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Articles on Creativity series

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Researchers are turning their attention to what makes creativity work in organisations. Sebastiaan ter Burg

Creativity in the workplace: what we know and what we do

Creativity is credited with providing the capability for organisations to generate unique intellectual property, unique methods and processes – so how is it generated and promoted?
The creation of something new involves not only creative leaps but also cognition, reasoning and expertise. Powderuns/Flickr

The creative process is more than one giant leap for humankind

Creativity is a concept we’re all familiar with. But where does it come from? And do our intuitive understandings of creativity tally with what’s really going on?
New forms of creativity are proliferating – with the help of technological advancement – and building new activist communities. David Shankbone/Flickr

Creative communities embody a new kind of civic engagement

Can creative activism change the world? In 2015, we are seeing seismic shifts in the functions and forms of creativity – and technological change is amplifying its social role.
Contestants from the most recent series of Big Brother toast their success º but is that success killing TV creativity? AAP Image/Nine Network, Big Brother Publicity, Paul Broben

How reality TV killed creativity in television

In the age of the “creative economy”, reality programs are dominating Australian TV. The problem is, reality TV is squeezing the creativity out of our screen culture.
If you’re not born with creativity, do you have to struggle to acquire it? Robin Taylor/Flickr

Teaching creativity: born that way or waiting for the muse?

Recently one of my Masters students, a filmmaker from the Czech Republic, told me his friends back at home were completely baffled that he was in Australia studying creative writing. You were either creative…
David Bowie famously issued ‘Bowie bonds’. Do artists have viable alternatives to copyright? EPA/Nils Meilvang

If copyright’s a dud, what business models do work for creatives?

Much of the creative work we value – whether it’s films, music, novels, or TV shows – requires a significant input of time and resources. The established method for raising the resources to fund such work…
Play is good for kids and for adults – so why do we try so hard to cordon it off from work? Jon Bunting/Flickr

The summer holidays are over – but we shouldn’t stop playing

The summer holidays are well and truly over. The magic of Christmas is back in its box. Sales of champagne have plunged. The customary dribble back to work across the stretch of January, and now early…
Living Data: Evolving Conversations. Exhibition and Forum at the University of Technology Sydney, 2014. Curators: Lisa Roberts and Anita Marosszeky. Living Data

Living data: how art helps us all understand climate change

We hear so much about the integrity of scientific process and the role of data in driving action on climate change – but what role is there for artists in bringing about changes in understandings? Science…
The tragedies of ancient Greece underpin Nietzsche’s understanding of what it means to be an artist. Hans Runge/Flickr

Living life as an artist: Nietzsche on creativity

Love or loathe him, philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) offered a unique way of considering creativity in his first major work, The Birth of Tragedy, published in 1872. Competing creative energies…
Research tells us creativity is a capacity that can be taught. Chiu Ho-yang/Flickr

We need creative teaching to teach creativity

Whether or not creativity can be taught is still a contested question, though it really shouldn’t be. The evidence is well and truly in on this question. The idea that creativity cannot be taught is based…
Creativity ‘does not somehow float free of economic gravity, miraculously aloft’. Fabio Zenoardo

Creativity might be playful – but it’s also work

The view that art is essentially unworldly and creativity is play has a long history, dating back to the Romantics in the 18th century. According to this view, art must be kept separate from money, lest…
Australian creators understand that digital distribution is changing their industries – but they’re still materially affected by copyright infringement. AAP Image/MONA

Online infringement hurts: interviews with Australian creators

Music is no longer a treasured experience between artist and audience, people want easy consumption and access – Australian musician/ songwriter. Australian creators have been severely affected both financially…
Urban studies theorist Richard Florida argues that ‘creativity is the new economy’. Ed Schipul

Square pegs: creativity on campus needs an urgent re-think

Many universities see themselves as profit-motivated enterprises, but there are still a fair few people working in them who think teaching and learning ought to have different aims from those of business…
Today, economists and neuroscientists – not artists – are working out how to make corporations, such as Pixar, more creative. Loren Javier/Flickr

Where do profit and productivity sit in creative economies?

Creativity - variously defined as innovation, critical thinking, and cognitive flexibility amongst others - is ubiquitous these days. From creative corporate conglomerates such as Google and Pixar to primary…
Why aren’t governments more committed to fostering creative inquiry all the way through to high school? AAP/Dan Peled

Creativity in schools sounds good – so what’s the hitch?

British scholar Bill Lucas recently asserted the need for a consistent, appropriate and measurable definition of creativity. In his words: if creativity is to be taken more seriously by educators and educational…
Why do our discussions of creative genius so often confine the conversation to male writers such as Jonathan Franzen? AAP Image/Harper Collins

Genius – still a country for white, middle class, heterosexual men

I recently watched Salinger (2013), the documentary about the late American writer J.D. Salinger, famous recluse and author of The Catcher in the Rye. In it, the word “genius” was bandied about often and…
Developing the creativity habit requires more than just good intentions. Navy Hale Keiki School/Flickr

Fighting the slump: a strategic approach to developing creativity

A long-term trend of declining creativity test scores has renewed interest in mechanisms to stimulate and foster the development of creativity – at home, in schools, universities and workplaces. At the…
They way we relate to other people shapes our moral life – and that’s something that requires imagination. David Galindo/Flickr

The moral life might seem boring – but it takes imagination to live it

Creativity and imagination - it’s impossible to discuss one without reference to the other - are often discussed with regard to the great artists, thinkers, and visionaries of our world. Those are the…

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