"CREATIVE STRATEGIES"
multidisciplinary research project
2010 - ongoing


Author: Andreja Kulunčić, visual artist

PROJECT ELABORATION

"It can be argued," claim Dacey and Lennon (1998)1 "that throughout human history our most valued ability has been intelligence - the capacity to learn and to use existing knowledge. In the new millennium, this will no longer be so. Creativity - the ability to produce knowledge, will become our most cherished trait."   
Strategy is often defined as a set of purposeful actions that lead to a given long-term objective. It is most often connected with war, business and games.
The problems of the individual and of the community in everyday life for which there are no already existing solutions, or for which the old solutions are insufficiently functional, are soluble by innovative strategies or the creative production of new solutions. These are accordingly equally essential in the micro-situations of an individual coping with new situations and in the general progress of society.

According to the authors of the article "The Nature of Creativity"2 the beginnings of a fairly systematic scientific research into creativity are linked to the lecture "Creativity" given by the American psychologist Guilford in 1950 at Pennsylvania State College3. To the conception of convergent thinking then holding sway he opposed the conception of divergent thinking - the ability to generate multiple solutions for a single problem. Most researchers agree that the creative process is the production of something original and valuable (Sterneberg, 1996), which is a product of the personality, cognitive capacities and social environment (Amabile, 1983) but also that the very judgement of what is creative, and to what extent, is a kind of social consensus (Amabile, 1983).

BASIC ISSUES OF THE RESEARCH

The research in the project framework is focused on the following issues: the creative strategies of the individual, collective creative strategies (family, neighbourhood, city, state) and consideration of the relations and dynamics of personal creativity and collective creativity, under the following conditions: (a) when and how personal creativity turns into collective, what is left of the original idea and solution, what is changed, how a personal initiative or personal creative energy gets changed in the collective, and what happens with the initiator; (b) how much collective creative concepts affect personal, and at what moment they turn into personal concepts.
The project also deal with the position of creative strategies in a social context, the importance of its position in society in which a state of specious security is changing: the global economic crisis, the collapse of banks and insurance companies, the sudden change in the manner of life and social norms.
A stratification of issues go on to study the dynamics of relations, oppositions and correspondences, systems (political, economic, bureaucratic, educational, scientific and so on) and self-organised means of action such as civil society, the neighbourhood, the extend family and so on. The investigation will expand to take in topics of global creative strategies, or ways in which globalisation shapes our lives and common strategies, considering the issue of whether there are, and what they are, global strategies, how they function, who dictates them, the dynamics, the examples. In which way do we function as communities in the global context and what the positions and mechanisms of common creative strategies are, as well as the issue of the place of effective freedom that puts into practice the life chances in them?
Finally, the issue that it will settle in conclusion will be the general importance and influence of creativity on the life of the individual, collectives, peoples, both historically and in a contemporary context, from philosophical, religious and spiritual, artistic and scientific positions.

THE OBJECTIVES OF THE PROJECT

The overall aim of the project is to develop a trans-disciplinary platform for understanding, exchanging and producing new creative strategies in response to concrete social situations and states of affairs, as well as the activation of them in the real tissue of society. The specific objective within this is the better understanding of social processes that rely on creativity and discovering ways of encouraging the development of various forms of action and process to increase the capacity to understand current and to create new knowledge.

JUSTIFICATION OF THE METHOD

Political studies expert Joelle Zask starts off her book Art and Democracy with the proposition: "There is no better citizen than the artist: it is this idea that we wish to define in this book. And there is no practice that better symbolises democratic conduct than the practice of the artist. These ideas will doubtless be surprising both to the artists and those who judge them."4   in which the artist is just a generator, and the user (the audience) is the possible active subject that brings about the changes.

With the conception of my work and the methodology that I am developing I am positioning myself as an active agent in society, which tells explicitly of the place of the artist and art. With the engagement and interaction of different people, associates and potential audience, they too get into a position to be "producers, agents, designers, archivists and conveyors of knowledge", that is they became effective practitioner and the public at the same time. As the project develops, the analysis of these relations, processes and occasional results will be considered critically. Thus my role in the project as author and artist will change positions, my clear aim being to demonstrate, engage and change, without experiencing my artistic position as privileged, but as one of the possible in the transfer of knowledge.

 

1 Dacey, J.S., Lennon, K.H.: 1998, "Understanding creativity", San Francisco, Jossey-Bass Inc. Publishers, pp.3
2 Arar, Lj., Rački, Ž.: "Priroda kreativnosti/The Nature of Creativity", Psihologijske teme,12, 2003., pp. 3-22
3 Guilford, P.J., 5.09.1950. predavanje "Creativity", Pennsylvania State College.
4 Zask, Joelle: 2004, "Umetnost i demokratija", Beograd, Clio, pp.7