Contemporary Creation Research Articles

Architecture muséale : une figure de l’art de la ville "Du British Museum à la spirale du Victoria & Albert Museum à Londres"

Beginning with "the Beaubourg effect", which was confirmed and greatly enhanced by the "Bilbao effect", hundreds of museums are now being built all over the world and are consecrated in an extreme media storm, from their very conception, to the point that the architectural object itself is a work of art, even taking precedence over the collections for which it was conceived, and is one of the first artistic objects to be taken into consideration in a town. In this great fascination for museums, we like to recognize the spirit of the Enlightenment, which sees the museum as something indispensable for any self-respecting city, a monument and/or an ornament, an instrument which gives value to the bourgeois city, the key edifice in many urbanistic programs. The new museum, above and beyond its economic importance, has become an essential element of symbolic capital for a city. This is true of the architectural object itself and the urbanistic project which accompanies it. Museal architecture, whether it be a contemporary creation or a rehabilitation, inevitably exhibits certain aesthetic norms which are revealed by the formal choices and the testimonies of the cultural attitudes of a given moment in time. The city prides itself on the multiplication of images offered by these places of art. Starting with an analysis of the architectural envelope of museums in the urban milieu, we will address the question of the museum as an ornament of the city. The demonstration will be developed using the city of London and its British Museum as a reference and will essentially refer to the projected extensions of the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Tate Modern.

New strategies of anthropophagy in Brazilian/Portuguese digital literature

This article intends to discuss an example of contemporary digital literary creation, based on anthropophagy as a cultural mechanism. Oswald de Andrade, one of the leaders of Brazilian modernism, published his Anthropophagic Manifesto in 1928, where he argued that “what is not mine interests me”. In fact, translated into our contemporary culture, this Manifesto could explain some issues of Brazil’s intellectual and cultural environment: the “only what is not mine interests me” could be complementarily read as “what is mine does not interest me”; the anthropophagus would disdain that which is his own and ceaselessly search for the references to the Other. That attitude would be important to understand not only cultural processes, but it could also describe some strategies of contemporary digital literary creations, as Amor de Clarice, created by the Portuguese artist and intellectual Rui Torrres.

The Politics of the Sensuous and the Sacred Body in India

Abstract This paper is written inspired by looking at the hypocritical neocolonial/postcolonial Indians who claim to be the moralistic proper Hindu Indians. The paper discusses contemporary Indian aesthetic creations, specifically visual images and plastic arts, and correlates them with the excessive psychological, ethical, social, and gender judgments in which they are placed. Nakedness and naked bodies, the sensuous and the sacred body are judged within different hermeneutical contexts. By nakedness I do not mean just the nude body or the sexed body/body-ness, but nakedness in all its ambivalence. The paper focuses on various events in India to show how the domain of the expressive lifeworld of the sensuous and the sacred is still a question of debate, which has not changed since the Victorian moral codes.

Revisiting Creativity Research: An Investigation of Contemporary Approaches

In this study, contemporary creativity research was investigated by conducting an analysis of dissertation abstracts. Keywords relating to creativity were used to collect a sample from an online database. The abstracts were coded by discipline, research aspect (trait, process, or product), social level of analysis (individual, group, organization, or culture), and research approach (empirical vs. theoretical; quantitative vs. qualitative). Classification trees were built to explore the relationships between disciplines and their terminology, research aspect and social level of analysis. The results show that the terms creativity and innovation are used interchangeably by some disciplines, and diverse creativity research in terms of aspect and social level are produced within single disciplines. Besides indicating that disciplines overlap in their activity, these findings suggest new trends in research aspects and social levels.

Touchstone Anthology of Contemporary Creative Nonfiction: Work from 1970 to the Present (review)

Reviewed by: Touchstone Anthology of Contemporary Creative Nonfiction: Work from 1970 to the Present Peter M. Ives (bio) Touchstone Anthology of Contemporary Creative Nonfiction: Work from 1970 to the Present. Edited by Lex WillifordMichael Martone. Touchstone, 2007. 552 pages, paper, $20.00. Whoopee—it’s an Anthology First, I hate the term “creative nonfiction.” It sounds like a genre with a serious chip on its shoulder, screaming out to anyone who will listen, “I used to be a contender.” How about noncreative nonfiction, or really creative or relatively creative or not-on-your-life-creative nonfiction? Let us just say “literary nonfiction” or “literary nonfictive prose” and proceed. Second, as a reader, I’m not crazy about anthologies. After all, who, besides a steamrolled student, goes out to buy an anthology? Here’s a combination of words you’ve never heard: “Hey, Honey, this Friday evening let’s go out, get a bite to eat, drop by Borders, and pick up an anthology.” Take it a step further: “Hey, Honey, let’s go out, get a bite to eat, drop by Borders, and pick up an anthology of creative nonfiction.” Typically, “Anthology” has a connotation of gossamer-thin pages filled with miniscule-font-sized sentences that run into adjacent zip codes and paragraphs that meander from Eastern to Pacific Standard Time; they weigh 50 percent more than the all the other contents in a book bag and induce not only a reluctance to read, but represent the best argument I can think of for Cliff Notes. However, as a teacher, I must admit that The Touchstone Anthology of Contemporary Literary Nonfiction . . . er, I mean . . . Creative Nonfiction, [End Page 156] edited by Lex Williford and Michael Martone, is about the best collection of essays and short memoir to be found between book covers. While students may still respond to anthologies as something akin to literary torture, at least they’ll sense that Williford and Martone are sticking to the more humane procedures outlined in the U.S. Army Field Manual. This is a book for educators, and Williford establishes in the foreword the principles by which he and Martone solicited from “teaching writers” (via a “sophisticated democratic online survey”) the titles of “the most compelling contemporary nonfiction they’ve taught in their creative writing workshops and their composition and literature classes.” Thus, in one fell swoop, the editors have produced an eclectic collection that not only captures literary nonfiction in all its variety, but succeeds in keeping teachers from those late night hours at the copying machine, surreptitiously violating copyright law. If an anthology is a bibliographic shopping mall, then the editors must make sure to provide for anchor stores, the literary flagship equivalents of Filene’s, Bloomingdales, Sears, Dillards, etc.—the big names that hypnotically drive the consumers through their entrances, allowing for serendipitous excursions to the smaller retailers symbiotically lining the corridors. Similarly, The Touchstone Anthology anchors its pages with our own literary flagships: Dillard, Lopate, Berry, McPhee, Lopez, Sedaris—to name just a few. And while I have read Annie Dillard’s “Living Like Weasels” so many times that I could perform it as a soliloquy at my son’s next birthday party, I also try to keep in mind my reaction when I first read it. The marvelous voice and images and narrative line. We anthologize and reread certain authors because of their greatness, their ability to beguile us with the virtuosity of their storytelling techniques. An anthology, I must grudgingly concede, is probably the best way to pass those first impressions on to a new audience. While many anthologies arrange the contents by subject or year or theme, the editors forthrightly chose to move alphabetically by author. A wise and fortuitous choice, given that the first essay, JoAnn Beard’s “The Fourth State of Matter,” demonstrates all at once the gorgeous possibilities of literary memoir. From the somnambulistic images of her opening sentence, “The collie wakes me up about three times a night, summoning me from a great distance as I row my boat through a dim, complicated dream,” to the dark foreshadowing of friends and colleagues “whose lives are ticking like alarm clocks ready to...

‘Living with culture’: creative citizenship practices in Toronto

This paper addresses the contemporary creativity ethos through the lens of citizenship. The paper builds upon governmentality scholarship to examine how creativity and cultural participation are being recast as moral duties of active citizenship. It notes the development of governmental projects that seek to optimize the creative capacities of individuals toward a variety of ends. The paper develops these observations through an examination of cultural planning practices in Toronto. It notes how the city's cultural policies are viewed in increasingly therapeutic terms as technologies of creative citizenship. Emphasis is placed on the proliferation of participatory arts festivals and arts-based community development projects that enlist urban denizens into creative citizenship practices. The paper then explores a paradox at the centre of this emergent regime of creative citizenship. It describes how the creative citizen is construed in cultural planning practice as a heroic agent of innovation and civic renewal, and, at the same time, as an object of continual monitoring, assessment and risk-management.

Trinidad Carnival: The Cultural Politics of a Transnational Festival (review)

Reviewed by: Trinidad Carnival: The Cultural Politics of a Transnational Festival Andrew R. Martin Trinidad Carnival: The Cultural Politics of a Transnational Festival. Edited by Garth L. Green and Philip W. Scher. Bloomington: Indiana Uni versity Press, 2007. [x, 254 p. ISBN-10 0253348234; ISBN-13 9780253348234. $60.] Illustrations, references, index. Errol Hill's The Trinidad Carnival: Mandate for a National Theatre (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1972), and an issue of the Caribbean Quarterly (4, nos. 3–4 [1956]) devoted entirely to the Trinidad carnival, are perhaps the two primary sources providing the foundation for a significant amount of carnival scholarship. Accordingly, Garth L. Green and Philip W. Scher's Trinidad Carnival: The Cultural Politics of A Trans national Festival pays homage to these studies, suggesting in the acknowledgements that this collection is in fact a fiftieth-year celebration of the 1956 Caribbean Quarterly special issue. A welcome addition to the catalog of globalization studies within the Caribbean diaspora, in this collection Green and Scher, citing the advanced nature of the carnival's unique hybridity, offer several nuanced readings of globalization placing special emphasis on carnival as a historical product. Moreover, the essays in the collection approach and situate carnivals (in Trinidad, New York, Toronto, Aruba, and others) "within migration patterns, diverse forms of colonialist discourse, forms of cultural resistance, and desires for cultural recognition" (p. 2). Green and Scher carefully selected essays for this collection that reflect the identity crisis within the parent Trinidadian carnival, while paying special attention to the transnationalism of the offspring carnivals spread throughout the globe. Broadly conceived, this collection initiates a discussion of how the ideology of national cultural forms is affected locally by global forces. Moreover, this essay collection examines the process by which carnival fosters and adapts to the changing nature of Caribbeaness on a global scale. A fine example of reading carnival as a contemporary creation of a historical past, the first essay, "The Invention of Tradi tional Mas and Politics of Gender," by Pamela R. Franco, offers an argument for understanding the current role of women within the contemporary Trinidad carnival. Since the 1960s, female participants in carnival parades, calypso tents, and steel bands have steadily increased in number, while the actual number of carnival characters has steadily decreased. Franco argues that construction of traditional mas, as formulated by Daniel Crowley in the 1956 Caribbean Quarterly, is male-centric, afro-centric, and increasingly problematic for positing an understanding of female dominated contemporary carnival. Moreover, Franco explores the contemporary notion of "femininity as inauthentic" by exploring the 1950s Trinidadian nationalist movement that adopted this new understanding of traditional mas. Anthropologist and carnival participant Patricia A. De Freitas embodies a unique perspective when approaching carnival studies. Her essay, "The Masquerader Anthropologist: the Poetics and Politics of Studying Carnival," raises many interesting questions about who, the insider or the outsider, is best suited for carnival study. Moreover, De Freitas suggests that "the contest over representation is both about 'politics' and 'poetics,' about who has the authority, both politically and epistemologically, to study and represent Carnival" (p. 52). Throughout this personal essay, De Freitas insists on detaching the native from the insider and the anthropologist from the outsider, arguing that position is [End Page 761] irrelevant so long as the perspective is reflective. However, De Freitas appears to take sides in the matter, warning anthropologists to question the purpose and motivations of their research, suggesting that perhaps the most well-qualified agent is a Trinidadian anthropologist—one able to express carnival from the inside-out. Co-editor Garth L. Green supplies the third essay in the collection, "Authenticity, Commerce, and Nostalgia in the Trinidad Carnival." Green argues that the forms of nostalgia, in this instance Kathleen Stewart's concept of hegemonic nostalgia, are influenced by political and economic agendas of persons of "cultural authority" (p. 64). Members of the government, carnival directors, and tourism industry officials often attempt to control interpretations of Trinidad carnival, and Green discusses the political nature and implications that inform carnival representations. Green employs two unique case studies as the basis of his essay. The first is special carnival competition devoted to traditional characters called the Veiy La Cou...

E. H. Gombrich on Creativity: A Cognitive–Historical Case Study

E. H. Gombrich (1909–2001) was almost certainly the most broadly known art historian of the 20th century, and his scholarly work has influenced researchers in many domains. Among psychologists, Gombrich's impact has been greatest in the area of visual perception, largely through the ideas articulated in his book Art and Illusion (1960). His influence on creativity research has been far less profound, although his writings include numerous (although often indirect) discussions of fundamental aspects of creative processes. This cognitive–historical case study investigation aimed to understand how Gombrich achieved a rich, and sometimes prescient, understanding of creativity without emphasizing it as an explicit focus of his scholarship. I argue that Gombrich's cognitive style and multidisciplinary forays led him to emphasize and integrate a particular set of principles that are often underemphasized in contemporary creativity research. Gombrich's foci, on understanding individual creators, continuity with tradition, expert knowledge, feedback, evaluation, and learning, are highly relevant to the study of creativity and represent a stimulating challenge to investigators.

Alternative Media in Brisbane

Brisbane under the Country/National Party governments from 1957 to 1989 is often portrayed as a cultural desert. While there were certainly many ‘Queensland refugees’ who went to the southern states and overseas to realise their creativity, this paper's review of alternative media in Brisbane between 1965 and 1985 substantiates previous claims that the political repression also encouraged others with radical views to stay to contribute to the extra-parliamentary opposition. The radical movement is revealed as adept at using the products of technological change (including new printing processes, FM radio and lightweight Super 8 and video camera equipment) to create new audiences interested not only in alternative politics but also contemporary creativity. In particular, this paper argues that, by countering Premier Bjelke-Petersen's skilful management of the mainstream media, alternative media workers were producing the basis of the thriving creative industry scene that exists in Brisbane today, as well as non-doctrinaire ideas that may have a wider application.

Creativity and education: an American retrospective

Although early childhood education in America has always had the creative child at the core of its approach, the field itself has generated little systematic research on the topic. In contrast, the scholarly field of creativity studies, with its focus on basic research and theoretical questions, has impacted education only slightly. Creativity and education may have been disconnected topics in a scholarly sense in the US primarily because (1) early childhood education has relied primarily on theory imported from abroad as a guide to practice; (2) psychometric research on creativity proved conceptually and methodologically flawed, short circuiting widespread use of creativity tests by American public schools; and (3) contemporary approaches to creativity have tended to be either broadly theoretical or primarily concerned with answering basic research questions. The article discusses contemporary creativity research; cautionary notes, drawn from the American experience, are also included.

Economics as Ideology: Keynes, Laski, Hayek, and the Creation of Contemporary Politics

Economics as Ideology: Keynes, Laski, Hayek, and the Creation of Contemporary Politics, Kenneth R. Hoover, Rowman and Littlefield, 2003, pp. xv, 329.Although it was published two years ago, this book remains relevant to many contemporary debates about the optimal relationship between market and state institutions, especially if we want to set these debates within a historical context. To provide an account of the development of economic thinking in the twentieth century, Hoover carefully examines the lives, personalities and writings of three emblematic thinkers: Harold Laski, John Maynard Keynes and Friedrich A. Hayek. The title is somewhat misleading in the sense that it refers to a particular meaning of the term “ideology” that may not be shared by all those who come across this book, but the author justifies it by explaining that he takes ideology to mean a set of a priori contestable propositions that are posed as being unchallengeable or, in other words, have been “decontested.” Thus the question he is interested in is: “Why did these thinkers decontest ideas about government and the market in the way they did?” (4).

Interrogating “Urban Citizenship” vis-à-vis Undocumented Migration

This article critically interrogates the emerging literature on cities and citizenship, with specific reference to undocumented, “illegal”, or irregular migrant status. It first identifies and discusses three major approaches in the cities and citizenship literature, namely: normative, rescaling, and agency-centered approaches. It then interrogates this literature through the lens of migrant legal status and entertains a normative vision of urban citizenship in which a person would become a “citizen” not by explicit consent of fellow citizens, but merely by presence and residence in a place. While the immediate possibilities for such an unbounded, “grounded” citizenship are small, the article takes lessons from this model and discusses a fourth approach to cities and citizenship which explores the contemporary creation of urban “citizenship” policies for undocumented migrants in the United States. It concludes by discussing four brief examples of these local policies: (1) the contemporary struggle to reinstate local noncitizen voting, (2) the increasing acceptance of matrículas consulares as a valid form of identification for undocumented Mexican residents, and the debates over whether or not states should (3) issue driver licenses to undocumented migrants and (4) allow undocumented students to pay in-state tuition for public colleges and universities. Global cities are spaces where the very meaning, content and extent of citizenship are being made and transformed. (Isin, 2000, p. 6) … It's ridiculous that becoming a citizen in the US is a problem. I've been here for 17 years! This is my home. You need to make a difference where you live! (Undocumented resident of Los Angeles1)

Antagonism and Relational Aesthetics

On the occasion of its opening in 2002, the Palais de Tokyo immediately struck the visitor as different from other contemporary art venues that had recently opened in Europe. Although a budget of 4.75 million euros was spent on converting the former Japanese pavilion for the 1937 World’s Fair into a “site for contemporary creation,” most of this money had been used to reinforce (rather than renovate) the existing structure.1 Instead of clean white walls, discreetly installed lighting, and wooden floors, the interior was left bare and unfinished. This decision was important, as it reflected a key aspect of the venue’s curatorial ethos under its codirectorship by Jerome Sans, an art critic and curator, and Nicolas Bourriaud, former curator at CAPC Bordeaux and editor of the journal Documents sur l’art. The Palais de Tokyo’s improvised relationship to its surroundings has subsequently become paradigmatic of a visible tendency among European art venues to reconceptualize the “white cube” model of displaying contemporary art as a studio or experimental “laboratory.”2 It is therefore in the tradition of what

Generalization of Creativity Across Domains: Examination of the Method Effect Hypothesis

AbstractThe question of whether creativity is content general or content specific is one of the most controversial issues in contemporary creativity research. Recent studies provide support for both positions, but the results of these investigations may be influenced by several factors, including the presence of a method effect (i.e., psychometric vs. alternative assessment). This study investigates the method effect by analyzing quantity (psychometric) and quality (alternative assessment) of creative achievement simultaneously using structural equation modeling. Results provide evidence for the method effect hypothesis.

Serendipity in the Theater: Maude Adams as James M. Barrie's American Muse

ABSTRACTA special niche in theatre history is addressed to begin to fill a void in the contemporary creativity literature. The present essay focuses on Maude Adams and James M. Barrie in an attempt to demonstrate that, serendipitously, Adams initially impacted Barrie's creative process, and thereafter became his platonic source of inspiration for the plays he created for her, meriting the belated title of muse. Set change theory is underscored as a plausible cognitive explanation for Barrie's illumination. The psychoanalytic theory of transference is proposed as an underlying mechanism for facilitating the change of mental set during the incubation stage. A brief discussion on a selective theoretical integration from the fields of cognitive psychology, psychoanalysis, and neuroscience is followed by conclusions.

Reexploring Islamic Art: Modern and Contemporary Creation in the Arab World and Its Relation to the Artistic Past

Previous articleNext article No AccessReexploring Islamic Art: Modern and Contemporary Creation in the Arab World and Its Relation to the Artistic PastSilvia NaefSilvia Naef Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Res Volume 43Spring 2003 Published in association with the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/RESv43n1ms20167596 Views: 161Total views on this site Copyright President and Fellows of Harvard CollegePDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

The Dematerialization of Culture and the De–accessioning of Museum Collections

a contemporary creation and is the result of a process of display. Has this position in some way been inspired by the dematerialization of heritage artefacts in the Information Society? Bruno S. Frey is a renowned economist who has worked on the analysis of phenomena related to artistic activities from an economic point of view. He was Professor of Economics at the University of Constance and since 1977 has been Professor of Economics at the University of Zurich. He is the author of numerous articles in professional journals and books, including Not Just for the Money (1997) and Arts and Economics (2000). He has also taken part in major research projects at the international level on Economics, Values and Heritage Conservation and in the international debate on how museums should see profit-making activities as a possibility of enlarging their freedom of action.

Kartų kaita lietuvių fotografijoje: socialumo pokyčiai ikonografijoje

From nineteen Sixties to nineties Lithuanian photography reached its highest maturity. Its acclaim in the former Soviet Union prompted the apparition of a term Lithuanian school of photography, defining the mainstream of Lithuanian photography of the time. The authors to participate in this cultural phenomenon created a considerable body of photographic works, often metaphorically depicting Lithuanian ethnic culture and rural life. During the last decades the debates on the issues of the contemporary photographic creation are rising, implying questioning, whether or not the works of the newer generation lack creative maturity, Whether they are worth of being exposed next to those made by classics. This article provides an overview of similarities and differences in the work of the Lithuanian school of photography and the generation of the independent Lithuania, using a complex method of social iconography. The usage of this method will guide the discourse from the offsprings of the socially-based national art and social photography to the overview and localization of the Lithuanian social photography in the global scene. The research aims to emphasize the basic iconological differences in the works of the two creative generations, to name the changes of the Lithuanian social and cultural habits and to detennine if the iconography of the Lithuanian photography corresponds to its period of time. Two types of social photography are distinguished - social documentation and semiotic communication. Conclusions. The iconographic formulas, practiced by the photographers (1960-1990), like old persons portraits, are common also to other Eastern European countries. The frequent festive aspect (religious holiday, manifestation, basketball team Victory etc.) works as a reason for picture-taking, and expresses a Lithuanian preference of a holiday to workday, exterior to interior, spiritual to material, anecdote to invented story. Very few signs of material culture of the Soviet period appear. Inthe works of the classics, mirror of the spiritual culture is a face of old persons. Meanwhile the young generation discovers the importance of teenagers and youth as the marginal part of the postmodern demo graphic situation. The influence of media transfers images of convicts, drunkards, disabled and other disadvantaged social groups. The crisis of the contemporary photography might lie in the lack of social descriptiveness, but not in the definition of national, social or private identities.

Preserving Hispanic Lifeways in New Mexico

IN MARCH OF 1598, settlers from New Spain crossed the Rio Grande near present-day El Paso, Texas, held a thanksgiving mass and feast, and continued north to establish one of the first European colonies in North America. Led by don Juan de Onate, these four hundred settlers included soldiers, priests, miners, and farmers, and were of Spanish, Mexican, Native American, and even Moorish heritage. For the next four centuries, the descendants of these and subsequent waves of settlers have created a unique culture and society in an isolated region of North America. Part heirloom tradition, part contemporary creation, the culture of twenty-first-century New Mexico evolved from a rich combination of many peoples. In presentday New Mexico, those of Spanish descent continue to play a major role in the creation of culture. A variety of institutions, communities, and individuals in New Mexico collect, preserve, interpret, and exhibit the four hundred years of Latino heritage—a heritage that has been a contested ground for generations. The first contested issue that we need to untangle is what to call New Mexicans of Spanish descent. New Mexicans of Spanish descent are a

Reanalyses of Student Responses to Creativity Checklists: Evidence of Content Generality

The question of whether creativity is content general (i.e., applied similarly across content areas) or content specific (i.e., applied differently across content areas) is one of the most controversial issues in contemporary creativity research, with recent studies providing support for both positions. Reanalyses of data from three previously published studies suggest that, contrary to the results of recent research, a content general factor may explain 40 — 50% of the variance in creativity checklist scores. The results are analyzed in light of other studies, and a hypothesis regarding the content generality‐specificity of creativity is provided to guide future research efforts.