Borrup’s Creative Community Builders Website

 

References.

 

Borrup, T. (2006). The creative community builders handbook: How to transform communities using local assets, art, and culture (pp. 3-30). Minnesota: Fieldstone Alliance.

Namac (2009). “Tom Borrup” Retrieved from: http://www.namac.org/node/7715

O’Dell, J. (2011). Tumblr’s Roadmap Heads Straight for the Creative Community. Retrieved from: http://mashable.com/2011/01/15/tumblrs-roadmap-heads-straight-for-the-creative-community/

http://communityandculture.com/

Hosier Lane Image, Melbourne. Retrieved from: http://matadornetwork.com/trips/10-places-where-graffiti-is-legal/

Banksy and the creative personality.

In week 4 Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s reading, “The Creative Personality”, drove the class into an elaborate discussion/debate over the “personality” traits that he associates with the creative personality. Today I will be summarising a few of the attributes that I believe relate to our group’s creative person, Banksy.

For those of you who missed last week’s monday class, I’ll give a brief summary of what our presentation introduced. Ashleigh and I, who are both studying graphic design, decided on an infamous street artist by the name of Banksy, who’s real identity is hidden from the mainstream media. An artist of very little words, although his strong views on society never shy away from any of his masterpieces, constantly arguing against current laws and raising awareness of the inequality this world has been witnessing over time. Always using his impecable sense of imagination and humour through his work, his law-breaking career, and the risks he wilfully takes to make an impact, has fortunately turned him into a world-wide phenomenon, making millions off his work. But as a graffiti artist, will Banksy check all the right boxes according to Csikzentmihalyi?

Physical energy. The creative person would work long hours, with intense concentration whilst demonstrating a sense of enthusiasm and enjoyment in the process. Not only does Banksy’s career involve the spray painting of a wall, the consideration of placement, size, subject etc. are all very fundamental to how successful the final outcome will be. Therefore, making the stencils and creating an idea, as well as spray painting his images long after dark in complete isolation, is all very time consuming. His results indicate his passion and enjoyment of his career and that’s where, in my opinion, he fits the attribute of having a great deal of physical energy.

Banksy Flower Thrower. Retrieved from: http://www.supergoodtees.com/UserFiles/Image/Banksy_Flower_Thrower.jpg

The next characteristic that I recognise within Banksy’s personality is having the ability to combine playfulness and discipline within their work. Nina Holton, a sculpture artist, states in support of this attribute, “It’s the combination of wonderful wild ideas and then a lot of hard work”. I definitely agree. You need to combine of a lot of hard work and a playful mind, separating your creative ideas from your good ideas, to determine how successful your art work will be. Banksy dedicates an incredible amount of time and effort into just planning and organising what, when and where he is going to paint onto a wall, whilst also allowing his imagination to roam wild and produce the amazing results he does. Although, the combination of playfulness and discipline means that you have to allow the possibility of failure, which isn’t really evident in Banksy’s work.

Pulp Fiction, by Banksy. Retrieved from: http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs5/i/2005/122/2/d/Banksy__Pulp_Fiction_by_brownos.jpg

Similar to the trait above, the next attribute is to alternate between imagination and reality. In class we described this trait as breaking away from the present without losing touch with the past. Banksy always paints denoting common issues in society and uses his imagination to get his message across in a way that will interest locals. His imagination runs wild and results in the common use of rats, monkeys, children, authorities in his work, although he uses the creative ideas that are drawn from his imagination and adjusts them to reality.

Monkey by Banksy. Retrieved from: http://pe.ma/wp-content/uploads/2007/07/monkey.jpg

Banksy is extroverted by communicated with the world in putting his work out for everybody to see, but also introverted, which is his secretive planning and preparation along with his invisibility. I think the title, “graffiti artist”, speaks for itself when we consider the trait of Banksy being a rebellious and independent individual. Graffiti is considered a criminal act and, therefore, rebellion is a trait Banksy obviously has. Not only does he show this level of rebelliousness because of his law-breaking actions but also the messages and subjects he chooses to portray for the world to witness. Independence is very clear throughout his work, which is how his fame began. Banksy wasn’t recognised for tagging his name on every wall he could find, his fame came with his level of originality within the graffiti/street art genre by stencilling and creating images that people would stare at, for the reason that the images were different and powerful. Although Banksy didn’t always start out as a stencilling graffiti artist, he studied traditional graffiti when he was 13/14 and, in time, decided to challenge people’s views on graffiti by changing the way he created his images.

Passionate, yet objective. Being passionate means that you are willing to work on your project for long periods of time and still enjoy what you are doing, although knowing you could be left with room to improve. If you are objective, this means you are dedicated to your work and able to push yourself to improve and get better results. In my opinion, it is definitely obvious that Banksy is both passionate, yet objective about his work and the results he produces. As mentioned above, he puts a lot of effort into producing the images he does and he always works as hard as he can to convey the messages he does. His Palestine journey for example, informs us that he’s objective, by putting his life at risk to have the effect he aimed for from the Palestinians, and the amount of images he pasted and painted on the Palestine wall, just to send his message across, indicates that he is extremely passionate about his work and the possible impact it could make.

Palestine Journey. Retrieved from: http://lh3.ggpht.com/_RzbVbx_mJ-0/SW3770km-7I/AAAAAAAAIH8/fno4k-iX2wQ/banksy.jpg

I believe the 10 attributes introduced in Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s reading, “The Creative Personality”, being contradictory, are often evident in a creative person. Notorious street artist, Banksy, was able to check most the boxes of personality traits that were introduced in week 4, and I believe having some or all of these traits definitely have an impact on how creative you are in your specific domain.

REFERENCES

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1996). The Creative Personality. In Creativity: Flow and the psychology of discovery and invention (pp. 51-76). New York: Harper Collins.

Wall and Piece. Banksy. (2005)

Creative flow

“The state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience itself is so enjoyable that people will do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it.” (Csikszentimihalyi, 1996)

Today I will be blogging in reference to this week’s reading, another by Csikszentimihalyi, discussing creativity as having a sense of “flow” and how experiencing flow expands one’s ability to be creative.  According to Csikszentimihalyi, in the chapter “The Flow of Creativity”, there are 9 aspects that he believes are associated with flow.

1. There are clear goals every step of the way. Goals assist in motivating you to expand and complete your work so you are able to feel that greater sense of achievement when you have completed a task. Providing yourself with a list of goals also means that you are more prepared, and therefore stress-free, you have made a plan for yourself and are confident of what you are doing.

2. Immediate feedback to one’s actions. Participating in any activity where you are comfortable and you know the rules, what is and isn’t acceptable, results in the immediate realisation of what you have done incorrectly or perfectly. For example, as a netball player, it is important to know the rules of the sport to be able to play and win the game fairly. The immediate feedback in this case is that if you break the rules, you lose. Also, the umpires are there to blow the whistle the second you break the rules, contact for example, and the spectators applaud when you do something right. This immediate feedback provides a sense of flow, you know that if you do something wrong it might cost you time and effort.

3. Balance between challenges and skills. If a challenge isn’t challenging enough, you become bored. If a challenge is too challenging, you instantly become stressed. Therefore, the whole concept of flow and enjoyment disappears. I have provided you with a chart below, by Csikszentmihalyi, which indicates that to maintain flow there must be that balance between the challenges you face and the skills you have to complete the challenge, otherwise you are left unsatisfied.

"Flow" by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. retrieved from: http://lateralaction.com/articles/mihaly-Csikszentmihalyi/

4. Action and awareness are merged. Your concentration is focused only on what you do, preventing your mind from wandering off and losing track. You become accustomed to your level of work and, soon enough, it becomes a natural habit and not an effort.

5. Distractions are excluded from consciousness. It is important we understand that to be experiencing flow, the level of concentration and focus on the “now” is fundamental, and needs to be, as Csikszentmihalyi mentions, at an “intense concentration” level. Becoming distracted from your work and what you’re supposed to be doing interrupts the “flow” process and can result badly. For example, a taxi driver needs to be intensely focused on the road to be able to do his job, and keep his passengers safe. A slight distraction on the road can lead to disaster, because you lose concentration. Driving, even though you may not be a taxi driver, is a repetitive activity in almost everybody’s everyday life and you must maintain the ability to concentrate on everything that is happening right then and there to prevent accidents from occurring. Watch this advertisement on driving as it demonstrates the importance of concentration.

In terms of creativity, I believe this advert achieves what every “drive safe” ad campaign aims for. The ability to create a gruesome and graphic ad, denoting nothing but the truth of what can cause the most horrific accidents, whilst positioning the audience to feel the exact emotions they were hoping for is what intrigues me most. The “PAY ATTENTION or pay the price” slogan they used says it all, and relates mostly to this aspect indicating that if you aren’t concentrating, it will affect the result. I felt nothing but pain whilst watching this video, the use of music and the footage shown practically forces you to experience this terrorising act of idiocy and opens your eyes to the dangers that exist on our roads.

6. No worry or failure. We don’t stress or worry that there’s a possibility of failure. I believe it’s because we don’t even allow ourselves the time to consider those possibilities, we are too focused on reaching our clear goals and our skills are capable of meeting the challenges that the worries aren’t necessary.

7. Self Consciousness disappears. Again, the intense concentration we have allows us to eliminate all those fears we usually or previously would’ve had to face when you are not in the concentration zone. We become unaware of how we portray ourselves to others. An example of this could be when you’re talking to somebody over the internet, and YES we all do it, and you suddenly get that huge grin on your face from what the other person has said, but you’re enjoying the conversation too much to realise that others might be judging you.

Super Stock, by Belinda Images. Retrieved from: http://www.superstock.co.uk/stock-photos-images/4107-75258

8. The sense of time becomes distorted. Have you ever heard of the expression, “Time flies when you’re having fun”? Yes? Have you just wanted time to fly so fast that you keep looking at the clock but it’s only been five minutes since you last looked at it? When you’re in that mood of enjoyment, like a recess or lunch break at school, you’re not concerned about what time it is, you’re focused on getting your work completed/ enjoying yourself that time goes extremely fast. Although, if you’re in a state where you aren’t enjoying yourself, you will often constantly check the clock to count how much longer you have to suffer and then, all of a sudden, time goes slower. Just like watching an amazing movie compared to a terrible movie. You don’t want the amazing movie to end but it ends faster than expected, whereas throughout the terrible movie you’re asking yourself, “when will this end?” and because it isn’t something you enjoy you feel like you have been in the cinema for much longer than the usual hour and a half.

I don’t even hate to admit that I could watch the movie Tangled countless times purely because I enjoy every second of it and then I hate when it ends so quickly. Scary Movie, on the other hand, I didn’t enjoy and I felt like I was sitting through that movie for 3 hours instead of 1.5-2 hours.

9. Activity becomes autotelic. The reason we do what we do is because it provides us with a great experience that we enjoy. A surgeon doesn’t become a surgeon and stay a surgeon because he/she liked watching Grey’s Anatomy or ER growing up. They do what they need to do because they love it and they go to University and work their backsides off for 4 or so years because they know that at the end of it, saving people’s lives, finding cures and cutting people open is the ultimate experience for them and they wouldn’t rather do anything else everyday.

So folks, there you have it, a list of the 9 aspects associated with flow according to Csikszentmihalyi and a few examples I have provided to support of them.

REFERENCES

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1996). The Flow of Creativity. Creativity: Flow and the psychology of discovery and invention (pp. 107-126). New York: HarperCollins.

“Flow” by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. retrieved from: http://lateralaction.com/articles/mihaly-Csikszentmihalyi/

http: //www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSx1dYJlJh4

http: //www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8QxZJZfU5Q&feature=related

Super Stock, by Belinda Images. Retrieved from: http://www.superstock.co.uk/stock-photos-images/4107-75258

Creativity; when the lights went out.

Creativity is not easily defined. To most, the idea of creativity is being able to create and produce something that has yet to be created, although each may have their own views.  One’s potential to be “creative” is determined by their imagination and ideas, although we are beginning to recognise and understand the sense of creativity that was emphasised throughout different eras of time, and how it is being destroyed. The way creativity is demonstrated and expressed in today’s society, compared to how it was expressed hundreds of years ago has changed dramatically. Painting on cave walls was considered “creative” along time ago because the paintings were a personal, yet artistic, representation of the world in which they lived, and was a brand new form of communicating. In today’s society, we notice that the way our minds work now is completely different to how our minds would’ve worked 20-50 years ago, let alone hundreds of years ago. The exposure to new forms of creativity throughout time positions every individual to gain a different understanding of what is considered creative, and what has been ruined for generations to come. What was the incredible creation of cave paintings back then, is equivalent to what a new television advertisement or creative photograph is now, although to be imaginative and provide new ideas is beginning to become a problem because we are no longer as imaginative as we used to be. I will discuss this more throughout this post, when I discuss the enlightenment period.

Cave Paintings. Agenda de la Préhistoire 2002 - 2003. Retrieved from: "http://www.donsmaps.com/cavepaintings.html"

The introduction of media has controlled the way we perceive and define creativity. Not only do we find creativity in different styles of paintings, such as cubism, or statues like we used to, but we now live in a world where creativity is expressed globally and almost everywhere you go. Film, music, theatre, internet, street art? Without all these forms of media being introduced and forced into our everyday routines, our lives would be extremely different than what they are now. For example, if you take away a computer from a teenager today, you might as well have taken a baby from its mother. A computer gives us the ability to research, watch movies, play games and communicate with friends. We use them almost everyday, so to function without the creative technology would seem almost impossible. Therefore, with all these forms of media that are so dominant in this modern time, the expansion of creativity provides us with more potential to dress creatively, express our emotions creatively and perceive even the smallest things in a creative way by using our own imagination and varied ideas from a hugely media impacted society.

It wasn’t until the early 18^th century that creativity enabled the sun to continue shining when it had set and the moon had appeared. The creation/invention of street lights, the burning of coal, at night was not just a form of creativity, it was a sign of safety. People aren’t afraid of the dark, they are afraid of what’s in it. The fear of walking the streets after the sun went down was one shared by a huge percentage of people, it was the myths of what awaits them and the criminal acts that were occurring that made them feel at risk, so everyone would lock themselves inside and hide away from all things frightening. Although, with light shining at all hours, we slowly stopped believing in magical creatures and monsters, such as ghosts and witches, and people started to become fearless too soon. People started to believe that because there was light, nothing bad would happen and that everything they ever believed to be scary, up until that point, was no longer, because you are always told “monsters only come out at night” but night was disappearing and, in result, so were people’s imaginations. It wasn’t just that the lights made everyone feel safe, the town shops were able to profit from more business hours, and as the night became a new day, theatre, music and dance became the main attraction for entertainment purposes, that’s why even now we still have movies and music festivals running until midnight, to provide an atmosphere where we feel safe and enjoy our night. The lights introduced a whole new understanding of creativity but they were just the beginning to the bigger creation which is the night world, the life after dark.

Thank you for reading my views on creativity, and creativity after dark. I hope you gathered by this post that creativity surrounds us everywhere you go, even if isn’t obvious to you, and that it has and will continue to change and expand over time. I will leave you with a few of my favourites..

3D chalk street art, by Edgar Mueller. retrieved from: "http://art-website-creative.com/2011/06/13/edgar-mueller-amazing-3d-street-artist/"