Is there such a thing as creativity?

[beeman458]

Spent a heck of a lot of time trying to figure out an element; that worked:)

[jake_tauber]

Virtually all human endeavors draw on the past. Art, like life, is part of a continuum. The challenge is to show something in a fresh way by incorporating your own point of view.

[kbridgman]

Most creativity is really only finding new ways of doing the same old thing. Think about this for a minute. For those of us who are old enough to remember the 1950's life isn't all that much different today than it was then. In the 1950's we had televison, telephones, dishwashers, washing machines, air conditioning, automobiles, car phones, airplanes, refrigeration, lawn mowers, radios, grocery stores, small cameras, hospitals, surgeons, rockets, hardware stores, department stores, even computers and stereos....you get the idea...all the same kinds of things we have today. The difference is in the degree of impact all those things have on our lives. Nothing is really new, but we have become more creative in how we use them and how we build them and apply them to our lives. Creativity in general is simply figuring out a newer and different way of doing what has already been done. It is a never ending process. Look at the computers of the 1950's compared to what we have today and the difference is remarkable...they still basically function the same way, only now they are cheaper and faster and smaller and have so many more applications. Creativity in photography is much the same. Most every kind of photograph a person could possibly take has already been taken...many zillions of times...the difference is how the newest version impacts the viewer...there will be and must be something that catches the imagination, and as time progresses, new ways of applying the photographic arts to stimulate the senses will continue to evolve.

[grain]

Well althought there is much influence from those that come before us, it's not needed to

persevere. Cultures in a vaccuum create artworks regardless of contact with outside influences. it

is in our nature, and I may venture, in our spirit.

Reading up on the old-school workers like Penn, Bresson and stiechen is like a cave man of

yore visiting Lascaux, it gives one a sense of inheritance, of cultural identity.

 

So "Is there such a thing as creativity?" What tripe.

What does an agnostic dyslexic insomniac do?

[simon_glass]

I�m always disheartened by people who think that everything has been done. If one

accepts that art reflects the world and that the world changes, then one accepts that the

new is possible.

 

Technological progress, for example, responds to a perceived need and always results in

capacities that extend beyond the original intention. Digital photography may have been

developed in response to a perceived need to communicate at the speed of light. It was

not initially meant to damage our faith in the document. It�s just an example.

 

The usefulness of knowledge, I believe, is in being able to relate it to other knowledge.

This is how we move forward.

 

Thanks for the question.

Simon Glass

www.simonglass.com

[kbinner]

kinda late, but at least i get the last word. my shooting mantra: forgetyourinfluences, forgetyourinfluences, forgetyourinfluences...

 

also helps to have strong opinions and something to say about the world.

[takermaker]

youth lacks the inteligence to create so he invests in toys to impress for he will not take the time to learn the basics therefor he has no foundation -He is not different -he is boring -he is a trend follower --a man who could not sell his work will sell the same if he does his work standing on his head because he has an adiance-to most that is creativity- I am a photographic emulsion technologist for old time b/w silver gelatin emulsions and practitioner of the silver gelatino negative glass plate process and refuses to be a boring trend follower- i never finished high school and learned what i do from old books teaching institutions threw out as they gathered dust---to me creativity is createing an emulsion for landscape work or portrature-I also see no hope in digital technology --connoisseurs of silver gelatino art pay high dollars for such work and if u care to create a 42x60 mural on canves with a positive silver chloride emulsion that will jump out at you your talking about thousands of dollars-this is not suggested to those with orginal ideas who have things to do but to those who think there is nothing beyond oiginal- takermaker

[pico_digoliardi]

"youth lacks the inteligence to create so he invests in toys to impress"

 

Would it be fair to say that old age brings rigormortis into the thought system long before death?

[kbinner]

pico, i say it's FEAR, rather than old age. everyone gets old. yet some retain youthful minds.

[simon_glass]

Ken, if I forget my influences I'm more likely to merely repeat them. I study my influences.

But, yes, old age doesn't have to bring on mental rigor mortis (I hope). And for many people,

fear stifles from grade school on.

[kbinner]

<center>i study them too. but when it comes time to shoot, i try to clear my mind. subconsciously they're always there. just suggesting a HCB fan NOT seek out a puddle and wait for someone to jump. will most likely produce an uninspired effort, much like this one...

<center><img src="http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/3937616-md.jpg"></center>

<center>.</center>

[c4-contemporary-art]

what would you all think of this; "only the unimaginative think it's all been done

before - because it's all that's occurred to them". Nothing's been done yet - think

about it THAT way. The amount of territory that we've covered,culturally, as a species

- is MINISCULE. Run with it.

 

Now HERE'S a question for you: "is there such a thing as intelligence?" I've been

wondering this lately. I kind of have doubts. Or at least - that what we think of as

'intelligence' is not quite what we'd expected.

[pbajzek]

I have really enjoyed reading this thread. Thanks to everyone who has posted.

 

I am very skeptical of the term "creativity" as commonly applied to art (assuming we're

talking about art here). I think it sets us off on the wrong track. As I see it, creativity

(coming up with a new or novel way of doing something) is more of a problem-solving

skill which will undoubtedly be useful in making art, but it's not the driving force behind

things. I think with photography in particular (but all arts really, in different ways),

successful work is less about inventing and more about observing.

 

By the same token, I have a problem with valuing a piece of art by it's "newness" quotient,

as if the sole point of a work is to shock with novelty. I can think of very few masterpieces

of art that would live up to this. Pick any piece of art that moves you, and almost certainly

a great deal of creativity went into realizing the piece, but is that really all you see, or even

the main thing?

 

As to precedent and inspiration, I like to think of it this way: everything may in fact have

been done before, but not by me.

[simon_glass]

I think that like art, intelligence defies definition or measure. Some people claim that

intelligence is a capacity for learning. My own theory is that there are many different

intelligences, some of the body, some of the mind. I dunno. The American philosopher

Avital Ronell suggests that we should be examining stupidity rather than intelligence. She

considers it vital for the act of writing. �Poetic courage consists in embracing the terrible

lassitude of mind�s enfeeblement, the ability to endure the near facticity of

feeblemindedness.� According to Ronell, stupidity is the �risk that does not know and

cannot tell where it�s going � [which] points in these poems not to a morph of the action

hero, quick and present to the task, sure of aim, but to the depleted being, held back by

fear or indifference.� Where risk is involved, maybe we can see how stupidity might be

essential for any kind of artmaking.

 

I think the new is a vital ingredient in art. Not that every piece has to be, or can be new,

but without progress we simply repeat ourselves. The new doesn�t have to shock the way

Manet�s �Dejeuner sur l�herbe� or �Olympia� did in their time but if art is to inspire and

challenge thought, repetition won�t help. There�s a difference between doing something I

never did before and getting tremendous satisfaction from it and making something that

will stimulate thoughts that have never been thought before.

[pbajzek]

Nice post, Simon. This is kind of my point though: how do we know that a thought has

never been thought before? I certainly don't see how we can measure or verify a claim like

that. But a thought may occur to each of us for the first time, being new to us, regardless

of whether it's been thought before.

 

I think I was unclear in my post before: I did not mean to imply that we should just go

ahead and copy because we can't be bothered to think for ourselves. Rather, we should

think for ourselves and make art for ourselves without worrying about whether someone

else has thought this thought or made this piece. In other words, to act from a positive

impulse rather than making an exercise of avoiding things.

 

This is in no way meant to invalidate your post, just to clarify my own. I appreciate what

you've written though I find it a bit idealistic, strictly speaking.

[simon_glass]

Peter, thanks for your response. Right. Dang. Now I really have to think about this. Oh

well, that�s why I�m here.

 

Paradoxically, it seems that innovation only becomes apparent in retrospect. Picasso�s

turning of the figures toward the viewer in �Les Moiselles d�Avignon�, Sander�s

antipictorialist use of sharp lenses and glossy paper in his �Faces of Our Time�, Frank�s

antimodernist, grainy, tilted horizons in �The Americans� , Stockhausen�s use of industrial

sounds in his compositions. Not that any of these people were necessarily anti anything.

And precedents could be found for any of these examples, which makes me think that the

critical response to these works is part of what makes them innovative, if that�s possible.

Maybe this is why art cannot exist without language. Without a linguistic response there

can be no old school and therefore no new school.