Creativity, Style and Theme

          Meeting Mr. Crewdson and talking to such a genius artist face-to-face is a memorable experience. My fine art teacher used to tell me that the major difference between a painter and a photographer is that a painter has control over the subject, but a photographer can only take what is given. However, this meeting has changed my perception about photographers. Unlike the conventional process that traditional photographers use to shoot candid “factual” pictures, the creative process Crewdson adopts is very similar to that of a film director. He has an image first in his mind and then creates the photograph with his crew by setting up a scene to reproduce his imagination. But different from making a film, he is only interested in catching the “moment between moments”. What happens before and after the moment of the image he catches is irrelevant to him.

          Crewdson is a master of lighting. He likes to use lighting and colors to make his photographs dramatic and beautiful in different ways. However, his works seem to share a common theme. We can easily see sadness, loneliness, and sense of loss from many of his pictures. At the end of our meeting in the morning, I couldn’t help asking him whether his style had changed throughout his entire career. He answered “No,” and then added with a smile, “always depressing. The photograph may change, but the core (theme) is the same.” I was thrilled to hear him say that because it affirms the theory of creativity and style that many philosophers, psychologists and other scholars share.

          In the evening when he gave a speech at The Dallas Museum of Art, Crewdson repeated his idea with the following remark: ”Every artist has a story to tell. The form of the story changes, but the core themes are still there.” Indeed, we can find the recurring theme repeated in many of his photographs. It seems he is trying to tell one story over and over again. In his words, his story is about “the tension between wanting to feel connected to something and the impossibility of achieving that connection.” He uses windows and doors and other framing devices in his pictures to suggest “a certain kind of estrangement”. The core effect he wants to have is “wanting to feel at home in the world but feeling slightly alien instead.” He said in his speech, “creativity is lonely and despair.” The audience laughed. But I took what he said seriously.       

           I believe an artist’s creativity is the totality of his style, his arts and his personality. They have one core theme and each is part of the whole. As suggested by the humor psychology of the Middle Ages and identity theory of modern times, the diction and style of an artist reflects his personality and cannot be changed easily. In aesthetic theory, critics and thinkers have addressed this correspondence in various forms. W. B. Yeates calls it “myth.” Yeates believes that there is “one myth for every man which, if we but knew it, would make us understand all he did and thought.” *1  The French critic Charles Mauron calls it “mythe personnel” which, in his opinion, would enable us to understand “both … the troubles of the living man and the obsessive metaphors of the author.”*2   Buffon’s well-known quotation in his discourse on style goes, “Style is the man himself.” Holland has further refined the artistic term “style” with the modern theory of identity. He points out, “Whatever the term, however, it must convey a constancy that colors every phase of an individual’s life. It is what he brings from all his past to all new experience, and it is extremely difficult — perhaps impossible — to change. Yet, in practice, it can often be expressed quite succinctly.” *3  This constancy echoes Crewdson’s confession of his “one story to tell” philosophy. In a way, we all remain the same while changing all the time. Whether it is creativity, style, or life itself, however varied the expression is, it conforms to a hidden theme.

___________
1. W. B. Yeates, “At Stratford-on-Avon,” Ideas of Good and Evil London:  A. H. Bullen, 1903),162.
2. Charles Mauron, Introduction to the Psychoanalysis of Mallarmé (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1963), 110.
3. Norman Holland, 5 Readers Reading (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1975), 56.

Gregory Crewdson Response

Having Gregory Crewdson come speak to us after hearing the ideas of a psychologist and cognitive (Simonton and Neressian, respectively) helped to bridge the ideas of creativity.  I began to explore how Crewdson’s role as the artist could in anyway contribute to idea of creativity in science and technology.  I took many ideas from both Crewdson’s discussion and lecture.  What I found most interesting was Crewdson’s balance between his own ideas and the contribution of a community or group.  In both meetings with Crewdson, I felt that these two factors play an important role in his photography, and when I considering these two factors, I see how they contribute to the ubiquitous idea of creativity.  In some sense, every creative person must rely on not only his/her own ideas, but also his/her surroundings (i.e. community or environment) shape his/her view.

Crewdson spoke of how he values his time swimming.  The experience of swimming provides him an opportunity to focus on his thoughts and lead him to new images to photograph.  For him swimming is the rare opportunity to think, which brings up a valid issue regarding the creative process.  Day to day life tends to interfere with one’s creativity.  Other responsibilities lessen the amount of time one has for creativity.  Crewdson employs swimming as his time to reflect.  Once ideas stem from swimming, he involves more people in his creative process.  During our morning discussion, I asked Crewdson how having a crew influences his creative process.  I already assumed that working with a variety of people would evolve his image, and I assumed he would speak positively of the experience.  His answer did support my assumption, and he spoke about the importance trusting your workers.  He does not micromanage, but he has faith in their ability to contribute, and not betray, Crewdson’s initial idea.   Of course, Crewdson also spoke of how he always uses the same people constantly, so the relationship between him and his crew continues to grow.

Beyond the crew, Crewdson also relies on the community for his creative process.  The cooperation of many community members plays an important role for him.  Crewdson spoke of how people such as the fire marshal, midwife, and homeowners all willingly participate in his photography.  This is not a phenomenon of any sort, but rather clear evidence of a society’s desire to help make something memorable.  Crewdson’s photography offers an opportunity for many people to experience creativity and art.   The creation of something beautiful draws in people and gives them new courage or excitement.

With this balance between the individual artist and the community, I return to the role of creativity in science.  A scientist hopes to discover or create something wonderful, and his/her community hopes to experience this creation.  The scientist, also, needs time for reflection or recollection with his/her thoughts.  After these moments, he/she may benefit from bringing their ideas into the community or a group.  Simonton spoke of how a scientist is less likely to get input from a colleague because his or her ideas are more concrete than the abstractions of art.   While this may have been true years back, the world of science has changed and new ideas are not as simple to discover.  Today, I believe the balance Crewdson finds in his creative process would benefit the field of science as well.

Nersessian Response – Analogies, BVSR and games.

I enjoyed talking with Nancy Nersessian even though many of her examples were beyond my comprehension. What I enjoy the most is how it felt like a sequential extension of what I enjoyed last week with Dr. Simonton. Many of the questions I had last week to better elaborate on the idea of Blind Variation, Selective Retention was addressed in Nersessian’s model based reasoning. The idea of mental modeling is exactly what Kukle was doing in Dr. Simonton’s example of BVSR. Nersessian argues that even what appears to be sudden jumps of scientific creativity are the result of many small incremental steps. This enlightens the idea of BVSR eliminating the seemingly random and “luck” based victories of people like Kukle because of the understanding that it only appears to be random and lucky because we are not privy to the many small incremental steps that led Kukle to relate the Oroborus to the Benzine structure. This leads me to believe that, yes, creativity can be cultivated and taught, but by using a much slower process.

Many of these small incremental steps come in the form of analogies of the problem using various mental and physical models. This is encouraging for me because all games are metaphors for interpreting a basic mathematical rule structure. This means that there is in fact potential to help cultivate this idea of relating models to a problem using an interactive game. If you could create a mathematic problem that drives a rule structure and have the player use a variety of unrelated metaphors for explaining that system then the player may start to gain the literacy of using analogies and models as tools for creative problem solving. Ofcourse, this is easier said then done since most of these rule structures you see in games only make sense with a very limited set of metaphors which is why most video games deal primarily with physics based problems of jumping and aiming, etc.

It’s an interesting challenge, but based on the readings of both Simonton and Nersessian it may be an endeavor worth tackling.

Neressian, MetaCognition, and Structure…

Similar to others, I was quite dismayed by the technical aspects of her work and found myself quite lost at moments. However, there was a great deal that I did find valuable…

The readings, particularly where she addresses the idea of a metacognitive awareness and the need for an element of play, while keeping in mind an ultimate target, were interesting. The notion that one can ”play” with structures, imagined and centered around source and model constraints, reaffirmed for me the notion of “homo ludens.”  I myself have noticed a lot of these strategies at work while playing scrabble with opponents on my cell phone. I often have to “bootstrap” and move letters around until I get to the point where one emerges finally.

I do, however, have problems with figuring exactly out how selectivity figures into model constructing. A great deal of what I read makes me think that this notion of bracketing “irrelevent features” is counter-productive to creative work in my field. Analogies and relational comparisons, as representation-building and simulative processing, sound all to limiting to me.  Not exactly sure if they would explain how the idea of snakes mating could have inspired Watson and Crick. But then again.

Nancy Nersessian, How Do Scientists Think? Creative Processes in Conceptual Innovation

Professor Nersessian mentioned in her talk that visual representations by scientists were not considered important.  This is remarkable since many different scientists, as many visual artists, have relied on some sort of visual representation to exemplify and expand their ideas.  For instance, as mentioned by Dr. Neressian, Newton relied on diagrams for visual representations of analogy, gravity, and projectile.  Also, Johannes Kepler created a diagram of the cosmos, Machina mundi artificialis,  that depicted a universe made of geometric mechanisms.   His reliance on visual aids reached beyond the two-dimensional diagram, for he had a sculptural model made out of gold for the Duke Friedrich of Wurttemberg  (The Lure of Antiquity and the Cult of the Machine, p. 37).  Neressian said that visual representations were crucial in conveying the message or theory.  But what about using visual representation as a means to reach their ideas?  Perhaps, individuals like Descartes, Newton, and Kepler used visual representation to formulate their ideas as well as convey them.

The models Dr. Nersessian mentioned are also a representation; my question is if they are visual representations as well, or are they purely conceptual?  Nersessian stated that these models facilitated building an understanding of the system in competent terms and of how these interact dynamically to produce a certain behavior; these models are incrementally built towards serving as source analogies; and they represent a visualization and dynamical simulation that played a generative role.  How are these models different than models that might be formulated by an artist, designer, or architect?  And would the model based reasoning promote innovation in the arts the same as it would for the sciences, or is it a completely different process?

Regardless if they are visual or conceptual, if they are for the arts or the sciences, models allow manipulation, shifting back and forth, and altering representations.  This fluidity is one of the components of creativity, for if one stayed within the constraints and did not play with the boundaries, then there would probably be less innovation.

Nancy J. Neressian and the model for conceptual innovations

In her talk at the Jonnson auditorium, Nancy J. Neressian discussed the importance of the use of physical models for working out problems in scientific theory. Neressian argued that scientific innovations did not occur from a “Eureka” moment as is popularly believed. Rather, these breakthroughs came about through a combination of the scientists working on say, mathematical formulas, and creating physical models and diagrams that express the ideas found in these formulas in a material form. As an example, Neressian points to Sir Isaac Newton and his use of diagrams of projectiles that displayed the force of gravity, as well as the model of the double helix form taken by DNA.  Neressian said that the gradual working out of the problems encountered in perfecting scientific theories benefit from the use of models as both a physical realization of the problem in question, and as a break from monotonously repeating one type of activity. Neressian points out that while educators once believed that learning was best achieved through repetition alone, it is now commonly believed (and backed up by recent studies showing how learning retention is improved by recess in elementary school children). While most of her presentation was too technical, and specialized for me to grasp, what I found compelling about her talks with the class was her belief that a form of play was benficial to research. She even gave an example of how one group of scientists benefited from the use of models,  while another was held back.  the case of the French scientists working on the one theory while strictly working on mathematical formulas, while the English scientists used a combination of models, and mathematical formulas. The English scientists made the breakthrough, and the French scientists (who apparently thought the English approach was childish, and frivolous), failed.   All work and no play makes Jacques a dull boy, indeed!!!

Nersessian (Foltz Post)

I have decided to look at Nersessian’s description of what a Concept is, as defined in Chapter 6.  First, I want to add to everyone’s comments by saying that I agree with Nersessian’s logical basis for model-based reasoning in conceptual innovation.  She disagrees with classical definitions of “necessary and sufficient conditions” concerning the representation of a concept, but she also adds that she embraces a more “flexible notion[s]” consistent with “empirical evidence on human categorization.”  In other words, she is saying that there is a cultural and social component to defining what a concept is and is not.  She further states that there is no consensus of what a concept is in “cognitive science of philosophy of science.”  I want to point out that Concept is not just a philosophy of science or cognitive science problem, but is more generally a philosophical problem without regard to just the philosophy of science.  The first chapter in the book mentions Wittgenstein and his identification of general ideas of language and conceptual categories; this is just a contemporary argument that began in western thought with Plato or even Heraclitus, and in the east (China) is represented in the warring states period by the logicians, of School of Names.  Given this caveat, I will move on to her arguments.

Specifically, since this is a short response, I want to relate her ideas of “descendants” with conceptual organization.  This idea of hers is an argument grounded in logic, but really in a methodology or inheritance relationship.  For instance, one can look at the structure of computer languages and understand this idea easily.  In computer science, one constructs objects with two main attributes:

1. Data/information
2. Methods or functions

Data is exactly as it sounds; it’s information.  Methods, however, are the relationships that other objects have with the data stored in a particular object.  These objects have “relationships” defined as methods, and methods are able to be transfered to other objects by a process known as polymorphism.  This is the same as Nersessian’s definition of “descendants”.  So her argument is that concepts are less static and more dynamic, but that there is a social or cultural aspect that influences the propogation of given concepts.

One major issue that can not be settled, as yet, is the idea of “abstraction”.  Since the time of Plato, people have thought of abstractions as having a more general form than an instantiation of something in the physical world.  Many social constructivists say that the definition is just the opposite.  Given Nersessian’s definition of model-based that they “satisfy constraints,” one must understand that those constraints are socially identified.  This seems less problematic when talking of “purer” models such as mathematical models, but model-based reasoning only helps in scientific conceptualizing.  When applied to concepts such as Justice, absolute morals, etc, then models do not serve such a constructive function and need to be developed in a less scientific way, though not any less logical.

I found Dr. Neressian’s theories interesting, yet challenging. She was an engaging speaker and made scientific discovery and creativity accessible to a broad range of people.

One area of similarity between Dr. Neressain and Dr. Simonton I found interesting was their theory that there must be a certain amount of ‘blindness’ in the creative process to provide the possibility of discovery. As Dr. Neressian suggested, her approach was the next step after blind variation. While the process she presents is still organic, her use of analogy, visual representation seem to make her approach more systematic than Dr. Simonton’s.

Dr. Neressian’s work focuses on the question, how can a genuinely novel representation be created? She suggest that model-based reasoning is the most effective approach, and involves such activities as creating analogies, deploying visual representations, and performing thought experiments.

During our morning meeting Dr. Neressian said that it is vital in the creative process to be “metacognitively aware” – the process of monitoring of your progress in order to make changes and adapt your strategies based to those observations.

Dr. Neressain proposes that developing processes which provide opportunities to refine, re-representat and remap ideas lead to the ‘eureka’ moment – not serendipity.  This constant refining, cross-pollinating and deconstructing of ideas and approaches leads to novel or creative solutions. This process is not a linear, but more like a layer upon layer of ideas or approaches that are informed by the previous step. I believe she referred to this process as being a reflective learner, observing and practicing simultaneously.

Neressian Response Post

Nancy J. Nersessian

Dr. Neressian’s ideas concerning scientific concepts adhere to a much more rigid philosophy than Simonton’s belief.  She focuses on closing the gap between the initial hypothesis and the Eureka moment.  Specifically she demystifies the Eureka moment and provides a more concrete explanation.  While I can appreciate and agree with the crux of her position- the modeling process does contribute greatly to new concepts- I felt bogged down by the details of her study.  My own lack of scientific knowledge hinders my opinion towards Dr. Neressian’s argument; however, so much empirical research does leave little room for contemplation.  It is difficult to contradict the idea that modeling benefits scientific concepts because I view it as an inarguable statement.   I do not believe it is the only method for creativity in science.  What I found most interesting in her presentation stemmed from the question and answer portion of the lecture.  Her belief that the science textbook hinders education is a valid argument, and one that I could definitely consider in the realm of the creative process.

In the past few years, school districts have placed greater emphasis on math and science than on the humanities.  The state assessments gauge student performance, and the low scores of both the math and science tests repeatedly reappear in the education discourse.  Two very different schools of thought argue which method works best in improving test scores: the traditional, textbook drill and kill method or the more hands on/ experimental learning process.  The latter clearly reflects more of Nersessian’s position.  For the former, many educators believe students must simply regurgitate the necessary information long enough to perform well on the tests.  The discovery method lends itself to more long-term results.  What is most unfortunate for this issue is that the state assessments dictate the majority of an educator’s concerns with a student’s education.  They, the educator, simply look for the quick fix for improving test scores (This is not true for all educators, but far too many).  The scores put a heavy burden on education, and the creativity in science quickly vanishes.

One important point Neressian makes in her book is the need for an individual to know what to disregard in the model process.  She states that if the person lacks the necessary knowledge to comprehend the model, ancillary details may distract the individual.  For me personally my lack of scientific knowledge lead to my confusion during both the reading and the lecture.  I found myself repeatedly trying to ascertain the specifics of the exemplars.  Due to my own lack of knowledge, I had to attempt to overlook the details and just focus on Neressian’s philosophy.  I do find it interesting that the distractions, from Neressian’s perspective, can interfere with the creation of scientific concepts.  Simonton’s position argued that the distractions sometimes benefit the creative mind.  While not completely validating the need to focus on distractions, I do believe there must be some value in the details we overlook.

In the end, what I gathered from Neressian’s argument is the need for some basic scientific knowledge.  The prior knowledge behaves as a springboard into new scientific concepts. The individual must not pine over the facts because this could cause him/her to miss the larger picture.  He/she must be able to find the balance between the scientific facts and the need to experiment with ideas.  Only through this balance can one create innovative concepts.

Innovative Model and Creative Approach

Dr. Nersessian is one of the most charming speakers I have ever met.  She has the charisma of both a scholar and an artist.  The topic she chose “How Do Scientists Think?  Creative Processes in Conceptual Innovation”, is not an easy topic, but she managed to communicate the main ideas clearly with impressive graphics and examples.

Dr. Nersessian has dedicated many years of her life studying how scientists think, reason and generate new models and theories.  Her recent book, Creating Scientific Concepts and her lecture both emphasize model-based reasoning that generates novelty from the scientists.  She believes that conceptual change results from extensive problem-solving processes.  Her view challenges the conventional believe that conceptual change cannot be the outcome of reasoned processes.  In the past, conceptual innovation is thought to happen in sudden flashes of insight.  Many philosophers and scholars regard such changes as mysterious and beyond comprehension.  Dr. Nersessian’s new approach to mental modeling provides us with a broader vision in studying Creating Scientific Concepts.

I am especially impressed by the InVivo and InVitro approaches adopted in her research.  The InVivo approach is the method that researchers use to closely observe a group of scientists in their own labs by means of audiotapes, videotapes, etc.  InVitro is the approach the researchers use to conduct experiments on scientific thinking in their own cognitive lab.  InVivo helps researchers to directly observe scientists’ thinking and reasoning and see how science unfolds.  InVivo allows researchers to analyze the thinking and reasoning that scientists use to formulate theories, analyze data, design experiments and build models.  By combining the two approaches, it would provide a clear interpretation of cognitive process.  The InVivo approach reminds me of a popular marketing approach, focus group, which researchers use to closely observe a group of selected consumers in a small setting.  The InVivo approach makes it possible for researchers to directly monitor scientists’ thinking and reasoning rather than uncovering the same information through after-the-fact interviews, questionnaires or collecting the scientists’ notes.  One point of caution, however, is that like the focus group approach, the target being observed is very selective and might not represent the entire category.  Therefore, the conclusion of the research needs to be cross-examined with those results from other approaches.