Dear Carolyn
Thanks - having thought about it for the last 6 years its nice to know it hasn't been a total waste of time!
A
Dr Amanda Bill
Senior Lecturer
College of Creative Arts
Massey University
Museum Building, Buckle Street, Wellington
http://creative.massey.ac.nz
________________________________________
From: Carolyn Barnes [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Friday, 24 July 2009 3:52 p.m.
To: [log in to unmask]; Bill, Amanda
Subject: Re: Educating for Creativity
Dear Amanda,
I have been following this thread of discussion on creativity with interest. It has come at a perfect time. A colleague and I are considering how the idea of creativity influences certain attitudes and behaviours in the field of communication design, especially in respect of the designer's relationship to audiences and the acceptance of the practice of co-design.
Your post gets right to the heart of the matter of how the idea of creativity plays out in everyday design practice, where the actuality of creativity (at a cognitive level) seems to matter much less than how it is conceived by the industry and individual designers.
Thanks for framing this division so well.
Carolyn Barnes
Carolyn Barnes, PhD
Senior Lecturer
Senior Research Fellow
Swinburne Design
Swinburne University of Technology
144 High Street, Prahran, VIC 3181
Melbourne, Australia
Telephone +61 3 9214 6579
www.swinburne.edu.au/design<http://www.swinburne.edu.au/design>
>>> "Bill, Amanda" <[log in to unmask]> 7/24/2009 1:15 PM >>>
David said
....there are strongly and weakly held positions within each starting point. Charles adopts a strong position on one side and Cameron adopts a strong position on the other, with Amanda and Ken seeming to take a middle position, suggesting in part that the way through is a redefinition of the concept and potentially where we might look to find the 'real' nature of creativity, or at least a more acceptable basis for moving forwards....
As for me, I'd rather not dichotomize social constructionist and realist positions. Teaching in design, I found neither was helpful in my quest for educational relevance. Thinking about the social construction of creativity just led me to cynicism, and thinking about it as real just led to frustration. Which ideologies of creativity was I meant to be educating students in, anyway? Big C 'genius' CREATIVITY or little c 'correlates' of creativity? (for just two examples). Very little of what is taught as design addresses any of this.
For teaching purposes, I find the best way to think about creativity is as a corporeal regime, performed through a particular technology of education. In my case, a creative arts education, which normalizes a type of subjectified creativity. Creativity is something 'achieved'.
I know Keith will think this an ugly explanation, but I haven't had time to make it more creative.....
Amanda
|