humanities 001: creative minds - javy galindo · 2016-11-21 · reframing: “to frame or express...
TRANSCRIPT
“MY PERSONAL CREATIVE JOURNEY”
The objective of this project is to experience the creative process in your personal life.
You can use the ideas from your first journal entry or something else.
You will turn in a worksheet where you describe how you experienced the various aspects of the creative process.
You will give a presentation either summarizing what you accomplished or showing/demonstrating what you accomplished.
The worksheet is yours alone, but you will creatively combine with partners to give a collaborative presentation.
THE CREATIVE PROCESS
COVERED THUS FAR
• Aspect 1: The Ordinary World
• Aspect 2: Answering the Call
• Aspect 3: Entering the Sea of Possibilities
• Aspect 4: Trials & Tribulations of Finding New Ideas
Bag ‘o sentences.
Divergent Thinking =
“Expanding-Our-Sandbox” Thinking
ASPECT 4: TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS
ACTIVELY GENERATING NEW IDEAS
HOW TO EXPAND OUR SANDBOX
Ideation
What kind of Strategies Can we Use?
Strategies
1. Go with the creative flow.
2. Mix and Match: Combinatory Play
3. Random Stimulation
HOW TO EXPAND OUR SANDBOX
How did we come up with creative ideas?
1. Go with the creative flow.
2. Mix and Match: Combinatory Play
3. Random Stimulation
How many of you consider yourselves creative writers?
Group Activity: One Line at a Time Fairytale
There was a young girl named ___________ who was trapped in a castle with an evil stepmother. All she ever dreamt of doing was escaping. Then one day…
WRITING YOUR OWN FAIRYTALE
What’s a fairytale?
1. Once upon a time, there was a little girl named Little Red Riding Hood who went to visit her grandmother who lived in the woods. When she got to her grandmother’s house a wolf was there pretending to be her grandmother. A woodsman soon came and saved them both.
2. There was once a pretty young girl named Snow White who lived with seven dwarves. One day a wicked queen tricked Snow White into eating a poisonous apple that made her unconscious. Then a prince came by and saw how beautiful Snow White was and gave her a kiss that magically woke her up.
3. There was once a family of three bears: a mama bear, a papa bear, and a baby bear. After they left their house, a little girl named Goldilocks came by and noticed that there were three bowls of porridge on the kitchen table. The big one was too hot, the medium one was too cold, but the smallest was just right. She noticed three beds, tried them all, and fell asleep on the only one that was just right. Then the bears came back, and Goldilocks ran home.
Now go write your own!How hard might this be?
HOW TO EXPAND OUR SANDBOX
How did we come up with creative ideas?
1. Go with the creative flow.
2. Mix and Match: Combinatory Play
3. Random Stimulation
How many of you consider yourselves creative writers?
Individual Activity in Groups: Writing a Fairytale
1. Take a tale as your “core” and rewrite it creatively.2. Mix and Match with elements from other tales or with anything at all.3. Be randomly stimulated by three random items.
End the story with the sentence you’ve selected.
RE-TELLING FAIRYTALES
What occurred to help us
manifest something creative?
2. Mix and Match: Combinatory Play
3. Random Stimulation
1. Once upon a time, there was a little girl named Little Red Riding Hood who went to visit her grandmother who lived in the woods. When she got to her grandmother’s house a wolf was there pretending to be her grandmother. A woodsman soon came and saved them both.
2. There was once a pretty young girl named Snow White who lived with seven dwarves. One day a wicked queen tricked Snow White into eating a poisonous apple that made her unconscious. Then a prince came by and saw how beautiful Snow White was and gave her a kiss that magically woke her up.
3. There was once a family of three bears: a mama bear, a papa bear, and a baby bear. After they left their house, a little girl named Goldilocks came by and noticed that there were three bowls of porridge on the kitchen table. The big one was too hot, the medium one was too cold, but the smallest was just right. She noticed three beds, tried them all, and fell asleep on the only one that was just right. Then the bears came back, and Goldilocks ran home.
If you were watching yourself,
how would you describe your use of the strategies?
HOW TO EXPAND OUR SANDBOX
Ideation
What kind of Strategies Can we Use?
Strategies
1. Go with the creative flow.
2. Mix and Match: Combinatory Play
3. Random Stimulation
4. ?
HOW TO EXPAND OUR SANDBOX
Creative Thinking Task:
Design a Creative New Pair of Scissors
How can we reframe the task?
Because of the way the task is “framed”,
we limit our creativity.
HOW TO EXPAND OUR SANDBOX
Creative Thinking Task:
Framed: “Design a Creative Paper Cutter”
Framed: “Design a Creative Hair Cutter”?
HOW TO EXPAND OUR SANDBOX
"If I had an hour to solve a problem and my life depended on the solution, I would spend the first fifty-five minutes determining the proper question to ask, for once I know the proper question, I could solve the problem in less than five minutes.“
- Albert Einstein
"If I had an hour to solve a problem and my life depended on the solution, I would spend the first fifty-five minutes determining the proper question to ask, for once I know the proper question, I could solve the problem in less than five minutes.“
- Albert Einstein
Ideation Strategy #4Reframing: “To frame or express differently.”
HOW TO EXPAND OUR SANDBOX
Ideation Strategy #4
Reframing: “To frame or express differently.”
“Express Differently”: New Metaphors; Restate w/ new Language:
(Our assumptions are based on our language.)
A man is born in 1990 and dies in 2010, but is 35 years old when he dies.
How is this possible?
HOW TO EXPAND OUR SANDBOX
Ideation Strategy #4
Reframing: “To frame or express differently.”
“Express Differently” - New Metaphors; Restate w/ new Language:
(Our assumptions are based on our language.)
• Career?
• Drugs?
• Money?
• Life?
HOW TO EXPAND OUR SANDBOX
Ideation Strategy #4To “Express” Differently
= Restate; use different language.
CAR
HOW TO EXPAND OUR SANDBOX
Ideation Strategy #4
Reframing: “To frame or express differently.”
“Frame Differently” - Find a new Context / Perspective
Context = the circumstances that form the setting for an event, statement, idea, object, etc., that help give it meaning.
(i.e. What does this mean: “Joe smells good.”)
• Visual art project?
• New song?
HOW TO EXPAND OUR SANDBOX
Ideation Strategy #4
Reframing: “To frame or express differently.”
“Frame Differently” - Find a new Context / Perspective
Context = the circumstances that form the setting for an event, statement, idea, object, etc., that help give it meaning.
(i.e. What does this mean: “Joe smells good.”)
• Visual art project?
• New song?
• A story in a book, tv, film?
Led to the notion that time is not constant, but dependent on your motion through space.
SPECIAL RELATIVITY
To “Frame” Differently
= Put into a new context.
HOW TO EXPAND OUR SANDBOX
To “Frame” Differently
= Put into a new context.
How can we frame this as a health drink?
HOW TO EXPAND OUR SANDBOX
How did we come up with creative ideas?
Ideation Strategy #4Reframing: “To frame or express differently.”
Group Activity:
1. Decide on an ordinary object that is currently visible to your group.
2. Now try to reframe it by finding a new use for it if you were a…
-Chef-Science teacher-Jockey (horse racing)-Gardener-Policeman
HOW TO EXPAND OUR SANDBOX
How did we come up with creative ideas?
1. Go with the creative flow.
2. Mix and Match: Combinatory Play
3. Random Stimulation
4. Reframe; Find a new Context; Use new Metaphors
5. Be a Little Nutty
6. Don’t worry. Be happy.
7. Establish an Exploratory Environment
Ideation Strategy #7Establish an Exploratory Environment
What does this sound like to you?
HOW TO EXPAND OUR SANDBOX
Ideation Strategy #7Establish an Exploratory Environment
= Collaborative Environment
HOW TO EXPAND OUR SANDBOX
Five Keys to Group Creativity
1. Focus on creative environments not creative people.
2. Develop trust and comfort.
3. Agree. Accept. Add.
4. Not I , But We
5. Creative Leadership = cultivator of creative environments.
Be around people who support your creativity,
avoid those who do not.
HOW TO EXPAND OUR SANDBOX
Q1:Do you see how the keys to group creativity are critical here?
Q2:Do you see how the strategies for generating new ideas were implemented here?
Practice analyzing in groups.
ASPECT 4: TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS
ACTIVELY GENERATING NEW IDEAS
What’s Important for Finding Ideas?
• Playful Spirit
• Joy in Exploring
• Goal = Many Ideas
Divergent Thinking
ASPECT 4: TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS
ACTIVELY GENERATING NEW IDEAS
• Issues:
• Needing to be convergent thinking, right answer finding, mature adults.
• Self-Censorship (why do we do this?)
• Self-Criticism/Judgments (where does this come from?)
Can this help explain why children are more creative?
• Solutions?
• Practice playing with ideas.
• Become more aware of this self-censorship & judgments and choose to go past them.
HOW TO EXPAND OUR SANDBOX
1. Going w/ The Flow
2. Collaborative Environment
3. Mix and Match
4. Reframing
5. Random Stimulation
THE CREATIVE PROCESS
COVERED THUS FAR
• 1st Aspect: The Ordinary World
• 2nd Aspect: Answering the Call
• 3rd Aspect: Entering the Sea of Possibilities
• 4th Aspect: Trials & Tribulations of Finding New Ideas
• 5th Aspect: The Darkened Cave/Retrieving the Reward“Reward” = Creative Insight
Aspect 5: Retrieving the Reward
Letting ideas find you: Creative Insights
(What do the following studies imply about insight?)
ASPECT 5: RETRIEVING THE REWARD
LETTING IDEAS FIND YOU – CLUE #1
Mark Beeman & John Kounios(psychologist @ Northwestern U & Drexel University resp.)
Wanted to see where insight happens (using fMRI & EEG).
“What is the difference between traditional analysis vs. creative insight?”
What word can form a compound word or phrase with each of the following three:
• Noticed initial activity in left hemisphere.
• Then dies off when person feels “stumped.”
age, mile, sand
ASPECT 5: RETRIEVING THE REWARD
LETTING IDEAS FIND YOU – CLUE #2
Mark Beeman & John Kounios
(psychologist @ Northwestern U & Drexel University resp.)
Was eventually able to predict when a person would have an insight.
– Alpha Waves
ASPECT 5: RETRIEVING THE REWARD
LETTING IDEAS FIND YOU – CLUE #3
Study: Move a Single Line to Make the Equation Valid
IV = III + III
• A control group with “healthy” brains• 92% success
• A group of brain-damaged patients who had difficulty concentrating• 90% Success
ASPECT 5: RETRIEVING THE REWARD
LETTING IDEAS FIND YOU – CLUE #4
Study: Move a Single Line to Make the Equation Valid
III = III + III
• A control group with “healthy” brains• 43%
• A group of brain-damaged patients who had difficulty concentrating• 82% success
ASPECT 5: RETRIEVING THE REWARD
LETTING IDEAS FIND YOU – CLUE #5
Study: Stimulants and Insights
• Lessen chance of insight when stimulants taken (caffeine, Adderall, Ritalin)
• Stimulants can helps with focusing: but
maybe that’s the problem. Why?
ASPECT 5: RETRIEVING THE REWARD
LETTING IDEAS FIND YOU
How to Attract Creative Insights?
• Thinking by Not Thinking: • Defocused Attention
• Avoiding stress. Learn to relax.
• Examples?• Poets
• Mathematicians
• Thomas Edison
• Your own…
ASPECT 5: RETRIEVING THE REWARD
LETTING IDEAS FIND YOU
• Issues:
• Stress
• Need for control
• Solutions
• Step away. Take a break.
• Learn to relax.
• Let go of the need for control.