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Wouter Groeneveld 2021-09-20 11:05:40 +02:00
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@ -11,11 +11,11 @@ Have you ever taken any of those "[How Creative Are You?](https://www.kellogg.no
After reading and thoroughly digesting Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's [Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40389418-creativity), I realized I had to change my own view on creativity. You see, _creativity_ is in fact a label that is put onto something (not someone) by an expert in the field that is not the maker. No single painter can claim his or her work is very creative: that is a job for the art critics---who are the domain experts that probably used to paint themselves. It is the work, the produce, that is creative. We say that someone "is creative", but we really mean that someone "produced something creative".
Csikszentmihalyi calls these people "gatekeepers of the domain". According to Csikszentmihalyi, creativity is the interaction between (1) the domain (all things art), (2) the field (the current art practices and experts), and (3) the "creative" person. He diminishes the contribution of the person, something we in the Western world perhaps do not like, as we tend to attribute anything to exceptional performance of the single individual.
Csikszentmihalyi calls these people "gatekeepers of the domain". According to Csikszentmihalyi, creativity is the interaction between (1) the domain (all things art), (2) the field (the current art practices and experts), and (3) the "creative" person (the artist). He diminishes the contribution of the person, something we in the Western world perhaps do not like, as we tend to attribute anything to exceptional performance of the single individual.
I simply cannot proclaim that a certain painting is creative. Why not? Because I'm all but an expert at that particular domain. I never painted myself, and while I like to think of myself as somewhat knowledgeable, in reality, I'm not. Thus, if the experts of the art field declare painting x or y is very creative, then I have to rely on their opinion. Of course I can disagree with them---as I tend to do with a lot of strange modern art lately---but that's beside the point, as the consensus was reached and I would be in the vast minority. However, when it comes to code and software, I _can_ say something about the creativeness. But I can never call myself creative: that is something that others will have to do (and probably won't, let's not kid ourselves).
I simply cannot proclaim that a certain painting is creative. Why not? Because I'm all but an expert at that particular domain. I never painted myself, and while I like to think of myself as somewhat knowledgeable, in reality, I'm not. Thus, if the experts of the art field declare painting x or y as very creative, then I have to rely on their opinion. Of course I can disagree with them---as I tend to do with a lot of strange modern art lately---but that's beside the point, as the consensus was reached and I would be in the vast minority. However, when it comes to code and software, I _can_ say something about the creativeness. But I can never call myself creative: that is something that others will have to do (and probably won't, let's not kid ourselves).
The consequence of this is that creativity is a **cultural-social construct**. It is important to pause and think here: cultures come and go. Therefore, the vision of creative work also changes. In 1890, nobody highly valued Vincent van Gogh's _Place du Forum_ or _Sunflowers_ paintings. In fact, van Gogh led a miserable and lonely life, only selling a few paintings throughout his entire life. A hundred years later, it's suddenly found exceptionally creative. In more recent cultures, early impressionistic paintings like van Gogh's are called creative. But at that time, nobody cared, even though is brother Theo did his best trying to sell them. If I was able to paint very similar to van Gogh today, nobody would care either: it's been done. There is a time and place for everything.
The consequence of this is that creativity is a **cultural-social construct**. It is important to pause and think here: cultures come and go. Therefore, the vision of creative work also changes. In 1890, nobody highly valued Vincent van Gogh's _Place du Forum_ or _Sunflowers_ paintings. In fact, van Gogh led a miserable and lonely life, only selling a few paintings throughout his entire life. A hundred years later, it's suddenly found exceptionally creative. In more recent cultures, early impressionistic paintings like van Gogh's are called creative. But at that time, nobody cared, even though his brother Theo did his best trying to sell them. If I was able to paint very similar to van Gogh today, nobody would care either: it's been done. There is a time and place for everything.
That is why Csikszentmihalyi marginalizes the power of the individual and calls creativity _systemic_---a lot of energy might be poured into something like painting or programming, but without the right connections, the right moment in time, and the right place, you won't end up in the history books. Being what Csikszentmihalyi calls "truly creative" entails having the power to alter the domain. van Gogh, Cézanne, Picasso: all founding fathers of new domains: impressionism, post-impressionism and cubism. If van Gogh would not have lived in the golden age of the Paris Salon, his painting technique would have been totally different and perhaps gone unnoticed---even after his death.