Creativity in Collaboration Across Disciplines: Writing, History & Photography

Peter Thomas, Anne Burke & Gavin FernandesPeter Thomas

p.thomas@mdx.ac.ukSenior lecturer and Coordinator or Academic Writing & Language for the Schools of Art & Design, and Media & Performing Arts

Anne Burke a.burke@mdx.ac.uk

Senior lecturer in History of Art and design and Module leader of VCD2936

Gavin Fernandes g.fernandes@mdx.ac.uk

Senior Lecturer in Photography and Fashion, Communication and Styling

Overview of this session:

-Background to the Writing Workshop: Why do it and how?

-Introducing three aspects of creativity-Bisociation-Dialogue-as-ideal-Tolerance of Ambiguity/uncertainty

-Structure of the Writing Workshop: What we did on the day

-Making sense of what we did in terms of creativity

-Closing Discussion

Background to the Writing Workshop: Why do it and how?

-VCD2936: The Critical Image

Photography [is]… a subject torn between two languages, one expressive, the other critical…

Roland Barthes Camera Lucida

Roman Baths

2008 research

59%feel that written assignments have not informed studio work (so far)

92% enjoy finding things out along the way, as they write

Perceptions of writing

Art & Design students & practitioners

62% enjoy writing

Orr, Blythman & Mullin 2005

Writing is boring, a chore...I don’t want to do it but I have to.

Thomas 2013

Harding & Hale 2007

disjunction

studio practices writing practices

Biggs & Büchler in Lees-Maffei 2011

object-led text-led

divergent

subjective

internally persuasivepractical

unconventional

convergent

objective

authoritative

theoretical

convention-bound

ineffable, tacit explicit

rationality and logic

Bakhtin 1981

Polanyi 1974

Turner 2011creativity

tolerance of ambiguity need for certainty

aesthetic intellectual Hay 2009

-The Reflective Journal

-Piloted 2012/13 -Focus of PG Cert Practice Project-Taken as paper to EATAW 2013,

Budapest

Dynamic Writing in Art & Design, EATAW, June 2013

Evaluating the Journal….

Dynamic Writing in Art & Design, EATAW, June 2013

-The Reflective Journal, 2013/4

Supported through:

-Regular group sessions with Gavin

-Self-evaluation exercises

-Two collaborative writing workshops

Introducing three aspects of creativity in our collaboration

Bisociation

Dialogue-as-ideal

Tolerance of ambiguity/uncertainty

collaboration

...all creative endeavours are collaborations

Abra 1994

In one sense...because traditions and works by others invariably affect them.

...the capacity to produce work that is both original, and adapted to the constraints of the

situation...novel

effective

Zenasi, et al. 2008

BisociationArthur Koestler

The Act of Creation (1964)

pp 559-560

Lakoff & Johnson (2003) Metaphors we live by. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Dialogue-as-idealM. M. Bakhtin

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Bakhtin

Lillis, T. (2003) Student Writing as ‘Academic Literacies’: Drawing on Bakhtin to Move from Critique to Design, Language & Education. Vol. 17, No 3, 192-207.

Tolerance of uncertainty/ambiguity

Tolerance of ambiguity will allow individuals to continue to grapple with complex problems, to remain open, and increase the probability of finding a novel solution.

Zenasi, F., Besancon, M. & Lubart, T. (2008) Creativity and Tolerance of Ambiguity: An Empirical Study, Journal of Creative Behavior, Volume 42 Number 1, p62.

For Stoycheva (1998, 2003)...ambiguity-tolerant individuals are able to accept feelings of anxiety and psychologicaldiscomfort naturally provoked by ambiguity associated with new, difficult situations.

Vernon (1970) explained that tolerance of ambiguity...enables individualsto not be satisfied by partial or non-optimal solutions to complex problems.

-Writing Workshop I: Exhibition Review

-Writing Workshop I: Exhibition Review

-Related subsequent activities:-Lecture on Curatorial Practice-Lecture on History of Curating-Guided Visit to Exhibition, at both sites-Assessment 1: Curatorial Statement

-Writing Workshop 2: Critically Informed Image Analysis

Structure of the Writing Workshop: What we did on the day

1. (AB) Barthes’ identification of three positions related to photography:

-subject; photographer; viewer.

1.i. (Students) Read text, key ID terms, draw representation of text.

1.ii (AB lead) Discussion of text

2.i. (PT) Image analysis activity as group, from perspective of viewer, using 3 stage approach (brainstorm; group; order)

2.ii. (PT lead) Image analysis individually, from perspective of subject; use scribblings to write paragraph from this position

3. (GF) shows & discusses own work, from position of photographer.

4. Closing discussion of 3 positions. What do you take from the session today?

‘…there’s this great bit in Camera Lucida where he talks about a tension between making and thinking in photography…’

1. Barthes’ identification of three positions related to photography:

-subject; photographer; viewer

2.i. Image analysis activity as group, from perspective of viewer

3-stage Approach1. Brainstorm

2. Group

3. Order Connect

Thematise

List

Draft

Draft Redraf

t from Joel Sternberg (2012) American Prospects. Göttingen: Steidl.

2.i. Image analysis activity as group, from perspective of viewer

Brainstorm

Group

Order

development of paragraph on own family photograph, from perspective of subject

2.ii. Student example of image analysis

photographer GAVIN FERNANDES subject; photographer; viewer

photographer GAVIN FERNANDES subject; photographer; viewer

photographer GAVIN FERNANDES subject; photographer; viewer

photographer GAVIN FERNANDES subject; photographer; viewer

Reflecting on three aspects of creativity in our collaboration

Bisociation

Dialogue-as-ideal

Tolerance of ambiguity/uncertainty

collaboration

novel

effective

Was it?& in what ways?

What evidence was there of

Preparation for workshop 2

Modifications were informed by:

Initial idea (solution to a problem) – modified/redrafted/reiterated

external resources concurrent briefspersonal resonancesexhibitionsetc.

our own positions disciplinaryrole-based

backgroundsetc.

experience of doing the first sessionof how the students were responding to the moduleof teaching the students on other modulesetc.

Preparation for workshop 2

Modifications were made possible by:

Initial idea (solution to a problem) – modified/redrafted/reiterated

setting up a structure that could accommodate them (module, aims, etc.)

creating a space that afforded us the possibility to exchange ideas & develop the project (freedom to digress)

having an openness to working in new ways (receptiveness, adaptability, tolerance of uncertainty)

enjoying the process of working together

committing to the project and working at it (not allowing it to drop)

containment

The workshop itself3 distinct sectionsallowed us to play to our different strengthsbut each element was part of a bigger, coherent whole (fluidity

& progression)

Activitiesalternative approaches (to reading & writing), discussion, individual work, shouting (!)combination of approaches to delivery

Rolescollaboration afforded a break from the norm for lecturers & students (freedom, alternatives)

Thank you

Peter Thomas (p.thomas@mdx.ac.uk)Senior lecturer and Coordinator or Academic Writing & Language for the Schools of Art & Design, and Media & Performing Arts

Anne Burke (a.burke@mdx.ac.uk)Senior lecturer in History of Art and design and Module leader of VCD2936

Gavin Fernandes (g.fernandes@mdx.ac.uk)Senior Lecturer in Photography and Fashion, Communication and Styling

ReferencesAbra, J. (1994) Collaboration in creative work: An initiative for investigation. Creativity Research Journal, 7:1, 1-20.

Bakhtin, M. M. (1981) The Dialogic Imagination, Austin: University of Texas Press.

Barthes, R. (200) Camera Lucida. London: Vintage.

Biggs, M. & D. Büchler (2011) Text-led and Object-led Research Paradigms: Doing without Words in Lees-Maffei, G. (ed.) Writing Design: Objects and Words. London & New York: Berg, 231-242.

Harding, J. & L. Hale (2007) Anti-Creativity, Ambiguity and the Imposition of Order. Creativity or Conformity? Building Cultures of Creativity in Higher Education [conference] University of Wales Institute, Cardiff, January 8-10.

Hay K. G. (2009) Concrete Abstractions and Intersemiotic Translations: The Legacy of Della Volpe in MacLeod, K. & Holdridge, L. (eds.) Thinking Through Art: Reflections on Art As Research, London: Routledge, 51-59.

Koestler, A. (1964) The Act Of Creation. London: Hutchinson

Lillis, T. (2003) Student Writing as ‘Academic Literacies’: Drawing on Bakhtin to Move from Critique to Design, Language & Education. Vol. 17, No 3, 192-207.

Orr, S., M. Blythman & J. Mullin (2005) Designing Your Writing/Writing Your Design: Art and Design Students talk about the Process of Writing and the Process of Design. Across The Disciplines, 3 (Special Issue Visual WAC) www.colostate.edu/atd/visual/orr_blythman_mullin.cfn [accessed 20/11/07]

Polanyi, M. (1974) Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy. Chicago: Chicago University Press.

Sternberg, J. (2012) American Prospects. Göttingen: Steidl.

Thomas, P. (2013) Transformation, Dialogue and Collaboration: Developing Studio-based Concept Writing in Art and Design through Embedded Interventions. Journal of Academic Writing Vol. 3 No. 1 Summer, pages 42-66

Turner, J. (2011) Language in the Academy: Cultural Reflexivity and Intercultural Dynamics. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.

Zenasni, F., Besancon, M. & Lubart, T. (2008) Creativity and Tolerance of Ambiguity: An Empirical Study, Journal of Creative Behavior, Volume 42 Number 1, 62.