The word “creative” probably needs a re-brand.
As a co-host of Portishead Life Drawing, a regular musician and huge supporter of our brilliant arts and music community in Bristol and N.Sommerset, I often get popped into the “creative” bucket, which is a nice bucket.
But in my 20+ years making documentaries focussed on people and cultures, I’ve met 100’s of people who’ve inspired my passion for continued learning with their version of “creativity”. Talk to me endlessly about how you created pink gas plasma, crocheted a 5’ tall statue, or created a massive DnD world complete with lore, maps and weather, or your passion for your own unique garam masala: I'm here for it.
“Creativity” can be about cross-modal approaches to creating something new. Off the top of my head perhaps applying ideas of quantum wave function to … dance? Oi Josia at Joondance… how would you interpret “all positions” then collapse into one position depending on where we the observer, are looking?
I remember going to several amazing lectures at the ICA in London (a wonderful venue I played in 2015 with Ilå"). We regularly went to free discussions there that would combine people from different fields in a beautiful panel discussion. After attending quite a few of these you soon realise that creativity is almost separate from the craft: any mode can be plugged in to creative thinking with wildly different and unique outputs.
My “creativity” can sometimes be a synethstesic approach to music and storytelling.
I’m using Synestesia as an example of cross-modal thinking only, not of the actual condition: that can actually be disruptive to people. It is a joy to discuss visual approaches to composition with musicians who understand the colour of sounds. And this is exactly how I write most of my music: I know what blue sounds like, and what a white line against blue feels like and I often visualise a song in terms of colours, smells, horizon, ground, and width (claustrophobic spaces against wide open spaces). Obviously we all grow up with different associations, but it’s these differing interpretations of our own that create our unique fingerprint. Too much automated or purchased plug ins, brushes, sample packs, GenAI are at direct odds with that deep human expression that is the result of each persons’ experience.
I witnessed Robin Fox’s RGB at the Barbican in 2015, before then I had never considered that a light show could have so much comedy in it. Music, sound design, lighting, comedy…
I’m so lucky to have interviewed, worked with and edited documentaries s of many folk who’ve blown my mind with their craft and creative thinking:
Eli, An electrical automotive engineer who became one of the first to work out how to recycle early e-batteries and repair EV’s.
Staff at NappiCycle who are one of the first people to recycle nappies into new products such as construction materials: in fact the tarmac at the recycling center is recycled nappies!
Sound engineers who often used sanitary products to tune problematic drum kits.
Lighting designers who use everything at their disposal to create beautiful controlled lighting on my sets: sketch paper, over paper, Ikea tents…
Let’s celebrate creativity in whatever unique form it emerges. Let’s pop our brains in the telepod together, and see what emerges at the other end.