Mind-Map (1999)
Aims & Objectives:
______________
To form a social art organisation known as
The Creativity P-art-y centred upon the dual themes of "Creativity and Community".
To form a social art organisation whose political and social activities are expressed through all of the arts.
To form an
art-activist group known as the
"Creativity-Cell" as the creative core of the aforementioned party.
To write, produce, publish,organise, perform, and curate in a myriad of ways a manifesto of creativity and community.
To advance wider knowledge, of the processes and practices of both individual and social creativity for personal growth, community participation, social and political activity.
To advance wider public appreciation of the social value of creativity in relation to sustainable economic and community development.
To promote creativity, and creative processes for the wider public benefit in issues of Community, Education, Health, Public Policy, The Environment, The Arts and diverse forms of Culture, The Economy and Politics.
To advance public understanding of the nature, processes, and methods creativity in relation to individual, group, and organisational benefits.
To promote the critical importance of creativity as an innate human ability of unlimited resource, for personal and artistic expression.
To promote creativity as an organic human resource for solving social and economic problems, and developing education or employment processes.
To promote understanding of the social role and value of creativity in establishing diverse social networks, and the benefits creativity brings to cultural groupings, social cohesion, and sustainable Community bonds.
Rationale
_________
In 1959 in response to the rapid advances in technology, science, and social programs C.R.Rogers wrote:
"there is a desperate need for the creative behaviour of creative individuals." (Towards a Theory of Creativity 1959.)
Rogers argued that the accelerated pace of human advancement and knowledge would result in increased social problems, individual pathologies, international conflicts, and at worst, the annihilation of humanity unless Society evolved more creatively, and was able to cater for rapid technological change and social development. It is nearly 50 years since Rogers made his statement, yet still creativity is the least studied and the most misunderstood of any human activity.
Creativity has long been associated with the arts, and to a lesser extent as a resource for problem solving, however, creativity as a means for educational or personal development and its practical use to wider Society is less understood or utilised.
Although there are thousands of art courses at all levels of the education system for people to enrol on from the beginner to the more advanced artist, there is not a single course where you can study creativity and the underlying creative process as a subject in its own right; Until you reach the advanced level of postgraduate, and even then, their are only a few select courses whose entry criteria is very difficult for most to achieve, and very specific.
The reason for this is that although Governments insist they want their people,institutions and economies to be, or become more creative, they in fact view creativity with suspicion, and as a threat to the Political and social status quo.
In reality, World Governments view creative people, and creative ideas as unpredictable, and even dangerous social elements that are a constant threat to the established social and economic order.
In 1989, a group of students thought it would be a creative idea to have democracy in their Country and decided to campaign and demonstrate for this idea, however the established order of the imperial Chinese Government decided this wasn't very creative at all and would in fact upset their political status quo. This differing of opinion led to the massacre of hundreds of students and civilians in Tianamen square.(Page 1, The International Handbook of Creativity: R. Sternberg, Cambridge University Press; 2006)
Creativity, and the creative process underpins every aspect of human behaviour and endeavour, yet educationally, socially, economically, or politically the subject of creativity is avoided, or it is woven into a vague educational concept based upon the general idea that low level art class instruction for children will somehow bring about the entire creative potential of all children and students.
Unfortunately, the education system in the UK is centred upon fixed structures based upon standardised testing which negates creativity, and forces both tutor and pupil into a rigid polemical relationship rather than one of respectful understanding, and creative collaboration across all subjects. (Read: Paolo Freire and the "Banking system" of education)
There are two principals reasons why our educational institutions at all levels from kinder-garden and primary Schools to our most advanced Universities fail to appreciate the potential, or understand the innate nature of human creativity.
Firstly: the last thing Governments and established institutions want is for people to be creative because the more creative people become, the more critical, the more political, and the more socially aware they become of their life circumstances and their self-context within the world around them; This in turn makes it harder for Governments, politicians, and especially employers, to exert social control over them for the economic system of capitalism benefiting the status quo of the Banks, global businesses, and world Government power brokers. Brokers, who are in essence nothing more than administrators of people as automaton work resources who are key for the economic system to keep capitalism afloat (just).
Accordingly, funding for research into creativity, creative processes, and for creative projects and all areas of human activity is minimal. Funding for the arts especially, which is where the vast majority of individuals who believe they understand, or have already discovered their creativity, inevitably end up, is avoided at best, or actively prevented and repressed at worst.
Of course governments do not mind people becoming artists as such, as long as it only a select few, who are themselves firstly tutored, constrained, and then channelled by a select few elite art colleges and Government funded art institutions to participate in the "Creative Industries" as worker managed by the system of art in the industrialised art factory environment of the gallery system. This type of Government organised and State funded artist is socially acceptable; they fear only those artists who develop their creative abilities and social conscience not simply for arts sake , but through art to become more socially and politically engaged regarding the impact their work, and how their creative ideas could influence others.
In order to lessen the likelihood of this creative process of social consciousness emerging on a scale too widely spread for political or social containment, arts funding is strictly managed and controlled in a way that prevent the art world and the culture industry writ large fulfilling its own creative potential as a social catalyst in activating wider social and cultural movements of change.
The principal areas of cultural, artistic, and social creative life remain crystalized in the minds of the general public as either an elite area of special activity for a select gifted few, or for mere entertainment and leisure purposes as just reward for their co-operation in maintaining the system correctly through largely uninspiring jobs and non-careers.
Scientists, and psychologists cannot agree upon a single definition as to what creativity actually is. They cannot conduct reliable scientific experiments in laboratories on creativity which "fit" factual objective scientific criteria that science relies upon and searches for. The advancement of science is based upon the ability to replicate the same experiment again and again, and find the same predictable outcomes, so that science produces fact.
Fact however, is the antithesis of creativity, creativity is by its very nature elusive, spontaneous, and unpredictable, and as it cannot be scientifically understood and replicated, it cannot be controlled, managed or exploited safely for the furtherance of power elites, giant global businesses, or World Governments who are really working for these businesses rather than in the interests of the people, as we have clearly seen recently in the wake of the global economic and banking crisis whereby millions of people across the globe have lost life saving and their houses, yet world governments shell out trillions of dollars to try and cover up the mistakes made by banks and other financial institutions.
So scientists and psychologists avoid the subject and ignore it as "scientifically irrelevant" as one eminent psychologist informed me in one of the largest and most prestigious departments of psychology in the UK. A case of the ignorant being ignorant, and knowledge being repressed because the answers do not fit the all powerful logic of global, scientific, male dominated, western thought.
Without human creativity we would still be walking around in a primordial forest swamp dragging our knuckles along the ground, the concept of the wheel and our harnessing of fire would never have occurred to the human mind. It is precisely this creative ability to imagine and construct new ideas, visions, and possibilities of thought beyond the mere biological functions of our brains that is fundamental to our continued existence, and an essential part of both our social-evolutionary process.
Creativity is at the very heart of humankind desire to understand ourselves and our place in the universe,
Creativity may never be fully harnessed and "be understood"; it's a far too complex and sophisticated human ability and social process for that to occur. But, that does not mean we should ignore it or limit all creativity merely as art, and all art as creativity. David Bohm a renowned former scientist and theorist states that:
"Creativity is fundamental to human experience. The creative impulse is instinctive to everyone, but its potential is rarely realised. Its success depends upon the individuals ability to jolt the everyday mind into a dynamic state that enables true creativity and originality to become possible."
"By awakening this creative state of mind, each person can then discover the creative harmony that lies not only within their own psyche, but also behind everything that they experience." (David Bohm "On Creativity" 1996)
In theory, creativity is now top of the political agenda. Its importance and social value is being increasingly applied across all areas of social life; in business, creativity is used to improve production, innovation, and teamwork, in education creativity is being applied through-out the curriculum, and is no longer seen as the sole preserve of art classes; in public policy the application of creativity is increasingly seen as a resource for developing social innovations and solutions to address the problems of Society.
Are we, as a Society really moving towards a greater understanding of creativity? Because if we are, then we need to think about what that means for the development and self-expression of people, organisations, Communities and wider Society.
The applied social philosophy of the Creativity Manifesto is to promote greater understanding of creativity, its use and potential as a means for individual personal growth and self-development, and its wider applications to Communities, Organisational contexts, and Social institutions.
The Creativity Manifesto is merely one small social aspect of a global process of creative psychological and social evolution that seems to be taking place in an ever expanding and diverse ways, as individuals, groups, networks, and small creatively-led and ethically based individuals, organisations, and communities lead the way into a new future of fluidity, complexity, and uncertainty.
Through such endeavours, the aim of any Creativity Manifesto must be to promote the positive socio-economic benefits of developing a sustainable and ethical global "culture of creativity."
The social, organisational, and community concept of Creativity-Cells is intended to contribute to this overall socio-creative process, aid open communication, facilitate creative communities, innovations, and outcomes of social value that contribute to a more flexible, tolerant, and innovative Society centred upon human expression, community development, social, organisational, and political creativity.
The Creativity Manifesto regards the positive self-expression of human creativity in all forms, and through all mediums, as the most valuable human resource for individual growth, personal development, social, economic, and human advancement.
The Creativity Manifesto (2010)
