The Creative Collide
Kiwi comedian and creative entrepreneur Philip Patston will explore ‘what happens when creativity and diversity collide’ in a new blog on The Big Idea called The Creative Collide.
"I am fascinated to foster a dialogue that generates exploration and greater awareness of the similarity, difference, variety and range of creative experiences and expression."
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What happened to the power?
Waking up one morning this week to no electricity throws me. I roll over to verify the time to see if it is a reasonable hour to begin my day's ingestion of caffeine and freeze: no digital readout. I struggle to widen my consciousness and listen: no trickle of water from the fish tank. My worst fears realised: no power. No coffee.
I get up and wander around the house in a daze of withdrawal and confusion. What to do? Everything in my morning routine feels on hold. No power. No coffee. Cold coffee? That's desperate. Other sources of heat? The gas barbecue...
The lights come on. So does the coffee machine. The barbecue stays unlit.
Later in the shower I reflect. How ridiculous that we have created the situation that every individual house relies on power from a wire connected to an external source of power. That we are so totally dependent on this external source that, when it fails, so does our ability to continue our lives unaffected. Why don't we use, by default, a combination of localised and collective power generation?
I'm totally unqualified to answer my own probing question. Thankfully, this is not a proposal for an alternative, dual-source electricity strategy, so I don't care.
What I do want to propose is that this is an interesting analogy for creativity. Where does it come from? Within or "without"? How many sources of creativity do we tap into? What happens to us when one source dwindles? I think that for a larger than healthy percentage of the population, creativity does come from an external source: media, be it television, internet, films, music. That's fine, but as we increase the ease with which we can access external media, do we diminish our ability to tap into internal sources of creativity? And how does that affect our personal power?
Last week, the creative enterprise for which I am responsible, Diversityworks, launched Creative Momentum. It's a virtual movement to explore creative diversity. As a diverse creative myself, not only in who I am but how I experience and express creativity, I am fascinated to foster a dialogue that generates exploration and greater awareness of the similarity, difference, variety and range of creative experiences and expression. To kick off we have an exclusive keynote by creativity expert Sir Ken Robinson, who makes a compelling case for educational, commercial and cultural organisations to consider diversity, creativity and the nature of ability into the future.
The Big Idea will be featuring content from Creative Momentum and in this blog I will be taking a closer look at what I want to call the "collide of creativity and diversity" – what happens at the point of impact?
I'm Philip Patston – questionably gay, disabled, vegetarian, Kiwi comedian, consultant, creative/social entrepreneur. This is "The Creative Collide". Welcome to a journey of epic proportions.
Comments
What I do want to propose is that this is an interesting analogy for creativity. Where does it come from? Within or "without"? How many sources of creativity do we tap into? What happens to us when one source dwindles? I think that for a larger than healthy percentage of the population, creativity does come from an external source: media, be it television, internet, films, music. That's fine, but as we increase the ease with which we can access external media, do we diminish our ability to tap into internal sources of creativity? And how does that effect our personal power?
I think this is a great question that can be taken on many different levels, from simply not having power to hop on your computer or plug in your guitar, all the way up to falling out of the loop of whats going on and losing inspiration. What does happen when people for whatever reason cant output their creativity?
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19 April 2009 - 21:33 PM
Great question also! I think many of the social health problems we grapple with are, if not a direct result, at least the indirect impact of creative repression. Creative expression is life force and when we lose our ability to create freely we lose part of our life. Crime, illness, depression - again and again we hear stories of people recovering from negative circumstances by "discovering" an artistic or creative talent - rap artists, cancer patients etc. What we have to ask is - another question - to what extent would these situations be prevented if people had fuller access to creative expression?
Philip Patston
"Crime, illness, depression - again and again we hear stories of people recovering from negative circumstances by "discovering" an artistic or creative talent - rap artists, cancer patients etc
I think this has something to do with possibly guilt or shame, wanting to give somthing back, as far as negitive social interaction goes ie. crime. Also people want or need to replace something with something. So upon purging a negitive aspect of their life they replace it with something creative in order to channel unwanted or negitive feelings. But this practise goes right across the "higher plain" board. People take on religion, animal/eco welfare, or just simply helping people in any way they can.
" to what extent would these situations be prevented if people had fuller access to creative expression?
I think only a small portion of these situations could be prevented due to so many variables. Simple factors like not having the money or resources, not being in a creative environment ("what do you mean you want to play guitar?, you should more worried about getting the cows moved up from the back paddock"), all the way up to the "deep" issues like not discovering hidden talent untill something "bad" happens, bringing forth the discovery of said talent.
Its a mixed bag of opposition, and upon the talents discovery, it usually gets chucked in the "hairy fairy" basket by the painfully practical populace, not allowing it to come into its whole fruition.
www.myspace.com/filterbrats
www.theproof.co.nz/lesfilterbrats