Chris Heape said:
>The two I have identified - to keep it simple - (Sternberg 1988) are
>the differences between problem solving creativity and artistic
>creativity. I find that the students can basically come to a grinding
>halt when developing their projects, because they are not aware of the
>difference between the two.
...........
........
>I encourage the students to keep these two main areas of their project
>or task apart, for a while, until they become clearer in their minds
I'm not very happy with this. It seems to reinforce atomistic thinking and I
suggest that design only works well as a holistic activity. I recognise the
problem that Chris describes but I prefer to start the learning process of
designers by giving students experience of dealing with explicitly discrete
problems (eg mechanism, form handling, interaction) to build up their ability
to recognise and work with each kind of problem and expect them to integrate
those abilities and handle progressively more complex questions as their
education progresses. Learners need a chance to "dwell in" the different kinds
of problems they are likely to encounter to build up a tacit understanding
which can be integrated into their approach to complex problems. This is
important as "illumination" requires well-developed tacit knowledge (Polanyi
1958 p123). I wonder if Polanyi's idea of illumination, the "imaginative leap",
is a better way of thinking about the central problem of being a designer than
the more passive concept of "creativity".
Of course there is a role for deconstructing your ideas and carrying out
discrete experiments to work out specific problems within the design, but that
has to take place against the background of a holistic understanding of the
whole problem.
And the ideas of "problem solving" and "artistic" (or "aesthetic") creativity
seem to provide no space for the kind of synthesis that designers increasingly
are expected to engage in, which sometimes feels more like social invention
than anything else.
best wishes from Sheffield
Chris Rust
Polanyi, M (1958) Personal Knowledge, Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy,
Routledge, London (1962 corrected edition)
*******************************************
Professor Chris Rust
Art and Design Research Centre
Sheffield Hallam University UK
www.shu.ac.uk/design
[log in to unmask]
tel +44 114 225 2706
fax +44 114 225 2603
Psalter Lane, Sheffield S11 8UZ, UK
|