Reworking Creativity

I've had a really fun time getting to hear different people's takes on creativity as I've been researching for my digital literacy class. As I've received feedback from other people, I've been able to rework my ideas and my emphases little by little, and it's been neat to see the evolution of the topic. It will, perhaps, come as no surprise that I am yet again shifting my focus in a slightly different direction, but I think that this time will likely be the last (or at least I hope so, based on the impending due-date of Monday the 4th!).

I began investigating how digital media influences creativity, and that was really interesting, but in the end, I found myself asking, "So what?" about everything that I was writing. I felt like it was all a statement of fact, something that anyone with two eyes and a brain could have figured out. I then shifted my emphasis to how digital media is changing the standards of creativity, and that, too, was short-lived. At the beginning of this week, I decided to tackle the individualist creative ideal of my primary-text author, Ayn Rand, a move that, I think, worried my professor a little bit. I originally changed because I felt like it would be a much more provocative topic, and that certainly proved to be true. I've had a tough time trying to figure out exactly what to write about, though, because on one hand, we're learning about digital media and collaborative creation and all sorts of stuff like that, but on the other hand, The Fountainhead champions an individual creative ideal and de-emphasizes (and even bashes) input from others in realizing our creative works. I have realized over the past month or so, though, that really, the conflict that I see between these two ideals is the conflict that exists within me. I've been trying to get my feet wet in digital media, but it's been a foreign experience for me, in a lot of regards. The transition, though, I think, is not one unique to my experience, and I feel like a lot of people could really benefit by using modern digital media. That's why I wanted to shift the focus of my paper.

In researching and writing my paper, I still want to talk about creativity on an individual level, and I still really want to touch on ideas of self-actualization and finding one's creative identity, but for a lot of people, a big part of that process of self-conceptualization is taking place or will take place in the realm of modern digital media. So, I want to focus more on how digital media can aid us in realizing our individual creative ideals, and I want to show that the Internet is not oppositional to creativity but that it is a medium, like stone or paint, that can be used to bring life to an idea or an emotion. It is in light of creation that we truly begin to see ourselves and realize our potential.

Getting My Feet Wet...

This is a song that I put together to try to convey some of the thoughts that I've been having about creativity and expression lately. I've been studying The Fountainhead, by Ayn Rand, and in it, Rand really emphasizes the idea of individual creation. I wanted to extend that to encompass more so the ideas of self-actualization through creation and of finding one's own creative voice through use of digital media resources. Feel free to leave your thoughts or to browse the research and writing that I've been doing lately. I hope you enjoy!


Where is the fire
That Prometheus stole,
That burning desire
To create and be made whole?
What wonders and myst'ries
Can this Brave New World hold for me?
'Cause I'm standin' at the edge of the sea,
And I'm just learning to swim.

An endless ocean before me,
And the waves a rumblin' by,
I long for solid ground
And miss the clear blue sky
But I'll find myself inside the deep, deep blue.
Yeah, I'm standin' at the end of the sea,
And I'm ready to swim.

I'll set my fears aside
And set fire to the sea
Give life to soul and mem'ry
And let creation break free
And at last, I'll find myself inside the flames
And at last I'll find myself again.

The Spark of Creation

I've been looking for a good rendition of this song, and I think this one does a good job. I first heard this song in "The Pink Palace," an apartment that I lived in while serving in Ukraine as a proselytizing missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. My missionary companion was a theater and performing arts major, and he loved to sing. One day, he broke out randomly into this song, and I was mesmerized by this idea of the spark of creation. I've been thinking about creativity lately as I've investigated the influence of digital media on the creative process, and I feel that the message presented in this song encapsulates perfectly some of the ideas that I've been trying to get across in my research. So, please enjoy "Spark of Creation" from Stephen Schwartz's "Children of Eden," performed here by Stefani Wood, and if you're interested in finding out more about my research, check out my previous posts on the right side of the screen! I'd love to hear your thoughts!

EVE

Beyond,beyond

It sounds full of wind and mist, doesn't it

It means other things exist, doesn't it

Beyond, beyond

It says Adam leave your list, doesn't it

Father why does my head feel this joy this dread since the moment I said

Beyond!

I've got an itching on the tips of my fingers

I've got a boiling in the back of my brain

I've got a hunger burning inside me, cannot be denied

I've got feeling that the Father who made us

When he was kindling a pulse in my veins

He left a tiny spark of that fire, smoldering inside
The spark of creation, is flickering within me

The spark of creation,is blazing in my blood

A bit of the fire that lit up the stars

And breathed life into the mud, the first inspiration

The spark creation

I see a mountain and I want to climb it

I see a river and I want to leave shore

Where there was nothing let there be something, something made by me

There's things waiting for me to invent them

There's worlds waiting for me to exploreI am an echo of the eternal cry of
Let there be!

The spark of creation, burning bright within me

The spark of creation, won't let me rest at all

Until I discover or build or uncover

A thing that I can call, my celebration

Of the spark creationThe spark of creation, may it burn forever

The spark creation, I am a keeper of the flame

We think all we want is a lifetime leisure

Each perfect day the sameEndless vacation

Well that's alright if you're a kind crustacean

But when you're born with an imagination

Sooner of later you're feeling the fire get hotter and higher

The spark of creation!!!

At One with our Creative Ideal: Paper-in-a-Post

Just as the sun's rays flow into the figure and become part of his being, so also is the light of creativity an element within every individual, illuminating his soul and urging him toward his dreams.




 

While the Internet and other digital media resources certainly facilitate collaborative efforts and provide a worldwide stage whereon creators can display their work, the creative process remains a largely individual endeavor, as evidenced in Ayn Rand's landmark novel, The Fountainhead.

 

While it will be noted that a vast multitude of history's great thinkers developed and tested their ideas at least to some extent in social spheres, the ideal of creation has always been more so about self-actualization than about yielding to the opinions of others. Rand brilliantly expresses this idea in The Fountainhead through Howard Roark's non-conformist architectural style and unwillingness to compromise his creative integrity. For Roark, architecture is not about pleasing a customer or accruing public acclaim but rather about maintaining one's innovative integrity and staying true to the identity of the creative work as an entity. Peter Keating, whose career represents the diametric opposite of the Roarkian ideal, yet described those who compromise their creative ideal in yielding to others' opinions as follows:

When you meet them, they’re not what you met last. In any given hour, they kill some part of themselves. They change, they deny, they contradict–and they call it growth. At the end there’s nothing left, nothing unrevered or unbetrayed; as if there had never been any entity, only a succession of adjectives fading in and out on an unformed mass.

 With the birth of the Internet and other digital media resources, we have seen how ideas in their infancy can take on a certain vitality of their own as projects garner support from enthusiasts and collaborators, but at its heart, every creative endeavor represents a piece of the creator's soul. One must first discover it within oneself and then breath life into it through pen or paint. Only then, by virtue of his creativity and willingness to sacrifice, can the Promethean creator set the world afire with his creation. Dr. James Montmarquet, author of "Prometheus: Ayn Rand's Ethic of Creation," remarked that "[t]he architecture of the mind is conceptualization and consciousness; conceptualization is at the heart of any cognitive advance." Ultimately, creativity is a manifestation of the human soul and intellect, and the Internet is simply a facilitator of that creativity, a vehicle through which the creator can express and share his work. The ideas of others will, of course, serve their purpose in shaping a creator's ideas, but the creator must find within himself the courage, integrity, and confidence to go forward with his labors, pursuing his dreams even when everyone else tells him that he can't. 

Moving Toward an Understanding...

So, I've been thinking a bit about my research topic, and it's been interesting to see the different viewpoints come in from friends, peers, enthusiasts, and scholars alike as to how digital media influences creativity. I wanted to post a couple of the responses that I've gotten, in part as a way for me to organize and recall some of the thoughts that I've had lately and in part so that you can hear the different opinions, because I feel like some of them are pretty interesting. Anyway, here's one from my friend, Xiaojia: 

I think it all really comes down to privacy. What do you want to be known, shared, if you want credit, etc. Possibilities are quite endless in both cyberworld and the physical world. And so many things can go between the both. The physical world may give you more privacy than the internet so that could lead to people feeling freer (that doesn't look like a word 8D) so they'd be more open to experiment. But anonymity on the internet could also encourage people to share without feeling the consequences (or at least a decent amount of consequences as a hard copy can create sometimes idk that's open to debate haha).
You should check out postsecret.com if you haven't already!
In the end the internet is just a resource.

There's a couple of ideas here that I want to touch upon: the first is this idea of privacy and expression, an idea that I've been discussing with my mom these past couple days. She's been working to publish a children's story, and I keep telling her that she should post a rough sketch of it on a blog or something so that she can get feedback and start to get people talking about her stuff, but she worries that if she posts it, someone will snatch it up and publish it before she can. That's one part of the internet that you really can't change: it's out there. People will see it. People will interact with it and judge it and change it, and in the end, it might not end up where you had originally intended it to go. I think that's one of the amazing things about the internet, though, as well, that you post something and it takes on a life of its own. If you're writing just for the money, then it's understood that you risk a lot in posting original content, but I've been really impressed at the fact that some bands work on donations alone and are thus able to offer their music for free (or for a price determined by each individual downloader). We are seeing a shift in media rights, an exodus in the direction of freeware and open-source software, and with it, we are witnessing the birth of a different breed of consumerism, a system fueled by the media Medicis, the thousands of private patrons of the arts that each put in their small sums in support of creativity.