Creative constructive antagonism in photography

<p>Working definition of creativity per Rex Jung [ <a href="http://onbeing.org/program/rex-jung-creativity-and-the-everyday-brain/1879/audio?embed=1">http://onbeing.org/program/rex-jung-creativity-and-the-everyday-brain/1879/audio?embed=1</a> ]: Some thing novel and useful, novel and useful within a social context. Antagonism not for antagonism's sake, but for the sake of <em>something, </em>which would be constructive antagonism.</p>

<p>Can we have creativity in photography without constructive antagonism? Is it the case, or to what degree is it the case, that imitation only yields to creativity via a process involving constructive antagonism? Is a creative product in and of itself antagonistic constructively? If a photograph isn't antagonistic to a degree, is it imitative only? Imitation can be ultimately boring, as in group-think, mass manufacture, commodity production, etc.</p>

<p>An example of one of my processings influenced by constructive antagonism. <a href="/photo/14524616">http://www.photo.net/photo/14524616</a> I'm so constructively antagonistic toward what I perceive to be an over emphasis on the eating habits of predators, hence, my exaggerated treatment of such. If it were conversational I would be saying, as part of a dialog with other bird photographers "Enough already." By which I would have meant "Why must the money shot be the kill?", although there are plenty of examples of bird photographers who don't emphasize eating. Even so, those other examples aren't necessarily also examples of constructively antagonistic treatments of a subject, may instead be primarily imitative.</p>

<p>In your work, where does antagonism come into your process? Or in dialogs between photographers as they contributed to and advanced photography as an art form, as communicating novel and useful information within a social and historical context?</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Dada was anti-art. It was intended to offend. It's purpose was to reject the logic that was leading the world to self destruction and war. It rejected aesthetics <em>per se</em>.<br /> <br /> And yet it was influenced by the already established avant garde and even cubism to an extent. And it had later influences on such movements as Pop Art.<br /> <br /> So it really was just part of the art dialogue that is like a living chain link fence. In that history there are smoother transitions and more rough ones, sometimes more rift than transition.<br /> <br /> Picasso's <em>"taste is the enemy of creativity"</em> is a kind of antagonist view. His art shows this kind of antagonism in terms of its profound rifts with how art looked up until his time. Yet even he was influenced and influential.<br /> <br /> The world tends to recoil from antagonism because we tend to prefer comfort, generally preferring entertainment to art and water-cooler conversation to dialogue. <br /> <br /> If art is a dialogue from man to man (person to person) and generation to generation, it will evolve only because of certain antagonisms toward what others are doing and have done. "Dialogue" is from the Greek <em>dialogos</em>, and the Greeks said a mouthful. Socrates's dialogues are an example of constructive antagonism. And he was put to death for it. <br /><br />[<strong>CAUTION: Not safe for work</strong>, and having to say this makes me antagonistic!] Maybe <a href="http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/9448504-lg.jpg">MY PHOTO OF RON</a> can be seen in the terms you're speaking of.]</p>

<p>Constructive antagonism – yet another phrase that I have never heard before! And one that I have difficulty applying to the field of photography. For me the essence of creativity (and indeed interesting art in general) is an attempt by the author to explore and discover something new, and in the process move out of his/her comfort zone and encourage others to move out of theirs. This is one of the two fundamental approaches to all art forms, including photography, and the one which is far less often practised than work which stays within comfort zones and whose main interest is in displaying craft skills and generating a "feelgood" factor. I think in general very few artists have a consciously antagonistic attitude, which I would understand as a desire to attack others, at the time they produce work.<br>

Quite how this applies to wildlife photography, specifically birds, I am not sure. Fundamentally, wild animals eat each other, and it is therefore both true and valid to record this fact. The resulting work may appeal to the author but less so to the largely sentimental public at large, who are unlikely, for example, to buy a calendar which features 12 pictures of animals eviscerating each other! It's the old story – freedom from commercial pressures also means the freedom to say what you like, when you like.</p>

<p>Fred I really like the idea that art is a sparkling dialog versus dialog at the Sparkletts water bottle in the office. Krista Tippett in her dialog with Rex Jung speaks to that point and here's a quote from the transcript of the interview <a href="http://www.onbeing.org/program/creativity-and-everyday-brain/transcript/1882">http://www.onbeing.org/program/creativity-and-everyday-brain/transcript/1882</a> </p>

 

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<p><strong >Ms. Tippett:</strong> Right, right, especially that useful part that's innovative and useful, and novel and useful. Another — so I was actually stunned and very excited about a <em>New Yorker</em> article recently that also said that this idea that we have about brainstorming as the best way to elicit creativity from a group of people and all the ground rules that go with that, about no questions, no judgment, that that in fact just has not now been proven not to be true, but that it's never held up scientifically. And I just want to ask you about that because you've studied creativity.<br>

<strong >Dr. Jung:</strong> No, no. I do, and I get asked about that a lot. Well, what about brainstorming? It's like brainstorming is the worst thing you can do [laugh]. The main reason why is because of this process of trying out strange new ideas versus when you put people together in a room, almost invariably they will try to conform socially. So you will get creative ideas, but you won't get as creative when people are trying to please each other than when they're trying to push the envelope. And so the studies invariably show that the quality of the creative ideas that people put out individually are invariably higher in quality than those done in a group format. So another myth bites the dust. And again, I mean, there's always what about the writers of <em>Seinfeld</em> or <em>Saturday Night Live</em> or something like that? They work in group formats. Yeah, but it's different. I mean, they're — where you have collaboration like that, there's often an element of antagonism involved and critical interplay as opposed to cooperativeness.<br>

<strong >Ms. Tippett:</strong> Right. So could we — could we state that with positive affect and say relationship [laugh]?<br>

<strong >Dr. Jung:</strong> Yes.<br>

<strong >Ms. Tippett:</strong> Which includes enough knowledge to be constructively antagonistic.<br>

<strong >Dr. Jung:</strong> Yes, constructively antagonistic.<br>

<strong >Ms. Tippett:</strong> It seems to me also, and this is a subtle point, but this feels important also, that the contrast to brainstorming where creativity can be demonstrated, there is still interaction. It's a funny thing because, with brainstorming, you have rooms full of lots of people and they're all spewing forth ideas, but they're not interacting. That article talked about some building at MIT where there were just all kinds of informal interactions and conversations that happened all the time, as you say, with people who got to know each other over time, so they could be asking interesting questions of each other. I just found it very comforting because it struck home. If felt like, yes, yes, that is how it works when it works.<br>

<strong >Dr. Jung:</strong> It is, and it's more serendipitous. So you have Noam Chomsky at MIT rubbing shoulders with physicists and coming up with his …<br>

<strong >Ms. Tippett:</strong> … kind of by accident, right? Just 'cause he happened to be in that building.<br>

<strong >Dr. Jung:</strong> By accident, exactly. Because he's interacting with chemists and physicists and mathematicians by happenstance, he's able to think differently about his ideas. And that's one of the things about creativity, you know, getting what we call stovepiped. Having too narrow of a field of view really stifles creativity. So being able to broaden the horizons in that magical building at MIT, the name of which I can't remember …<br>

<strong >Ms. Tippett:</strong> … I wrote it down. It's Building 20.<br>

<strong >Dr. Jung:</strong> Building 20. OK, we'll call it Building 20 at MIT, that magical building where you could have this exchange of ideas and people running into each other and it's kind of cold and dingy and people didn't really want to be there.</p>

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<p>So David that interview is where I first came across the idea of constructive antagonism a couple of days ago. So what I like about the phrase is, in the conversational context in which she came up with it, she was moving away from the negative sounding words of Rex Jung. In the transcript, Jung agrees brainstorming doesn't lend itself to creativity, tend toward water cooler conversation, where a Seinfeld or SNL set instead has "...an element of antagonism involved and critical interplay as opposed to cooperativeness. "Krista Tippett immediately wishes for a softer phrasing, her emphasis on relatedness: <strong>Ms. Tippett:</strong> Right. So could we — could we state that with positive affect and say relationship [laugh]?" So to Tippett, antagonism by itself isn't pretty and prefers a coupling: offering us "constructively antagonistic." She marries Mars to Venus, and together they are more than the sum of their parts.</p>

<p>David since you point it out, I can see where predator evisceration photography could be a creative response to the tyranny of cute that dominates the calendar market.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Here's another perspective from Peter Korn, author of Why We Make Things And Why It Matters, in an interview <a href="http://www.artofmanliness.com/2015/06/06/podcast-117-what-craftsmanship-can-teach-us-about-the-good-life-with-peter-korn/">http://www.artofmanliness.com/2015/06/06/podcast-117-what-craftsmanship-can-teach-us-about-the-good-life-with-peter-korn/</a></p>

 

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<p><strong>Peter Korn</strong>: For my generation what we very much saw craft as was an opportunity to be self-employed, self-expressive, self-sufficient and self-actualized. The obvious common word there being self, and thinking about this I then came to see that between the end of the 19th Century and the late e part of the 20th Century which is where I was practicing craft for the most part. The normative idea in our society of what an individual is, of what the self is, had changed radically. It had been changing a long time but it really changed quickly and radically in 20th Century, and the difference was that for all of human history the individual had thought of himself or herself as belonging to a larger social entity as sort of conceptualize the self you might say it’s like a finger on the hand.</p>

<p>In the 20th Century we saw the rise of this idea of the individual as being fully autonomous and separate and individual and rational, and able to choose everything was choice, and instead of belonging to a society being shaped by it we started to see ourselves as being to pick and choose where in society we want, what ideas we like, and it was that idea of the fully autonomous individual that changed the way we approached craft so that another way to say this is that if you look at art over the millennia, art just tend to portrait a place where they think truth resides and so you’ve got a Greek Art portrayed this ideal of humanity outside of space and time in other words truth lay outside of humanity.</p>

<p>You’ve got a lot of Christian art in the middle ages and the renaissance that portrayed scenes from the bible essentially, the idea being the truth resided in God’s kingdom, in the bible, as you know it’s expressed in the bible, again, outside of man. And then you’ve got the Hudson River School of Art in the 20th Century which portrayed nature and that went along with all sorts of enlightenment idea about the novel savage and so truth was thought to reside in nature, and then if you come into the 1940s for example our abstract expression as in you’ve got artist who are splattering paint or they’re painting abstract things where the panting take shape because every choice the artist makes is a response to whatever previous mark he or she has made on the canvas. Every choice the artist makes is a response to whatever previous mark he or she has made on the canvas, and so what you get as people painting a portrait of their intuition, of their interior self, so that we were out of place then where truth resides internally and it’s for us to discover as artist or as an individuals and bring forth to share with other people to very different concepts of what the individual is that has shaped my generation and subsequent generations.</p>

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<p>Which is Korn's historical view.</p>

<p>I wouldn't necessarily wish for "softer phrasing." There are many degrees of antagonism. The definition of antagonism allows for a range, from a more benign opposition of forces to active hatred.</p>

<p>I always liked Stieglitz's quote about Pictorialism, a movement he helped found and foster . . . and then ranted against.</p>

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<p>"It is high time that the stupidity and sham in pictorial photography be struck a solarplexus blow ... Claims of art won't do. Let the photographer make a perfect photograph. And if he happens to be a lover of perfection and a seer, the resulting photograph will be straight and beautiful - a true photograph."</p>

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<p>Some artists speak in very antagonistic terms (both in words and through their art) and that has a place, a vital and, I think, necessary one.</p>

<p>Photographers who've antagonized and moved the conversation of photography forward:</p>

<p>Sally Mann<br>

Daine Arbus<br>

Robert Mapplethorpe<br>

Andres Serrano<br>

Larry Clark<br>

Bruce Gilden<br>

Weegee</p>

<p>To name but a few. I don't think they all set out to antagonize (though some did). Some were viewed as antagonistic even if they weren't being so intentionally.</p>

<p>I think, as the Dadists showed, there's also a place for the destructive in art . . . as well as the deconstructivist, which others showed.</p>

<p>Korn talks about the ideas of the 20th century related to the rise of the individual as being fully autonomous (instead of as belonging to society). In many ways, that's how we understand the influence and importance of Existentialism, radical choice and autonomy.</p>

<p>Sartre, late in his career, had some interesting insights into the self, freedom, and our relationship to others. There's a confrontational aspect to it but there's also a social aspect to it. I think the artist asserting his individuality, his self-ness, the artist not needing to collaborate (in typical terms) is likely still collaborating in many ways. Just as Aristotle responded to Plato and Kant to Descartes (even across centuries), John Cage responds to Bach, Willem de Kooning and Jasper Johns respond to Picasso.</p>

<p>Sartre, from <em>Existentialism Is A Humanism</em></p>

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<p>. . . the subjectivity which we thus postulate as the standard of truth is no narrowly individual subjectivism, for as we have demonstrated, it is not only one’s own self that one discovers in the <em>cogito</em>, but those of others too. Contrary to the philosophy of Descartes, contrary to that of Kant, when we say “I think” we are attaining to ourselves in the presence of the other, and we are just as certain of the other as we are of ourselves. Thus the man who discovers himself directly in the <em>cogito</em> also discovers all the others, and discovers them as the condition of his own existence. He recognises that he cannot be anything (in the sense in which one says one is spiritual, or that one is wicked or jealous) unless others recognise him as such. I cannot obtain any truth whatsoever about myself, except through the mediation of another. The other is indispensable to my existence, and equally so to any knowledge I can have of myself. Under these conditions, the intimate discovery of myself is at the same time the revelation of the other as a freedom which confronts mine, and which cannot think or will without doing so either for or against me. Thus, at once, we find ourselves in a world which is, let us say, that of “inter-subjectivity”. It is in this world that man has to decide what he is and what others are.</p>

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<p>Yes and so Stieglitz at some point couldn't do Pictorialism any longer. If (or since) he was at the cusp of emerging individualism, then what followed was anti-authoritarian with a Sartre finding us in a world where "...man has to decide what he is and what others are." Not able to abide authoritarian decisions about who one is and who others are, which 'failure to abide' is an antagonism that constructively constructs or creates something else. I'm also considering the idea that self-expression is antagonistic in some measure. Individual self exists in social context and Dadists emerged in dialog with existing social contexts; extreme social contexts I add because all social contexts at that time failed to prevent world war. I think the creative act has been looked at as a destructive act to varying degrees.</p>

<p>Stieglitz has another quote [ Alfred Stieglitz (March 14, 1922). "Is Photography a Failure?". <em>New York Sun</em>: 5. As referenced in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Stieglitz">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Stieglitz</a> ]:</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Photography is not an art. Neither is painting, nor sculpture, literature or music. They are only different media for the individual to express his aesthetic feelings… You do not have to be a painter or a sculptor to be an artist. You may be a shoemaker. You may be creative as such. And, if so, you are a greater artist than the majority of the painters whose work is shown in the art galleries of today."</p>

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<p>I think he overstates, but that's OK. It's his democratization of creativity that interests me. But where is that democratization going with its stress on the invidual?</p>

<p>Peter Korn's example of a Jackson Pollock "... Every choice the artist makes is a response to whatever previous mark he or she has made on the canvas, and so what you get as people painting a portrait of their intuition, of their interior self,..." I would have thought Pollock then as having created the penultimate selfie, but current trends with smart phones suggest Pollock didn't create the penultimate selfie. I'm curious as to where we go once the penultimate selfie is created. And wonder if it will come from a highbrows or the demos.</p>

<p>As to what follows. Here's a movie. The Army (1944) on Hulu whose details should read: A family [not a widow] raises her sickly son to be strong enough to join the army and fight on the front lines. This is a Japanese film, WWII war propaganda. But as I watched it I couldn't help from feeling it was an intentionally anti-war film, I couldn't ask for a movie that artistically expressed a complete rejection of militarism for the effects of militarism's authoritarianism on a family. A mother whose duty is to raise a fit son and deliver him to his Majesty? But what it does portray, antagonistically or not, is the end of a way of life, and anyone watching today would see that film as anti-war and a marker for the beginning of the selfie in Japan, that a fair statement if it is fair statement to characterize 20th century art as an evolution of the selfie. Individualization followed destructive, malignant authoritarianism. Will, or has, individualization become destructive and malignant?</p>

<p>Which brings me to the selfie's present form, the smart phone selfie, as the culmination of the central trend in 20th century art, democratized. Most of the selfies I view are taken by women. It is the artistic media, photography, not painting, not sculpture, literature or music, the latter dominated by men unlike now photography which is becoming the dominant form of women's own artistic self expression, democratized. In the selfie women define themselves, take control of their identity, reject authoritarism, though you may be a homemaker, though you may be a shoe maker, it is with your own camera that you as a woman give artistic expression which is creative "as such", greater as an artist than the majority of those whose work is shown in the art galleries of today.</p>

<p>Rather than malignant, the selfie is reinvigorating self-expression and we are far from some final stage individualism's inexorable march. The selfie is constructive antagonism, creativity, in conversation with authority.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>With the foregoing affirmation of the selfie, where women have staked out territory to finally self-define, most territory already well occupied by hosts of others who would define them in a familiar and ancient battle for control of women, a control and harnessing of nature for gain that the control of women necessarily represents: with that affirmation of the selfie and acknowledgement of women's innate struggle against being controlled I have left unaddressed the question of what follows. At what point in the future will our cultural history as recorded by photography be on the face of it an irrefutable argument against individualism, just like on the face of it the film The Army, when viewed today, is an irrefutable argument against thousands of years of authoritarianism and an irrefutable argument against the control of women and nature? At some point self will be defined in some accord that will allow for reformation of community, a reformation of the substrate of human cooperative life that isn't destructive to women and to nature. At that point those in the future will look back to our culture as expressed in part by photography, film, sculpture, literature and toss it away in wonderment at how we could ever have lived the way we live today, the seeds of our own destruction so obviously woven into the fabric of our existence the wonder will be that we didn't just at this time throw that all away.</p>

<p>My apologies up front for not going into some of the follow-up replies, but in the OP what strikes me most is the importance given to novel and useful (within a social context). It sounds like a rather tall order, maybe even rather exclusive.<br>

How novel can one still be, or how exactly does one want to see things as novel? Is picking up on 2 or 3 older movements and styles, and blending them into something personal novel, or is it a mixture of old things?<br>

Useful, to me, is too tricky. Art of art's sake, or not. Does art have to be socially engaged, or can it be purely individual? I'm not going to answer that, it's too old a discussion with too little conclusion. And ultimately, I feel it doesn't matter. Expressing something does - and that expression can have its (social) resonance, and as a result have effect (usefulness). Or it can just be a purely personal thing. I don't think this makes it more or less creative.</p>

<p>Is antagonism in itself useful, or in fact creative? Is disagreeing more creative than agreeing? Is carving a new path by definition more difficult and daring than perfecting the existing path? Is antagonism as antagonistic as we're lead to believe?<br>

Many of the "revolutions"- both within arts, or within a wider context - aren't as immediate and abrupt as popular writing is telling you. If I were to believe the short writings on classical music, Beethoven's 3rd symphony changed everything - disruptive, very novel, very antagonistic, revolutionairy. And I cannot help but wonder if they ever cared to listen carefully to the 2nd symphony. It was all already there.<br />It's a cycle, with accelerations and slow downs and multiple cycles running simultaneously alongside. So, are those who work in times of accelerations more creative than those who seek to perfect the cycle during its slow down period? I find that hard to defend, look back at centuries of people expressing themselves creatively, and you will find too much great and absolutely creative work among artists that were more conformist than antagonist.</p>

<p>I do think that a sense of antagonism is part of us becoming creatively aware, a trigger for that need and want to express oneself creatively. All on our own level, and some are more conformists than others, but all part of standing on shoulders of giants, and trying to look further. So it sure plays its part, and not an insignificant part. But it's with twists and turns, interaction between artist, his world around him and his views on it - none of them constants, and none of them isolated to the strictly personal, yet also not completely 'public domain' either.</p>

<p>In my work, antagosism isn't actively there. I'm not that deliberate in what I try to insert into my images - it's slices of my surroundings as I see them, sometimes in context and sometimes just because I feel it'll make a nice image. It's not a response to others. In fact, I feel creatively more free if I just do as I please without thinking about those others, most of the time. Just do what I feel like doing. Arguably a highly egoistic/egocentric approach and in a way antagonistic to comunal sense that was popular before I was born.... but it'd be so subconscious that I'd find it stretching the definitions a bit too much to accept all that.</p>

<p>Some great points, Wouter. We talk about imitation and creativity but rarely dissect them. Is it imitation if I choose the same subject matter as someone else but personalize it? Is it imitation if mine, on the surface, looks like others but it's mine? Does creativity have to equate with novelty?</p>

<p>Charles, while contemporary art may be leaning toward more democratization and while various schools of art have sought to allow into the art world all kinds of readymades, there's a risk of rendering art meaningless by overdoing it.</p>

<p>I think selfies are a phenomenon and haven't made a study of them enough to know how much validity there is in your claims about selfies and women. Definitely of interest is your mention of women having, through selfies, control of their images. To the extent that's true, it would be liberating. But how much are there selfies influenced by other selfies and by the advertising world in general. All of our self perceptions have already been so influenced by Hollywood and Madison Avenue that I wonder if any of us will ever be truly free to see ourselves in our own unique way.</p>

<p>Due to their immediacy, I also have to wonder how many people might regret what they posted of themselves the night before at the party or when under the influence. My guess is that professors and potential bosses might hold unflattering posted selfies more against women than they would against men. So just how freeing this practice ultimately is could still be debatable. We have not only to consider what women are able to do in society but how society views what women do.</p>

<p>All that being said, I'm not sure why I would automatically consider a selfie art. Some selfies would be art, of course, and I'm not getting into a discussion of what is art, but I think most selfies are not art, not intended to be art, not understood as art, and they certainly don't need to be in order to have social value and cultural significance.</p>

<p>For whatever help this is worth, I located some unpacking of the phrase "constructive antagonism." The source is a book by Professor Nancy Rosenblum (www.gov.harvard.edu/people/faculty/nancy-rosenblum), entitled <strong>On the Side of Angels</strong>. (http://press.princeton.edu/titles/8812.html) She quotes John Stuart Mill as suggesting this phrase with a meaning akin to the meaning of the term "dialectic."<br /></p>

<p> </p>

<p>"(www.gov.harvard.edu/people/faculty/nancy-rosenblum), entitled <strong>On the Side of Angels</strong>. (http://press.princeton.edu/titles/8812.html) She quotes John Stuart Mill as suggesting this phrase with a meaning akin to the meaning of the term "dialectic."</p>

<p>Word play, attaching meanings to confuse and express intellectual superiority. Endless quotes. </p>

<p>All photography has elements of antagonism dependent on what the photographer is trying to portray and how the viewer percieves.</p>

<p>A bird of prey eating and capturing prey is not antagonistic because that is what they do. Nothing special.</p>

<p>This is a international site, and if you want members to participate from other countries...try talking in plain English so folks from those countries can join in. Talking gibberish, and playing with words without any real sensible meaning is a load of clap trap.</p>

<p>Not referring to you Michael.</p>

Allen, English is not my native language. Nonetheless it seems possible to understand what is written and try to constructively join the discussion, rather than making some simple snarky remarks that add nothing.

Maybe it's not the language skills of the international visitors that are your problem here.

<p>If not me, Allen, then who?</p>

<p>It seems to me that the thread begins with a technique a team of collaborators might use to explore their various views of some aspect of their joint project to reconcile their differences. Naturally, they don't always agree with each other, but nevertheless their efforts are often required to have a single resolution. Hence "creative antagonism" or perhaps you might call it a "working compromise."</p>

<p>The OP then appears to go on to apply the term by observing a conflict between prey and predator which he sees as antagonistic. As well he might think that! Who can imagine that a creature would enjoy being turned into food? This seems to me to be a somewhat twisted interpretation of the original thought though. Here he is being creative with his photography as he observes his subject being antagonistic. The teamwork required to realize a common objective got completely lost.</p>

<p>I think we ought to suggest that the OP go back to his drawing board to find a way to reconcile the difference between a group dynamic demonstrated in a of people working together and a single individual working on whatever he finds in front of him.</p>

<p>The evidence for creativity is found in the results it produces, after all. Creativity fits into both the group and individual setting, but antagonism doesn't. Certainly not antagonism used to characterize a disagreement among the members of a team engaged in planning and managing some common project. In fact, I find it to be difficult to apply antagonism used this way to the individual photographer at all. Perhaps he is confused or conflicted in some way as he tries to see the perfect picture before tripping his camera shutter? Beats me! Naturally, you can overthink just about anything. Go figure.</p>

<p>This has been an interesting thread. From what has been said so far, it would appear that "creative antagonism" is a fancy new way of saying "creative tension", which almost everyone would agree is essential for the creative process. This can of course take numerous forms - one interesting example already mentioned is comedy writing, with a sharp contrast between the American style of group script meetings and writers constantly trying to top each other (under heavy pressure from sponsors to produce an immediate ratings hit), and the British way , which tends to have pairs of writers who spend most of their time in the pub or each other's apartments and allows comedy series to mature even if the first episodes bomb (for example, "Blackadder").<br>

With specific reference to photography, creative tension may drive pictorialists to produce prints with ever-more-wonderful tone scales and sharpness, it may equally motivate a Weegee to beat his fellow pressmen to the punch, or a Diane Arbus to study people on the fringes of society, or a Don McCullin to document warfare, even though he was plagued by demons afterwards. Creative tension may even take the form of deliberate aggression in the form of polemical works such as W. Eugene Smith's "Minamata" or Philip Jones Griffiths' "Vietman Inc." In my view, with selfies there is a total lack of creative tension, the only driving force being superficial narcissism, which I feel disqualifies them as art - there is not even the inadvertent artistic content of a traditional snapshot, which at least shows some kind of interaction with the environment.</p>

<p>Wouter "I do think that a sense of antagonism is part of us becoming creatively aware, a trigger for that need and want to express oneself creatively."</p>

<p>OK good, that movement from antagonism to creative awareness reminds me of the Dr. Jung interview, introduced as a neuroscientist who explores creativity. Particularly, from the written introduction for the Ms. Tippett interview with him "Rex Jung has notably helped describe something called transient hypofrontality. In layman's terms, it's now possible to see the difference between intelligence and creativity in the brain. We can watch the brain calm its powerful organizing frontal lobes and become more "meandering," less directed, in order to make creative connections."<br>

<br />Wouter "How novel can one still be, or how exactly does one want to see things as novel? Is picking up on 2 or 3 older movements and styles, and blending them into something personal novel, or is it a mixture of old things? Useful, to me, is too tricky. Art of art's sake, or not. Does art have to be socially engaged, or can it be purely individual? I'm not going to answer that, it's too old a discussion with too little conclusion."<br>

<br />I don't know the answers to the questions you raise there. But as to the question about if a creative product has to be useful and socially engaged, yes; but that is Dr. Jung's working definition and he found that definition already in use when he began his professional work on creativity, according to his statements in the interview. So my approach is to accept that defintion for discussions sake alone.<br>

<br />Wouter "In fact, I feel creatively more free if I just do as I please without thinking about those others, most of the time."<br>

I hear you.</p>

<p>Michael "Mill as suggesting this phrase with a meaning akin to the meaning of the term "dialectic.""</p>

<p>I think you're onto something. That source sounds a lot like something Ms. Tippett would have read. Thanks!</p>

<p>Fred "All that being said, I'm not sure why I would automatically consider a selfie art."</p>

<p>All art is self-expression, but not all self-expression is art? And I think that Dr. Jung is looking at creativity generally, not art specifically. So all creativity is self-expression, but not all self-expression is creative.</p>

<p>One idea Dr. Jung expressed in the interview, when speaking to why social context is an element of the working definition of creativity he uses, is that a creative product needs to be intelligible. That makes sense if, as we say about Art, that Art is a dialog. So although I can't understand a Jackson Pollock without help, others can, he is intelligible to them and can explain it, etc. Which does get at a question Wouter raised earlier as to if art can be purely individual. I suppose it can if it is intelligible?</p>

<p>Albert - "The OP then appears to go on to apply the term by observing a conflict between prey and predator which he sees as antagonistic."</p>

<p>No, I was trying to say that some dissatisfaction I had with bird photography, dissatisfied that emphasis on eating was unfair in some way. So I showed a shot where I had tried to exaggerate the drama of predatory/prey. I wasn't meaning to speak to the antagonism between the two birds.</p>

<p>Albert - "I think we ought to suggest that the OP go back to his drawing board to find a way to reconcile the difference between a group dynamic demonstrated in a of people working together and a single individual working on whatever he finds in front of him."</p>

<p>I'm not sure how to reconcile that difference. One attempt would be to say that no man is an island, no single individual is without influences of others. In a group dynamic, say the practice of brainstorming: from the interview that dynamic isn't conducive to creativity per Dr. Jung in the interview. Ms. Tippett offers a different group dynamic, like a dynamic in producing Seinfield or SNL. But neither offers that creativity is necessarily exhibited only in group work, collaborations which again seems a point that common sense favors. </p>

<p>Wouter has suggested, if I understand him correctly, that an antagonism might be part of his process at times, can at times be "...a trigger for that need and want to express oneself creatively."</p>

<p>And I do agree one can overthink anything, as I know from experience. What was also interesting in the neuroscientist's view is that he can measure the thinking, or intelligent, part of the brain turning off to some extent when a meandering creative brain process engages. But I don't think that means, or implies, that an antagonism must exist before a meandering.</p>

<p>David B. I agree with your post, appreciate the clarification of terminology and particularly fleshing out examples and the references to photographers. Agree, that is, up to the point where we do have somewhat different views of selfies.</p>

<p>Question though, what about a Jackson Pollock who I portray as having produced some selfies in paint? I'm relying on Korn as having given an accurate description of some of that type of art as being an interior portrait, Korn quoted above, here in part: "... Every choice the artist makes is a response to whatever previous mark he or she has made on the canvas, and so what you get as [sic - bad transcript of the interview with Korn] people painting a portrait of their intuition, of their interior self,..."</p>

<p>If the individual self and it's interiors are a proper subject, not necessarily narcissistic, then, well? But I think my points about selfies were more of what I am exploring as to their culture and/or historical significance, less so about them as art. Certainly self-portraiture is an art form though.</p>

<p>One other thought. Let's say that in my accepting Dr. Jung's working definition of creativity, let's say that I was suspending disbelief so as to not quibble with questions about that definition that are much larger than I am. Does that have anything to do with what Dr. Jung terms transient hypofrontality? Did I shut down my reasoning to meander a bit? Probably. But that suspension of disbelief also I recognize in my viewing movies, theater, other forms of art. Transient hypofrontality in creative consumption of art products too? Well I'm getting sleepy for now.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Question though, what about a Jackson Pollock who I portray as having produced some selfies in paint? I'm relying on Korn as having given an accurate description of some of that type of art as being an interior portrait, Korn quoted above, here in part: "... Every choice the artist makes is a response to whatever previous mark he or she has made on the canvas, and so what you get as [sic - bad transcript of the interview with Korn] people painting a portrait of their intuition, of their interior self,..."</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Every action we take, not just art-making, can be considered to help build a portrait of ourselves. Only in that sense are all selfies portraits, but no more so than how we wave good-bye, how we hold ourselves when smoking a cigarette, how we respond in a crisis, or what fear or joy look like in our faces. And . . . I think a self portrait is different from a picture that is of or includes oneself. I think most selfies would fall under the latter rather than the former concept.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>All art is self-expression, but not all self-expression is art? And I think that Dr. Jung is looking at creativity generally, not art specifically. So all creativity is self-expression, but not all self-expression is creative.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>A good start, but not quite. I'd lose the "self" and never start a sentence with "All art (or creativity) is . . ." since I don't think all art or creativity has in common any single quality. I think art is more like a series of Venn diagrams with overlapping characteristics, where no one characteristic is necessarily present in all cases.<br /> <br /> If and when expression applies to art and creativity, and I think it often does, I tend not to think of it solely as self expression. Art has an audience or viewer, even if it's only the artist. When God, the ultimate Creator according to various mythologies, finishes Her work, She stands back from it and declares "It is good." Even She becomes the observer. The expression is a matter of collaboration, not owing to a sole perspective. Getting back to mere mortals, the expressions come not only from the self but often simply through the self as a result of interactions with others, as a result of history, as a result of a dialogue with other artists, present and past, as well as other things. Many artists and creative types say they are the vessel through which something gets expressed which I think is a different concept from "self-expression." I'm not saying self-expression isn't something to consider. I'm saying it's not the only kind of expression to consider when discussing creativity or the artist. I think artists tend to be in touch with things beyond themselves and the expressions can come from more universal/transcendent places and not just found within. Much artistic and creative expression is more a <em>zeitgeist</em>. Artists can tap into what's all of ours, not just what's theirs. A Beethoven symphony and a Renoir painting and a Stieglitz photo feels as much mine as theirs, and I believe it comes from that sort of place.</p>