Creative class

The quote from "The Rise of the Creative city: Culture and Creativity in Copenhagen" Darrin Bayliss, 2006)

It is lifestyle rather then occupation though that seems to distinguish Creative Class. As Baris (2003) notes, this is a "group of people whose creativity permeates every aspect of their lives, who thrive on diversity and change, who collect experiments rather then posessions, and for whom the ability to express individuality and find an outlet for creativity is more important than any material gain".

Factors that attract and retain the Creative Class appears to offer a remarkably simple formula for economic development, which reflects their lifestyle choices and revolves around the three T's - technology, talent, and tolerance. Firstly, talent is attracted to tolerant and open regions where people "from any background, race, ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation can easily plug in" (Florida, 2002c, p.750). Bohemian cities, for instance, are viewed as open and attractive to talented and creative individuals, "including those who are likely to establish high-technology firms and work in high-technology industries" (Florida, 2002a, p.56). Secondly, "the creative class want to have interesting and challenging activities available to them. ... They want to live in a place that has a good buzz" (Florida, 2002b, p.283). Highly educated, talented, high human capital individuals, especially younger employees and those in knowledge industry labour markets "ixhibit a strong preference for cultural amenities" and "are drawn to places with vibrant music scenes, street-level culture, active nightlife, and other signifiers of being 'cool'"(Florida, 2002c, pp.749-750). Rather than shopping malls and sports stadia, the Creative Class seeks out authentic, historic districts; "street level innovation comes out of these 'marginal' neighborhoods, making them vital to nurturing a healthy Creative Class" (Baris,2003)

Art in theory

And so I began my art classes and I must say, they are the best classes I have been enrolled onto in a long time (at University of Oslo). We have best lecturers here with their philosophy and their thoughts that I can definitely relate to. Through art, we are given a possibility to get a better perspective on this world' events, and life in general. How does art relate to the sociatal structure of our world, even to political events perhaps. I can greatly appreciate it especially, taken all my previous experiences with people who had more materialistic view of art. I do not deny that art can be also materialistic and practical.

But I am more interested in its cultural aspect, how it unites people, ideas, how it can change our perspective on things, and, most importantly, the power of it, how it helped and helps to shape and change history. And these are topics that are being discussed!

Couple of further posts will be extracts from my current readings, and notes from lectures and seminars, so stay tuned if you are interested in the topic!

Art in Theory

Habermas, Jürgen: “Modernity” - An Incomplete Project” (1980) in Art in Theory 1900-1990 An Anthology of Changing Ideas, Ed. Charles Harrison & Paul Wood, Blackwell Publishers 1992, pp. 1000-1008

p.1004

Max Weber characterized cultural modernity as the separation of the substantive reason expressed in religion and metaphysics into three autonomous spheres. They are: science, morality, and art. These came to be differentiated because the unified world-views of religion and metaphysics fell apart. Since the 18C, the problems inherited from these older world-views could be arranged so as to fall under specific aspects of validity: truth, normative rightness, authenticity and beauty. They could be handled as questions of knowledge, or of justice and morality, or of taste. They could then be handled as questions of knowledge, or of justice and morality, or of taste. Scientific discourse, theories of morality, jurisprudence, and the production and criticism of art could in turn be institutionalised. [...]

Enlightenment thinkers of the cast of mind of Condorcet still had the extravagant expectation that the arts and sciences would promote not only the control of natural forces but also understanding of the world and of the self, moral progress, the justice of institutions and even the happiness of human beings. The 20C has shattered this optimism. The differentiation of science, morality and art has come to mean the autonomy of the segments treated by the specialist and their separation from the hermeneutics of everyday communication. This  splitting off is the problem that has given rise to efforts to 'negate' the culture of expertise. But the problem won't go away: should we try to hold on to the intentions of the Enlightenment, feeble as they may be, or should we declare the entire project of modernity a lost cause? I now want to return to the problem of artistic culture [...]  

Pictures, like words, are what we are made on.

"I am an inquisitive and chaotic traveler. I like discovering places haphazardly, through whatever images they might have to offer: landscapes and buildings, postcards and monuments, museums and galleries that house the iconographic memory of a place. Much as I love reading words, I love reading pictures, and I enjoy finding the stories explicitly or secretly woven into all kinds of works of art – without, however, having to resort to arcane or esoteric vocabularies. … I am guided not by any theory of art but merely by curiosity."

Every good story is of course both a picture and an idea, and the more they are interfused the better the problem is solved. Henry James, Guy de Maupassant

"Pictures, like stories, inform us. Aristotle suggested that every thought process required them. “Now, for the thinking soul, images take the place of direct perceptions; and when the soul asserts or denies that these images are good or bad, it either avoids or pursues them. Hence the soul never thinks without a mental image.” … existence takes place in an unfurling scroll of pictures captured by sight and enhanced or tempered by the other senses, pictures whose meaning (or presumption of meaning) varies constantly, building up a language made of pictures translated into words and words translated into pictures, through which we try to grasp and understand our very existence. The pictures that make up our world are symbols, signs, messages and allegories. Or perhaps they are merely empty presences that we fill with our desire, experience, questioning and regret. Whatever the case might be, pictures, like words, are the stuff we are made on."

From Reading Pictures by Alberto Manguel

Vigeland on Art

"People want to know 'the meaning'; they do not care about the rest. They want to be able to take out 'the idea' and 'the meaning' and put it back again like a book on a shelf. As though 'the meaning' were the most valuable aspect of a work of art. Look at the grandest of all works of art, Michelangelo's 'Dio crea il sole et la luna'.This work goves the impression of undiluted passion (aside from cracks, and so on) today as before, even though we all know that that was not how the solar system was created. - No, if one cannot allow oneself to be lifted, if one is not capable of being entranced by a work of art, transported by it, then one will never 'understand' it. People usually stand in front of a work of art with a stiff neck, rather than with bowed head. In fact, one must approach a piece of art with the mind of a child. Otherwise you will never understand it".

Notes on Art Education

Cultural Sustainability, cultural engagement and visual culture plays a big role in development of values and the transferring of belief systems.

Visual art making acknowledges previous learning, personal meaning making, the real world and audience. It presents a platform for critical self reflection and a space to facilitate the ongoing mediation of society, cultural values and citizenship.

It would have been interesting to explore how art making affirms our consciousness about the world and self through creative engagement and communicative knowing. How can we develop students’ capacities to engage creatively with learning in environments that provide opportunities for thoughtful participatory understanding about self as a citizen of the world, or as a citizen of the world, or as a member of none’s national or local community. It is identifying and reflecting that an understanding of one’s world is dependant on knowing how contemporary society communicates its values and beliefs informed by economic, environmental, cultural and political forces. In a world dominated by the triumpth of the image, multi-modal practices and visual culture (Duncum, 2003), being visually literate is fundamental, and having the skills to creatively engage with communicative knowing within the dominant discourse is essential to the active construction of an individual’s values, beliefs and identities.

Source: Creative Engagements with Visual Culture, Communicative Knowing, Citizenship and ContemporaryVisual Art Education 
Kathryn Grushka, University of Newcastle

Fundamentals of intercultural communication

“The many factors that divide us are actually much more superficial then those we share. Despite all of the things that differentiate us – race, language, religion, gender, wealth and so on – we are all equal concerning our fundamental humanity”. Dalai Lama

It is more important to concentrate on what unites humanity rather then divides. All of the imagined customs, religion, language, cultures, were all invented by us, humans, to differentiate ourselves from each other, but also to make it easier for ourselves to make sense of our complex world. They are all models, artificial paradigms that direct people through life.

By studying intercultural communication, we can help reduce xenophobia that exists across cultures. We also share inter-nationally and inter-culturally our love for beauty and love.  By using our existing international language of love and beauty (i.e. art, music) it can provide us with a common ground to establish an understanding across cultures. Humans are incredible creatures. They share similar values everywhere, but name them differently.

Xenophobia is defined as “an unreasonable Fear or hatred of foreigners or strangers or of that which is foreign or strange. It comes from the Greek words ξένος (xenos), meaning “stranger,” “foreigner,” and φόβος (phobos), meaning “fear.”

Comments from Paulo Coelho’s blog:

“Life means adventure, change, things that not everybody has the courage to face and accept. When one sees someone who is unfamiliar, a subconscious fear springs up” (Ruth)

“Xenophobia isn’t just the fear of strangers, it’s being afraid of what happens between different generations. Most people are afraid of today, they prefer to live in the past. My country (Russia) is an excellent example of this”. (Dasha)

“Here in Denmark we have a festival that lasts about a week and attracts 100,000 strangers to celebrate life, share common interests and learn from the differences. People embrace for no reason except being on the same path, they sing and get drunk together. When the festival is over, a strange atmosphere takes over the town again, and strangers are once more seen as a threat”. (Warrior of Running Water)

“People in my country (Poland) lived through the tyranny of Hitler and the Soviet oppression, and they don’t seem to have learned anything. It terrifies me to see people who experienced the horrors of Nazism behaving the same way today, avoiding everything that is unknown or different. The worst of it all is that they use religion to justify their acts, arguing that all those who aren’t Christians should be banished from society. This blind faith is worse than having no faith at all”. (Radek)

The importance of Art Education

Researching into Art and its importance of giving it a significant placement within our societies.

Personal perspective:

The more we travel the more capabilities we have to absorb and critically overlook our world with its people and surroundings. We grow, we learn, we get wiser, but it does not become easier, rather the opposite, to understand this world, humanity in general. Traveling the world and speaking several languages does not solve any problems and cannot contribute to the magic formula of gaining the control over the world structure. It raises even more questions instead, seeing all the complexities of human soul, you cannot but wonder about its similarities, as well is it predictabilities. You become overly self-critical as you recognize some of flaws in yourself, seeing yourself from many perspective sets you in a difficult position of occasional over analysis, which sometimes is critical to our happiness and careless existence. But as much as you would have wanted to turn the clocks backwards and go back to simplicity and childish view of the world, it is impossible. You want to climb more to fill in all the gaps, to get all your questions answered. The biggest challenge in this case is to start moving in the opposite direction: to learn how to stop, relax, embrace yourself in the moment and meditate. Another solution is to stop caring about your own fulfillment, which is very much propagandised by many western societies, but rather start caring about others, which might save yourself a soul and sanity. Such journey can be difficult and it easy to get lost among endless opportunities and ideas.

Here comes the importance of creativity and art. Vision of the world as something that is based on principles, grids and models is rather abstract and to be honest, rather depressing thought. Any creative act, be it traveling, attending an art exhibition, or having a stimulating and challenging conversation, let us start re-evaluating our personal ambitions, dreams, challenges acquired perspectives, values and principles. Art and ‘creative act’ keep our motivation on the high, without letting us to get bored by accepting our life routines. 

Art also challenges our materialistic values. The importance of family and love is evident and yet many people in the western world tend to forget this simple truth. What one might call ‘simple’ life, is one of the richest in reality. What can be more important that being in the company of people who you know care about you, love you in any way. What can be more valuable then a walk or a chat to a person whose words you know will stay with you and become part of your soul forever. All things material age, people die, but their souls, their love and their creations live on. So isn’t it the most valuable thing in the world? Art helps societies, communities and younger generations to find this spiritual connection through creative exercises. Some might argue that this is an overly simplistic, or maybe overly spiritualistic way of looking at things, that we need economic growth, we need stimuli to keep the humanity grow and develop and this is also very right. I believe that everyone chooses how to balance their lives, which consequently creates a balance on the bigger scale in this world between people of all kinds – sky walkers, dreamers, thinkers, painters, high climbers, money and power grabbers. In the ideal world everyone has this balance within one selves, where we have place for love, care, our children, our work, our passions and hobbies. But it is difficult to achieve in the society where arrogance and money serve as main stimuli. We need to rethink. We need to invest more in non-material things, such as education, art, sustainability and communities.  

Creative Engagements with Visual Culture, Communicative Knowing, Citizenship and

Contemporary Visual Art Education

Kathryn Grushka, University of Newcastle

Article discusses why it is important to develop students’ capacities to engage creatively with learning in environments that provide opportunities for thoughtful participatory understanding about self as a citizen of the world, or as a member of one’s national or local community.

Abstract

New learning in a global society gives attention to the need for learners to engage in constructive, meaningful and transformative processes which have communicative relevance to themselves. It acknowledges the need for cultural sustainability, and the vital role cultural engagement, particularly visual culture plays in development of values and the transferring of belief systems.

Visual art making acknowledges previous learning, personal meaningmaking, the real world and audience while providing authentic learning experiences. It presents as a platform for critical self-reflection and a space to facilitate the ongoing mediation of society, cultural values and citizenship. An examination of visual art curriculum, 5 years of Higher School Certificate art works in NSW and student reflections reveal a rich imagery of how student artists use their art making to affirm their consciousness about the world and self through creative engagement and communicative knowing and is presented as a legitimate site for the negotiation of ones subjectivities and life worlds

: winter :

THE FUTURE LABORATORY

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Something worth going to: Trend Briefing by Future Laboratory

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DATE : Wednesday 9th March 2011
VENUE : Roundhouse, Chalk Farm Road, London, NW1 8EH
PRICE : £495 per seat

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A FEW EXTRACTS FROM THEIR PROGRAM:

At the spring/summer Trend Briefing in 2010 we named the decade the Turbulent Teens, predicting how it would be a period of highs, lows and revolution. Now, we reveal the decade’s first revolution – the anarconomy – a shift from passive acceptance to affirmative, anarchic collaboration in politics, culture, business, retail and leisure, even in how we generate ideas for these industries. Against this backdrop, open-source, open-book policies are set to become the norm in the new punkonomic era.

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Instead of withholding information, the new winners are sharing their information and knowledge first. Instead of Betapreneurs trying things out, today’s change-makers are laying down new rules and producing manifestos that describe and define the new ways in which they want the world to work. More than anything, however, disruption has become their new mantra, dissonance their new way to market. We look at the tools, techniques and ‘unlearning habits’ you will need to acquire to survive in the Transformation Economy.

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‘Not everybody wants revolution,’ says The Future Laboratory co-founder Martin Raymond. ‘For many, the recession has been a stress too far. Hence, we are witnessing the rise of Revivalist thinking, a nostalgic yearning for all things past and comforting. Folk themes, folklore, folk fashions and the re-appearance of furniture and products with a quasi-nostalgic theme and a rose-tinted nostalgic viewpoint are all becoming more prominent.’

Great talk by Ken Robinson on creativity and education

Excellent talk, here are a few most interesting and witty quotes from this wonderful, highly entertaining speaker.

- Creativity is as important as literacy

- If you are not prepared to be wrong, you will never come up with anything original

- We are educating people out of their creative capacities

- All children are born artists (Picasso). The problem is that we are educated out of it.

- How annoying would that be, to have a 7 year old Shakespeare in your class : stop speaking like that, its confusing everybody!

- Our son had a girlfriend, Sara, a love of his life.. he has known her for a month. He said: “I will never find another girl like Sara”. We were rather pleased about it. Actually she was the main reason why we were leaving the country.

- Professors look at their bodies as transport for their heads. It s a way to bring their heads to meetings.

- We have to radically rethink our view on intelligence. 1. Intelligence is diverse – we think about the world in all ways we are experiencing it: visually, we think in sound, we think kinaesthetically, we think in abstract terms, we think in movement. 2. Intelligence in dynamic – intelligence is interactive: creativity (i.e. having original ideas that have value) comes through interaction of different disciplinary ways of seeing things.

- Women are better at multitasking. This is true: if my wife is cooking a meal, which is not often (thankfully), she is also dealing with things on the phone, she is talking to kids, painting the ceiling, she is doing an open heart surgery. If I am cooking, the door is shut, the kids are out, if she walks in, I get annoyed- I say, ‘Terrty, please, I am trying to fry an egg in here, give me a break’.

- If the tree falls in the forest, and nobody seen/heard it fall, did it actually fall. If a man speaks his mind in the forest, and no woman hears him, is he still wrong?

- Most people would describe her (Jilian Lynn) rather fugitive behaviour as ADHD nowadays, but it was in 30s, and ADHD was not invented yet, it wasn’t an available condition, people were not aware they could have that.

- The doctor said she was not sick but she was a dancer. She was taken to a dance school where she met people like her, who had to move in order to think. She entered Royal Ballet School, she graduated and had a wonderful dance career, she was involved in the world-known musicals. She is a multi-millionaire now. Somebody else might have put her on medication (when she was young), and told her to calm down.

- We have to rethink the fundamental principles on which we are educating our children.

- "If all the insects were to disappear from the earth, within 50 years all life on earth would end. If all human beings disappeared from the earth, within 50 years all forms of life would flourish." Jonas Salk

ISSUU

Just uploaded my 4 magazines onto ISSUU, a great tool for online publishing.

http://issuu.com/purrfect-designs/docs/nakedplanet_cropped

http://issuu.com/purrfect-designs/docs/small_brochure_cropped

http://issuu.com/purrfect-designs/docs/crea_brochure_cropped

http://issuu.com/purrfect-designs/docs/trees_magazine_cropped

Daniel Kahneman: The riddle of experience vs. memory