tag:theconversation.com,2011:/global/topics/creative-7645/articlesCreative – The Conversation2023-09-27T20:04:52Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2141492023-09-27T20:04:52Z2023-09-27T20:04:52ZWill AI kill our creativity? It could – if we don’t start to value and protect the traits that make us human<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550530/original/file-20230927-23-bj9ssa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=3%2C7%2C1019%2C1014&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock AI</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>There’s no doubt generative AI’s ability to rapidly produce new texts, images and audio is shaking up creative jobs. </p>
<p>In the long-running <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Writers_Guild_of_America_strike">Writers Guild of America strike</a>, a central <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/pop-culture-news/writers-strike-negotiations-hung-language-ai-sources-say-rcna117041">sticking point</a> has been the guild’s demand that AI be used only as a research tool and <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/writers-strike-ai-chatgpt-1235478681/">not a replacement</a> for its members. For many <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2023/05/generative-ai-creative-jobs/">creative types</a>, it seems harder to earn a living with AI around.</p>
<p>At the same time, however, AI tools are often seen as <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/joemckendrick/2023/07/16/ai-may-or-may-not-be-able-to-mimic-human-creativity-but-certainly-can-boost-it/?sh=47721eee4159">a springboard</a> to next-level <a href="https://theconversation.com/ai-scores-in-the-top-percentile-of-creative-thinking-211598">human creativity</a>. Technologies such as Anthropic’s chatbot <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/sep/25/amazon-invest-openai-rival-anthropic-microsoft-chat-gpt">Claude</a> and OpenAI’s ChatGPT and <a href="https://openai.com/dall-e-3">Dall-E 3</a> offer a seductive creative experience.</p>
<p>Will these tools help us survive and thrive as a creative species? Or are they the death knell of creativity as we know it?</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/3-ways-ai-is-transforming-music-210598">3 ways AI is transforming music</a>
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<h2>What is creativity?</h2>
<p>In her book <a href="https://www.routledge.com/The-Creative-Mind-Myths-and-Mechanisms/Boden/p/book/9780415314534">The Creative Mind</a>, cognitive science expert Margaret Boden distinguishes between two types of human creativity.</p>
<p>Psychological or personal (p-type) creativity happens when an individual thinks something for the first time – even if others have thought it separately before. One example is a child realising water can take any shape. </p>
<p>Essentially, p-type creativity is learning something useful and, in the process, synchronising our thoughts with others.</p>
<p>Historical creativity (h-type), on the other hand, happens when an individual thinks something that has never been thought before. One example would be Archimedes’s “eureka” moment in the bath, which supposedly <a href="https://uakron.edu/polymer/agpa-k12outreach/professional-development-modules/pdf/float_your_boat_archimedes.pdf">led to him</a> discovering the law of buoyancy.</p>
<p>The more someone’s creativity subsequently affects other people’s thinking, the more momentous and enduring we consider their legacy. </p>
<p>This is why <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wandjina">Wandjina rock art</a> in the Kimberley, Homer’s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iliad">Iliad</a>, Pablo Picasso’s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guernica_(Picasso)">Guernica</a>, Frank Lloyd Wright’s <a href="https://fallingwater.org/">Fallingwater house</a> and Albert Einstein’s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annus_mirabilis_papers">Annus Mirabilis papers</a> are all considered exceptional works left behind by exceptional humans. They are important because they continue to shape our thinking.</p>
<h2>Generative AI doesn’t belong in either category</h2>
<p>AI obviously has the potential to promote both p-type and h-type creativity. It can lead us to insights about biology, history and mathematics, and help us create texts and images that may be useful or thought-provoking.</p>
<p>But there is one key difference between human creativity and AI-driven creativity: the latter doesn’t stem from the evolutionary clash of mind and world.</p>
<p>AI models don’t contain reality. They rely on the complex statistical <a href="https://www.zdnet.com/article/how-does-chatgpt-work/">abstraction of digital data</a>. This limits their real-world creative significance and their capacity to produce “eureka” moments.</p>
<p>To differentiate AI-driven creativity from old-fashioned creativity, <a href="https://www.brandingmag.com/cameron-shackell/generic-creativity-might-be-your-new-customer-touchpoint/">I have proposed</a> a new term: generic, or g-type, creativity. It formalises the fact that while AI models are capable of provoking new thought, they are <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4535536">limited</a> by the underlying data they have been trained on.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ai-art-is-everywhere-right-now-even-experts-dont-know-what-it-will-mean-189800">AI art is everywhere right now. Even experts don't know what it will mean</a>
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<h2>The big risk: a generic spiral</h2>
<p>We can expect an <a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/quantumblack/our-insights/the-state-of-ai-in-2023-generative-ais-breakout-year">explosion</a> in g-type creativity in our future. The danger here is that our increasing use of AI could make us think too much alike, leading to a decrease in cognitive diversity and an increase in <a href="https://innovation-entrepreneurship.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s13731-022-00219-2">cultural tightness</a>. </p>
<p>In this scenario, societies would become more rigid in the norms they enforce, and less tolerant of deviations from the status quo. At a population level this would be a <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-018-0516-z">creativity killer</a>.</p>
<p>The threat isn’t just AI-generated movies, TV, books and art. In the future, the homes we live in, the cars we drive (or won’t have to drive) and our shared public spaces will all be shaped by AI. We may see our thinking become homogenised under the pressure of increasingly <a href="https://eprints.qut.edu.au/132780/1/0473.pdf">similar environments and experiences</a>. </p>
<p>This sameness further put us at risk of a generic spiral. AI models are trained on content we create. So the more we use AI for g-type creativity, the more generic our content will become – and since this will be used to further train AI, the more generic AI outputs will become. </p>
<p>While this might be useful for <a href="https://theconversation.com/in-future-well-see-fewer-generic-ai-chatbots-like-chatgpt-and-more-specialised-ones-that-are-tailored-to-our-needs-212578">certain specialist tasks</a> – such as consistently interpreting law – it’s worrying to contemplate the kind of Orwellian political economy a generic spiral might give rise to.</p>
<h2>Can we enjoy AI and also preserve creativity?</h2>
<p>Balancing and reconciling human creativity with AI isn’t as simple as going for regular <a href="https://www.wanderlust.co.uk/content/the-worlds-best-walking-routes/">walks in nature</a> – although that will probably help.</p>
<p>Generative AI may well be a transformative technology to rival <a href="https://www.mainz.de/microsite/gutenberg-museum-en/index.php">the printing press</a> or <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_engine">steam engine</a>. Such juggernauts are difficult to resist; we collectively get swept up in the change, uncertainty and alienation they foment. </p>
<p>Some of the best minds of our generation are already abandoning other pursuits to try their luck at building and using advanced AI models.</p>
<p>Our best chance to remain truly creative is to protect and privilege the human over the artificial. Intellectual property law is key. Any further moves towards <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_person">legal personhood</a> for AI – such as allowing AI a “<a href="https://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-fairuse.html">fair use</a>” right to train itself on <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/jul/10/sarah-silverman-sues-openai-meta-copyright-infringement">copyrighted material</a>, or have <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4565695">copyright applied to AI outputs</a> – will erode our creative system and risk a generic spiral in human creativity.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/214149/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Cameron Shackell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>AI could kill our creativity by making us think too alike. It also forces us to question what “creativity” is, and the different forms it can take.Cameron Shackell, Sessional Academic and Visitor, School of Information Systems, Queensland University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1185932019-06-19T22:54:48Z2019-06-19T22:54:48ZAir India anniversary: Who remembers the children killed in Canada’s largest mass murder?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/280261/original/file-20190619-171245-2iwrea.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=136%2C4%2C2278%2C1477&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A scene from the movie 'Masala' (1991) about a young man who grapples with the loss of his family on Air India Flight 182. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Masala/Divani Films</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>On June 23, 1985, <a href="https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/air-india-flight-182-bombing">Air India Flight 182</a> departed Toronto via Montreal for Delhi with 329 passengers and crew, mostly Canadians of Indian ancestry. They included <a href="https://www.vancouverobserver.com/news/almost-half-doomed-air-india-passengers-were-canadian-kids">82 children under the age of 13</a>. </p>
<p>The end of the school year in Canada had brought the promise of visiting places and people in India, the country from which their families had immigrated. </p>
<p>Deep in the bowels of the plane, hidden among the checked-in luggage, were two suitcase bombs that would detonate in midair off the coast of Ireland. Those children along with all their fellow passengers were lost forever.</p>
<p>The children — dearly loved daughters, sons, nieces, nephews, cousins and friends — were innocents whose lives ended by an act of terror. But their tragic fate did not embed itself deeply in the consciousness of their fellow Canadians.</p>
<p>The Air India bombing has been described as <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/air-india-182-1.4174815">the largest mass murder in Canadian history</a> and an act of aviation terror without precedent. But the catastrophe remains unknown, or at most little-known to most Canadians. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/280254/original/file-20190619-171222-d19bkv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/280254/original/file-20190619-171222-d19bkv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280254/original/file-20190619-171222-d19bkv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280254/original/file-20190619-171222-d19bkv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280254/original/file-20190619-171222-d19bkv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=556&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280254/original/file-20190619-171222-d19bkv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=556&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280254/original/file-20190619-171222-d19bkv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=556&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Two reporters look over the remains of Air India Flight 182 at a secret location in Vancouver on June 16, 2004, that was reconstructed by investigators in January 2003. The Air India bombing is the worst terrorist act in Canadian history.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chuck Stoody</span></span>
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<p>Ashwin Rao, a character in Padma Vishwanathan’s Giller short-listed novel <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/184082/the-ever-after-of-ashwin-rao-by-padma-viswanathan/9780307356352"><em>The Ever After of Ashwin Rao,</em></a> says this about the children killed in the bombing: </p>
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<p>“They deserved to be acknowledged as Canadians. Those children weren’t deserving of investigative attention because of their virtues. They deserved to live, because they were alive.” </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/279931/original/file-20190618-118543-pxgoig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/279931/original/file-20190618-118543-pxgoig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279931/original/file-20190618-118543-pxgoig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279931/original/file-20190618-118543-pxgoig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279931/original/file-20190618-118543-pxgoig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279931/original/file-20190618-118543-pxgoig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279931/original/file-20190618-118543-pxgoig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">‘Remembering Air India’ is a collection and analysis of creative responses to AI Flight 182 coedited by Chandrima Chakraborty, Amber Dean and Angela Failler.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">University of Alberta Press</span></span>
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<p>It is from novels like Vishwanathan’s as well as poems, films and other creative works that many of my undergraduate and graduate Canadian students first learn about the Air India bombing.</p>
<p>In the absence of broad Canadian validation of the bombing as being worthy of public grief and mourning, <a href="https://www.uap.ualberta.ca/titles/878-9781772122596-remembering-air-india">creative artists have tried to illuminate the ongoing grief of families</a> forced to live with this profound and unrecognized loss. </p>
<p>But what explains this ignorance of <a href="http://publications.gc.ca/site/eng/371132/publication.html">“a Canadian tragedy?”</a> </p>
<p>Why do Canadians not remember the tragic loss of so many children on Air India Flight 182?</p>
<h2>Canada’s absence of remembering</h2>
<p>Blame for the public absence of knowledge and remembering rests with the Canadian government, which promptly dismissed the mass murder as a <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/why-canada-chose-to-unremember-air-india-and-disown-its-victims/article1212010/">foreign tragedy</a>. It was characterized as an act of terror committed by Indian immigrants who had imported their <a href="https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/stephen-harpers-apology-to-air-india-victims-families">“blood feuds”</a> from India to Canada. </p>
<p>The plane had crashed far away from Canada, in Irish airspace, and it was an Air India flight. These made it easier to diminish the tragedy as a Canadian story.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/canadas-troubling-indifference-to-the-air-india-bombing-91879">Canada's troubling indifference to the Air India bombing</a>
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<p>Following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in New York 16 years later, the Air India bombing was retroactively declared <a href="https://pm.gc.ca/eng/news/2018/06/23/statement-prime-minister-national-day-remembrance-victims-terrorism">“the single worst terrorist attack in Canada’s history.”</a> A <a href="https://www.publicsafety.gc.ca/cnt/rsrcs/pblctns/rspns-cmmssn/index-en.aspx">public inquiry</a> and a <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/1528176819">federal government apology</a> acknowledged Canada’s failures to prevent the bombing and the mistreatment of the families in the aftermath of the bombing. </p>
<p>However, the tragedy re-entered public consciousness as <a href="https://www.publicsafety.gc.ca/cnt/ntnl-scrt/cntr-trrrsm/r-nd-flght-182/knshk/index-en.aspx">a terrorist act</a>, not as a story of loss and suffering.</p>
<p>The ongoing grief of those who lost loved ones did not claim a prominent place in Canadian history and public memory. </p>
<h2>Creative remembrances</h2>
<p>Creative artists have tried to fill this gap in public memory. Often they have focused on the death of children or the plight of children who lost a parent in the crash to give voice to unacknowledged, invisible grief.</p>
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<span class="caption">‘The Ever After of Ashwin Rao’</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Penguin</span></span>
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<p>In <em>The Ever After of Ashwin Rao</em>, Ashwin Rao, a Canadian-trained psychologist, loses his sister and her two children who were aboard AI Flight 182. Ashwin begins to interview others who have lost family members in the crash, with the intent of writing a book about how families have “coped” with their loss. A middle-aged, grieving bachelor, he keeps his personal loss a secret. And throughout the novel we see him struggling with this grief, especially memories of his niece, who was a surrogate daughter to him. </p>
<p>Ashwin’s hidden, unexpressed grief is a reminder of many such silenced and forgotten histories of grief that haunt the nation.</p>
<p>In her poetry collection, <a href="http://www.harbourpublishing.com/title/childrenofairindia"><em>children of air india</em></a> (2013), Renée Sarojini Saklikar questions Canada’s lack of grief for the dead children. She imagines the children lost in the bombing in tragic, human dimensions. The collection is, she says, “a sequence of elegies,” “a lament for children, dead and dead again in representations.” </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/280273/original/file-20190619-171196-1at6etd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/280273/original/file-20190619-171196-1at6etd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=927&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280273/original/file-20190619-171196-1at6etd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=927&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280273/original/file-20190619-171196-1at6etd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=927&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280273/original/file-20190619-171196-1at6etd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1165&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280273/original/file-20190619-171196-1at6etd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1165&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280273/original/file-20190619-171196-1at6etd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1165&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">‘All Inclusive’ book cover.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dundurn press</span></span>
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<p>The poems reject the impersonal, detached and clinical tone of police and coroner reports. They recreate fictional lives of lost loved ones filled with intimate details that turn dead bodies into living, breathing children. Sometimes a poem offers a glimpse of the child’s night before boarding the flight or record the child’s conversation with a friend. Other poems offer fleeting images of a child walking in the airport or sitting inside the airplane. </p>
<p>It is impossible for official versions of the tragedy to capture the complexity of the loss or bring to surface the ongoing grief, pain and resilience of those living with this difficult history. </p>
<p>Farzana Doctor’s novel <a href="https://www.dundurn.com/books/all-inclusive"><em>All Inclusive</em></a> (2015) points to one such difficult legacy. The story is about Ameera, who has grown up with the pain of not knowing the identity of her father and why he abandoned her. She does not know that her father had boarded AI Flight 182, ignorant that he had birthed a daughter the night before. It is a poignant story of the ghost of the dead father searching for the daughter he had never met, and the daughter finding out why her father disappeared. </p>
<h2>Different legacies of loss</h2>
<p>The fictional lives imagined in these creative works and others bring us closer to the Air India tragedy’s otherwise untold stories. They offer testimony to unacknowledged grief. </p>
<p>They depict how loss changes one’s identity and the different legacies of loss one inherits. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/279930/original/file-20190618-118543-9h8hcb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/279930/original/file-20190618-118543-9h8hcb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279930/original/file-20190618-118543-9h8hcb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279930/original/file-20190618-118543-9h8hcb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279930/original/file-20190618-118543-9h8hcb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=485&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279930/original/file-20190618-118543-9h8hcb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=485&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279930/original/file-20190618-118543-9h8hcb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=485&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Natasha Madon points out her father’s name on the Air India Memorial in Vancouver’s Stanley Park Friday. Madon’s father, Sam Madon, was on Air India Flight 182 when a bomb exploded on board.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(CP PHOTO/Richard Lam) CANADA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Creative works broaden the frame for understanding the victims of the tragedy to include those who died in the bombing, those who lived to mourn the loss, and successor generations who inherit these legacies of loss. </p>
<p>While the Canadian government views the Air India bombing as an act of terror, <a href="https://www.publicsafety.gc.ca/cnt/ntnl-scrt/cntr-trrrsm/r-nd-flght-182/knshk/index-en.aspx">requiring improved border protection and surveillance</a> of racial minorities, creative works produce collective witnesses, a community of listeners who inherit this tragedy. Informed of this tragic history, they cannot forget that on June 23, 1985, 329 people, of which 82 were children under the age of 13, were lost forever on Air India Flight 182. </p>
<iframe src="https://www.cbc.ca/i/caffeine/syndicate/?mediaId=974635587728" width="100%" height="166" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/118593/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chandrima Chakraborty receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. </span></em></p>In the absence of broad Canadian validation of the bombing of Air India flight 182 as being worthy of public mourning, creative artists have tried to illuminate the ongoing grief of families.Chandrima Chakraborty, University Scholar and Professor of English and Cultural Studies, McMaster UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1075462018-11-28T14:33:18Z2018-11-28T14:33:18ZWS Graham: how a lost VHS tape helped unlock a forgotten poet’s creative world<p>It’s the kind of moment a researcher never forgets. I was in the <a href="https://www.bfi.org.uk/archive-collections">British Film Institute archive</a> and had just pressed play on a fragile-looking VHS tape which, I hoped, would contain footage of the poet WS Graham (1918-86). </p>
<p>A friend of Dylan Thomas and protege of TS Eliot, Graham was feted on both sides of the Atlantic while still young, only for literary fashion to change in the 1950s. From 1955 until his death, he lived on the far west coast of Cornwall, in poverty and with his work overlooked. Since his death, however, his reputation has begun to grow once more – built not on the works of his youth, but more intimate, austere poems addressed to friends <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2018/jan/29/poem-of-the-week-how-are-the-children-robin-by-ws-graham">living</a> and <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/55096/dear-bryan-wynter">dead</a>, to his <a href="http://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poetry/poems/alexander-graham">family</a> and to his wife, <a href="http://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poetry/poems/i-leave-your-ear">Nessie</a>. </p>
<p>I’d been searching for years and lead after lead had gone cold: the reading he gave of his poem <a href="https://www.poetryarchive.org/poem/thermal-stair">The Thermal Stair</a> for Westward Television in 1968 which had been erased, or the documentary Harold Pinter had been making about him in 1979 which ended up on the cutting room floor (Pinter considered Graham one of his two literary “masters”, the other being Samuel Beckett). But no luck.</p>
<p>Then one day I came across a letter in the <a href="https://www.nls.uk/">National Library of Scotland</a>, from September 1958, where Graham writes that he had recently appeared on a “Monitor programme” – the seminal BBC arts and culture flagship show of the time – and here I now was, expectant at what it might contain.</p>
<p>Why was I so keen to see this video? I first read Graham’s poetry as an undergraduate – almost two decades ago – and was immediately rapt. In the build up to the centenary of Graham’s birth in 2018, I wanted to let other readers know about this extraordinary, but largely neglected, poet. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247704/original/file-20181128-32197-1xc0q5n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247704/original/file-20181128-32197-1xc0q5n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247704/original/file-20181128-32197-1xc0q5n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247704/original/file-20181128-32197-1xc0q5n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247704/original/file-20181128-32197-1xc0q5n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247704/original/file-20181128-32197-1xc0q5n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247704/original/file-20181128-32197-1xc0q5n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">WS Graham’s ‘Untidy Dreadful Table’ as recreated at Constructing Spaces, National Poetry Library. Original desk loaned by the Scottish Poetry Library.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photograph by David Nowell Smith</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Poet among artists</h2>
<p>Born in Greenock on Clydeside, Graham left school at 14 and was apprenticed as a draughtsman on the shipyards. His draughtsmanship is evident in the fair copies he would make of his poems, with their fine calligraphy and decorative flourishes. </p>
<p>After leaving Greenock, Graham lived among artists – first in Glasgow, then London, and finally St Ives, which was home to such celebrated figures as <a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/dame-barbara-hepworth-1274/who-is-barbara-hepworth">sculptor Barbara Hepworth</a>, painter and critic <a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/kids/explore/who-is/who-patrick-heron">Patrick Heron</a>, abstract painter <a href="http://www.artnet.com/artists/roger-hilton/">Roger Hilton</a>, landscape artist <a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/peter-lanyon-1467">Peter Lanyon</a>, and <a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/kids/explore/who-is/who-ben-nicholson">Ben Nicholson</a>, the modernist painter. </p>
<p>Graham was an integral part of this community, but also a distinctive artist in his own right – he produced portraits, landscapes and abstracts on whatever materials came to hand, from hand-painted postcards, to drawings carved in slate, to stained glass.</p>
<p>Nicholson <a href="https://modernismmodernity.org/articles/poetrys-plastic-medium">once wrote</a> that “Graham’s method of working at his writing seems like my method of working at my painting”. Graham would write out words in a large cursive script – as though they were elements in an abstract painting – and pin them on the wall, as though in an artist’s studio. His notebooks are punctuated by drawings and drafts of poems occasionally include diagrams, as he tried to visualise their overall structure. I don’t know of any other poet who composed in such a visual manner. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247705/original/file-20181128-32214-1skp4cw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247705/original/file-20181128-32214-1skp4cw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247705/original/file-20181128-32214-1skp4cw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247705/original/file-20181128-32214-1skp4cw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247705/original/file-20181128-32214-1skp4cw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247705/original/file-20181128-32214-1skp4cw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247705/original/file-20181128-32214-1skp4cw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Recreation of WS Graham’s wall painting by Sophie Herxheimer, at Constructing Spaces, National Poetry Library.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photograph by David Nowell Smith</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This led to a further question: it’s easy to display these manuscripts and drawings in an exhibition, but how could we bring these creative processes to life?</p>
<h2>A world of his own</h2>
<p>Our solution was to invite our audience into Graham’s creative spaces. We decided to reconstruct his workspace, with his actual writing table (loaned from the Scottish Poetry Library), a replica of his typewriter and recreations of his library and the portrait he painted onto the wall. Meanwhile a soundscape, by sound artist <a href="https://www.jamieperera.com/">Jamie Perera</a> weaves together many of Graham’s voices, singing and conversing as well as reciting his verse. </p>
<p>Space is an abiding trope in Graham’s work – spaces of communication and of silence, spaces of memory, the physical spaces that surround us. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I say this silence or, better, construct this space<br>
So that somehow something may move across<br>
The caught habits of language to you and me.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>We got eyewitness descriptions from friends, made copies of the few photographs that survived, gradually built up a mental image of the interior where he lived. The exhibition became Constructing Spaces, <a href="https://southbankcentre.co.uk/whats-on/131351-constructing-spaces-201819">an installation</a> at the South Bank Centre. It will be open until the end of March 2019.</p>
<p>And then, along came that VHS tape. It was a revelation. Entitled: “Why Cornwall?”, it was a short documentary about the artists living in and around St Ives. I’d been expecting Graham to have a brief cameo at best – but no: the feature opens with him, sat at his desk, composing a new poem, with that striking cursive script. </p>
<p>But the video showed us so much more. For instance, that, in their one downstairs room, Graham would sit at his desk, writing through the night, while his wife Nessie was asleep in their single bed: his space for creative work was also a domestic, intimate space. Now we could reproduce the space in minute detail, so that a visitor could step out of the Southbank Centre in 2018 and emerge in a Cornish cottage in 1958 – looking out of the window, not onto the concrete of Waterloo Bridge and the National Theatre, but a video loop of the promontory of <a href="https://www.visitcornwall.com/places/gurnards-head">Gurnard’s Head</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247706/original/file-20181128-32221-1kp26si.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247706/original/file-20181128-32221-1kp26si.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247706/original/file-20181128-32221-1kp26si.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247706/original/file-20181128-32221-1kp26si.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247706/original/file-20181128-32221-1kp26si.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247706/original/file-20181128-32221-1kp26si.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247706/original/file-20181128-32221-1kp26si.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The view of Gurnard’s Head from Coastguard Cottages, video loop by Billy Wynter, at Constructing Spaces, National Poetry Library.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photograph by David Nowell Smith</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Graham always believed that the poem ultimately lived in the reader: “The poem is the replying chord to the reader. It is the reader’s involuntary reply,” he wrote in his 20s – and decades later: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The words are mine. The thoughts are all<br>
Yours.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>How might we “reply” to Graham today? In our installation, visitors have been inhabiting Graham’s creative processes for themselves. They can contribute to the soundscape with their own voices, type their own poems on the typewriter, produce their own visual works – or just treat it as a place of calm and meditation. </p>
<p>For if making this installation has taught me anything, it is that only as readers respond poetically that a poet is truly brought back to life.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/107546/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Nowell Smith is co-curator of 'Constructing Spaces', an installation and exhibition at the National Poetry Library, London Southbank. He has received funding from the British Academy and the Higher Education Innovation Fund.
Constructing Spaces is on until 31 March 2019.</span></em></p>New installation recreates the small world of this hugely influential, but largely unknown, Scottish poet.David Nowell Smith, Senior Lecturer, School of Literature, Drama and Creative Writing, University of East AngliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1056102018-11-07T09:47:55Z2018-11-07T09:47:55ZThe arts are a shadow health service – here’s why<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/243224/original/file-20181031-76413-zu8wnx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/portrait-bright-beautiful-young-woman-art-271542965?src=ZBdg00Q1p58ae2NdIOlCtA-1-5">Mike Orlov/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The UK’s Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, has said that doctors should prescribe dance classes and trips to concert halls as well as pills and physio – and set out plans to make this “<a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-46111595">social prescribing</a>” a reality. He clearly gets how the arts can benefit health and well-being. But there is more to do. The health benefits to be gained from creative practice are enormous and universal – and so need widespread investment.</p>
<p>People tend to think of personal health in a limited way. Medical services of one kind or another are largely given the onus of keeping people well and fixing them when they become poorly. We are encouraged to stop smoking, drink less alcohol, lose weight and exercise. More recently, the idea of well-being has helped to shift that somewhat. Yoga and mindfulness, to take two examples, are now heavily associated with the idea of health.</p>
<p>But rarely, if at all, are people encouraged to take up creative hobbies: the arts do not tend to be thought of in medical terms. But creative practices in the arts and humanities really can help people stay healthy or recover when illness strikes. By engaging in creative activities such as music making and listening, dance, drawing, comedy, reading groups, visiting museums and galleries and so on, people can do their minds and bodies the world of good. The arts can therefore be thought of as the shadow health service. They can improve our physical and mental health, not least through the increased social connections they generate.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/244069/original/file-20181106-74760-ry9cz3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/244069/original/file-20181106-74760-ry9cz3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=369&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244069/original/file-20181106-74760-ry9cz3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=369&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244069/original/file-20181106-74760-ry9cz3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=369&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244069/original/file-20181106-74760-ry9cz3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244069/original/file-20181106-74760-ry9cz3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244069/original/file-20181106-74760-ry9cz3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Dancing to health.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Eugene Titov/Shutterstock.com</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Creative practice has <a href="http://www.artshealthandwellbeing.org.uk/resources/research">documented potential</a> for advancing health and well-being. Indeed, some arts and expressive therapies, such as art therapy, music therapy, movement or dance therapy, poetry therapy and psychodrama, are already <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/arts-and-health/201710/expressive-arts-therapy-and-the-arts-in-health">well established</a> in health services.</p>
<p>Over the last ten years, <a href="https://www.evidence.nhs.uk/search?q=arts+and+health">research</a> has demonstrated the importance of creative practice in the arts and humanities. They can help maintain health, provide ways of breaking down social barriers and expressing and understanding experiences and emotions, and assist in developing trust, identities, shared understanding and more compassionate communities. So, hopefully, this sidelining of the arts in health terms is changing. </p>
<h2>Drumming and dancing</h2>
<p>In 2017, the UK government published <a href="http://www.artshealthandwellbeing.org.uk/appg-inquiry/Publications/Creative_Health_Inquiry_Report_2017_-_Second_Edition.pdf_">a report</a> on the compelling case of how creative practices can transform health and well-being. A <a href="http://www.healthhumanities.org/creative_practice_mutual_recovery/">programme of research</a> that I directed contributed to this body of evidence. In this five-year programme, we measured mental health and well-being benefits for <a href="http://cpmr.mentalhealth.org.uk/">a range of creative activities</a>. Particularly compelling new evidence emerged in the <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0151136">group drumming project</a>, which found that it can reduce depression and anxiety and improve social resilience in mental health service users.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/244068/original/file-20181106-74772-1k6ov9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/244068/original/file-20181106-74772-1k6ov9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244068/original/file-20181106-74772-1k6ov9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244068/original/file-20181106-74772-1k6ov9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244068/original/file-20181106-74772-1k6ov9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244068/original/file-20181106-74772-1k6ov9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244068/original/file-20181106-74772-1k6ov9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A group drumming workshop.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/group-people-playing-on-drums-therapy-314929814?src=EwS1dkbYBw-mAkMcb4yPIA-1-0">Lightpoet/Shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It is not just people with specific health conditions who can benefit from creative resources and practices. The evidence of clear benefits for health and well-being more generally is now robust in relation to a wide array of creative practices such as <a href="http://www.ox.ac.uk/research/choir-singing-improves-health-happiness-%E2%80%93-and-perfect-icebreaker">singing in choirs</a>, listening to <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3740599/">particular kinds of music</a>, engaging in the <a href="https://www.artscouncil.org.uk/sites/default/files/download-file/power_of_art_visual_arts.pdf">visual arts</a>, <a href="https://www.pdsw.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Breathe-Commissioning-Dance-for-Health-Wellbeing-Guide-for-Commissioners-by-Jan-Burkhardt-2012.pdf">dancing</a>, <a href="https://readingagency.org.uk/adults/quick-guides/reading-well/">reading or joining reading groups</a> and <a href="https://museumsandwellbeingalliance.files.wordpress.com/2015/07/museums-for-health-and-wellbeing.pdf">gallery or museum visiting</a>.</p>
<p>The creative arts and humanities are one of the best ways to enhance public health and social connectedness. More than this, these resources do not need to be prescribed by a doctor. The public can access for themselves a shadow health service of creative facilities and resources to buffer themselves against the hard knocks of life, recover from illness or improve quality of life despite illness or poor health.</p>
<h2>A world without song?</h2>
<p>Just imagine for a moment a world robbed of facilities, resources and activities in the creative arts and humanities: no music, no singing, no art, no stories to read or share, no dancing, no theatre, no film, no galleries or museums, no crafts. It should be clear that health and well-being would be difficult to attain. A short reflection on such a horrifying prospect brings home just how much we would miss them. It is easier and more inspiring to recognise them as a second national health service.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/244067/original/file-20181106-74757-5at78o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/244067/original/file-20181106-74757-5at78o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244067/original/file-20181106-74757-5at78o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244067/original/file-20181106-74757-5at78o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244067/original/file-20181106-74757-5at78o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244067/original/file-20181106-74757-5at78o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244067/original/file-20181106-74757-5at78o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A form of therapy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/old-paint-cans-colors-colorful-arranged-518013877?src=ejyS4ipVISu24BBbocr01w-1-4">Sanit Fuangnakhon/Shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the UK, there is constant criticism of the way that public funding for the arts tends to favour <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2016/dec/15/public-funding-for-arts-still-skewed-towards-london-report-says">London over other regions</a>. There are also ever-looming spending cuts, not least to <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/e1b325ce-122f-11e8-940e-08320fc2a277">museums and galleries</a>, and myriad challenges to funding in a <a href="https://www.artscouncil.org.uk/sites/default/files/download-file/Funding%20Arts%20and%20Culture%20in%20a%20time%20of%20Austerity%20(Adrian%20Harvey).pdf">period of austerity</a>, as there are in many other countries. In the UK and elsewhere, it’s time for governments to take the arts and humanities more seriously as a cost effective, national asset that impacts on the health and well-being of a nation. </p>
<p>Why shouldn’t governments strive towards a National Health Humanities Service (NHHS) that works strategically alongside health and social care services, helping to unblock queues to see GPs, complementing traditional medical interventions, and transforming care environments in our hospitals, the community or people’s homes? Why leave the arts and humanities on the fringe – as merely ornamental or decorative? They deserve more than being left on a funding drip-feed.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/105610/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul Crawford receives funding from Arts Humanities Research Council. </span></em></p>Dancing, drumming, visiting galleries and so on are one of the best ways of enhancing public health.Paul Crawford, Professor of Health Humanities, University of NottinghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/901362018-01-23T10:56:27Z2018-01-23T10:56:27ZFive ways the arts could help solve the plastics crisis<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202862/original/file-20180122-182962-d4et0k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption"></span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/plastic-waste-bottles-polyethylene-recycling-645904330?src=ZA4j3Nfqcvt5lx1KfkJn2w-1-55">Meryll/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>It is becoming more and more obvious that we need to drastically change how we use <a href="https://newplasticseconomy.org/news/ellen-macarthur-foundation-and-wrap-announce-new-initiative-to-transform-uk-plastics-system">plastics</a>. While we need improve our <a href="https://theconversation.com/four-tough-actions-that-would-help-fight-the-global-plastic-crisis-89798">recycling infrastructure</a>, we also need to help communities reduce plastic packaging waste and plastic litter.</p>
<p>The public is ready for change. <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/42030979/blue-planet-2-how-plastic-is-slowly-killing-our-sea-creatures-fish-and-birds">Blue Planet II</a>, in particular, has brought the plastics crisis <a href="https://theconversation.com/its-great-that-blue-planet-ii-is-pushing-hard-on-plastic-pollution-in-the-oceans-but-please-use-facts-not-conjecture-87973">to public attention</a>. Since it was screened, over 500 articles on plastics have appeared in <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/blue-planet-2-save-oceans-what-to-do-how-pollution-climate-change-bbc-finale-a8100076.html">British national publications</a> alone. </p>
<p>And just as the Blue Planet II crew <a href="https://twitter.com/BBCEarth/status/929810441613832193?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbc.co.uk%2Fnewsbeat%2Farticle%2F42030979%2Fblue-planet-2-how-plastic-is-slowly-killing-our-sea-creatures-fish-and-birds">described</a> how they “collected every piece of plastic they came across while filming”, these plastic waste stories have motivated some people to take action. People have proposed <a href="http://www.wirralglobe.co.uk/news/15714256.Wirral_set_to_become_the_first_Merseyside_authority_to_ban_single_use_plastics/">bans on plastic products</a> or gone “plastic free” as a <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5094355/Mother-goes-plastic-free-week-saying-s-cheaper.html">household</a> or <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5230011/JANE-FRYER-village-scrapped-plastic.html">community</a>. Social media <a href="https://www.facebook.com/breakfreefromplastic/?hc_ref=ARSwwiTjQUfbAhaI2dIssU_2zcVESqHIOPRXctUbbjR3Y_-0v_fbA5nu6XzNOJVgaTs&fref=nf">campaigns</a> and petitions now lobby for change.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/203022/original/file-20180123-182948-1veuf82.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/203022/original/file-20180123-182948-1veuf82.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203022/original/file-20180123-182948-1veuf82.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203022/original/file-20180123-182948-1veuf82.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203022/original/file-20180123-182948-1veuf82.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203022/original/file-20180123-182948-1veuf82.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203022/original/file-20180123-182948-1veuf82.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A dump stacked with plastics.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/dump-area-outside-city-781044388?src=t4vDmcuP3L5xBTcHAwkBjQ-1-57">MAX Vittawat/Shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Yet the media stories with their <a href="http://www.chrisjordan.com/gallery/midway/#CF000313%2018x24">sad images</a> of death and choked seas can be overwhelming. Where to start? With a problem of this scale, it’s easy to feel as if individual and local actions won’t matter. Experts often tend to tell this kind of “science stories” to – not with – the public and this can compound the problem. The human stories behind the waste raise <a href="http://metro.co.uk/2018/01/11/criticisms-prepared-packaged-food-completely-ignore-thousands-people-uk-living-disability-7221575/">complex issues</a> of social inequality. People may feel preached at or harangued, as if they are obstacles, rather than partners for change. </p>
<p>Recognising these challenges, we began to research with the public to explore <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-good-news-about-plastic-waste-83742">creative ways</a> to change our relationship to plastics. </p>
<h2>Building plastic literacy</h2>
<p><a href="https://hackingplastic.wixsite.com/hackingplastic">Our group</a> held workshops in Stoke on Trent, Staffordshire, last November. Participants were recruited by <a href="http://www.b-arts.org.uk/">B Arts</a>, a local arts charity. They were already interested in the plastic waste crisis and wanted to learn more. We offered them interactive displays, film clips, and – best of all – a chance to work with artists to make collaborative artworks using different kinds of waste plastic. </p>
<p>In these art sessions, people were puzzled by the tiny numbers on the bottom of bottles. These are the Resin Identification Codes, 1 through 7. The RIC doesn’t mean a product is always accepted for recycling, but it does tell you what material it is made of. By making artworks, people taught themselves about RICs. They found it easiest to model, cut, bend or make stuff with the highest-value, easiest-recycled plastics – RICs 1 and 2.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/203021/original/file-20180123-182945-1j6ypr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/203021/original/file-20180123-182945-1j6ypr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/203021/original/file-20180123-182945-1j6ypr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=321&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203021/original/file-20180123-182945-1j6ypr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=321&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203021/original/file-20180123-182945-1j6ypr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=321&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203021/original/file-20180123-182945-1j6ypr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203021/original/file-20180123-182945-1j6ypr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203021/original/file-20180123-182945-1j6ypr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Resin Identification Codes.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-vector/plastic-resin-codes-239476555?src=z-U4xyahJBNAoUqR0YlGJQ-1-29">Norberthos/Shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>People found out that the same material (RIC code) could have different forms or textures. And that a large number of contemporary materials have plastics mixed into them as composites or have hidden layers of plastic inside, or they <a href="https://theconversation.com/ten-stealth-microplastics-to-avoid-if-you-want-to-save-the-oceans-90063">shed it in small amounts</a>, either as fibres or when they decompose. As people discovered that they could begin to spot both the easily recyclable and the less-recognisable plastics, they began to tell their own stories about plastic in images and words. </p>
<p>People want to develop their own expertise. They feel most knowledgeable – most “plastic literate” – and motivated to act when they make their own art, shoot their own images, and tell their own plastic stories themselves. Here’s how:</p>
<h2>Creative ways to edge out of the plastics crisis</h2>
<ul>
<li>Do your own “making” with waste plastic materials </li>
</ul>
<p>Nothing beats trying to make waste into something new to help people figure out how plastics differ. Whether it’s making models, junk modelling, making artworks, hands on work helps people learn what the RICs mean for the potential of the material to be reused. People come away with a better understanding of what materials they would want to avoid and why. And they learn which are collected by their local council and which can most easily be recycled into new products.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202140/original/file-20180116-53299-ua4ud.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202140/original/file-20180116-53299-ua4ud.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202140/original/file-20180116-53299-ua4ud.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202140/original/file-20180116-53299-ua4ud.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202140/original/file-20180116-53299-ua4ud.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202140/original/file-20180116-53299-ua4ud.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202140/original/file-20180116-53299-ua4ud.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Detail from junk-modelled plastic reef, ‘Play with Plastics’ @ B Arts, Stoke on Trent, November 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Deirdre McKay</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<ul>
<li>Tell your own plastics stories<br></li>
</ul>
<p>Imaginative exercises in telling the local stories of plastics – what they are used for, how they are valued, how they are discarded – gives people ownership of the local aspects of the plastics problem. Eliciting people’s own stories about how they use plastic at home, in school, and while travelling can be enabling. Having control over their story lets them spot where changes can be made without having someone preach to them.</p>
<ul>
<li>Visualise waste plastics </li>
</ul>
<p>Photographs and video of plastic waste and its effects in people’s own environment helps to personalise what they know. When they can incorporate their own knowledge of the materials and how to handle them responsibly, people are then happy to ask further questions and seek more information.</p>
<ul>
<li>Join the DIY community</li>
</ul>
<p>Making “plastic-free” replacement items for common plastics is a burgeoning field of DIY for crafty types. One participant suggested a follow up workshop to learn how to make beeswax-infused cloth “wraps” that could replace cling film. Our participants found advice on plastic-free DIY or “zero waste” creations – and shopping – online. There are numerous blogs and online shops, as well as new high-street stores, being set up to advise (and supply) people who want to go “plastic free”.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202863/original/file-20180122-182945-jjtt5l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202863/original/file-20180122-182945-jjtt5l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202863/original/file-20180122-182945-jjtt5l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202863/original/file-20180122-182945-jjtt5l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202863/original/file-20180122-182945-jjtt5l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202863/original/file-20180122-182945-jjtt5l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202863/original/file-20180122-182945-jjtt5l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Stop seeing it as waste, start seeing it as raw material.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/plastic-bags-on-white-background-234017356?src=RgNNVdImLLNiV6gQnVfESg-1-64">daizuoxin/Shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<ul>
<li>Innovate new products</li>
</ul>
<p>The most advanced creative responses come from individuals and groups recycling waste plastic into new commercial products. They give a second life to materials that might go to landfill or incineration, or simply sit in storage, waiting for the market to improve. Recognising the innovators – even those working on bench-tops and garages – in our midst will help to create a knowledgeable market for items made from recycled plastics. </p>
<p>The global lessons of Blue Planet II need to be made local. By beginning with the materials themselves, then moving to people’s own stories, we can help people create, innovative and responsibly <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-future-of-plastics-reusing-the-bad-and-encouraging-the-good-87001">reuse</a>, reduce or replace plastics in their everyday lives.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/90136/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The science is clear but to improve plastic literacy, we need the arts. Here’s why.Deirdre McKay, Senior Lecturer in Geography, Keele UniversityEva Giraud, Lecturer in Media, Communication & Culture, Keele UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/872042017-11-09T15:39:20Z2017-11-09T15:39:20ZWhy the row over Twitter #280characters is a storm in a flat white<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193997/original/file-20171109-13311-s0cwp9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">twitter limit</span> </figcaption></figure><p>There was an almighty twittering in the social media dovecote this week when Twitter <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/nov/08/twitter-to-roll-out-280-character-tweets-to-everyone">rolled out its new #280characters</a> – doubling its previous limit of 140. According to JK Rowling: “Twitter’s destroyed its USP. The whole point, for me, was how inventive people could be within that concise framework.”</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"928346292903927808"}"></div></p>
<p>My own reaction was similar. I’ve always seen the strict character limit as the social media equivalent of the haiku. The very constraints were what liberated our elegant creativity. The pleasure of honing our wit down to <a href="http://www.christies.com/features/Netsuke-Collecting-Guide-5-Things-to-Know-7963-1.aspx">netsuke</a> proportions has now vanished. I was one of those Twitter users who was given 280 characters ahead of the crowd – there was no explanation, but maybe Twitter spotted that I’m a novelist and assumed I would enjoy twice as much space to elaborate on the flat white I’m about to drink.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"924608874275098624"}"></div></p>
<p>As it happens, I seldom exceed the old limit – and on the rare occasions I do, it feels like submitting an unedited draft out of sheer laziness. I find I don’t like reading the new longer tweets, either. When I see one lurking in my timeline, my eye skims and discards. The sight seems to trigger my “too-much-effort” switch – like a recipe containing the words “six eggs, separated”.</p>
<h2>Cutting remarks</h2>
<p>It remains possible that I will be able to retrain my brain to enjoy this new Twitter experience, but it goes against my professional training. This may sound like a strange claim for a novelist – given that I generally require 100,000 words to express myself fully. But I can categorically say that if I were granted 200,000 words by an indulgent publisher, the resulting novel would not be twice as good. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"928196873998843905"}"></div></p>
<p>I teach creative writing and one of the most common bits of feedback I give my students is “this needs a good edit” – and by this, I mean “please cut stuff out”. Cut out the redundancies and repetitions. Delete anything that isn’t doing anything on the page. Don’t waffle. Be concise.</p>
<p>This is sound advice for those of us who make our living by writing, whether as novelists, journalists or academics. But it’s worth pondering whether the ability to express ourselves with clarity and brevity is actually just a matter of taste. Is it elitist to prefer the pithy epigram to the shaggy dog story? </p>
<h2>Elitist, moi?</h2>
<p>Perhaps there are swaths of the Twittersphere where #280characters has been greeted with a cheer by people who have no professional “brevity-is-the-soul-of-wit” axe to grind. This is one of Twitter’s oddities, of course. Our timelines are <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/feb/04/twitter-accounts-really-are-echo-chambers-study-finds">full of people like us</a>. We forget that it’s a multiverse, with myriad other parallel realities cheek by jowl with our own – timelines full of real people who value other things and <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump">conduct their public discourse differently</a>: the US president, for example.</p>
<p>Now and then, we tumble through into a whole other Twitter world, usually when someone “quote-tweets” an antagonist – and we go and check that person’s profile. There are perfectly intelligent people who don’t flinch at a misplaced apostrophe, who have never in their lives used a semi-colon in a text message – and who frankly couldn’t care less about the Oscar Wilde craftedness of a well-turned tweet.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193998/original/file-20171109-13311-5s576b.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193998/original/file-20171109-13311-5s576b.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193998/original/file-20171109-13311-5s576b.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=124&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193998/original/file-20171109-13311-5s576b.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=124&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193998/original/file-20171109-13311-5s576b.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=124&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193998/original/file-20171109-13311-5s576b.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=156&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193998/original/file-20171109-13311-5s576b.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=156&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193998/original/file-20171109-13311-5s576b.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=156&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Wilde would have loved Twitter.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Good Reads</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Once the dust settles, we will be able to discern whether this is just another storm in the Twitter teacup. How outraged we all were when we could no longer “favourite” things, but <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2015/11/3/9661180/twitter-vine-favorite-fav-likes-hearts">were compelled to “like” them instead</a>. Who remembers that now? It’s also worth recalling that the character limit had already been eroded when <a href="http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2016-09-20/twitter-is-finally-excluding-pictures-tweet-links-and-usernames-from-its-character-limit/">links were no longer counted in the total</a>.</p>
<p>Perhaps all this enjoyable outrage (and whatever did we do with our indignation before Twitter? Grumble into our newspapers? Shout at the Today programme?) is little more than a kneejerk resistance to change? </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"928312886459535366"}"></div></p>
<p>As I overheard a colleague say last week:: “I hate phone updates – they make everything … different.” The rationale for the original limit was the confines of the text message (160 characters), minus 20 characters for the user name, which seems arbitrary now. If we are honest, most Twitter users had already developed ways of getting round the limit, for those important discussions that required more space. We long since grew accustomed to tweets that ended ˃˃ (or, more ominously, 1/26).</p>
<p>My prediction is that most tweets will still weigh in at under the 280-character mark, simply because we tweeters are now hardwired to say our piece in less than 140, but that some of the rigour will have gone. For those of us who like playing with literary constraints, a lot of the fun will go too – but I concede that this may be something of a minority sport. We will get used to it. </p>
<p>Then, in a couple of years’ time, Twitter can trigger fresh outrage by reimposing the 140-character limit and cramping everyone’s style.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/87204/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Catherine WIlcox does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Longer doesn’t always mean better. But it’s not the end of the world, either.Catherine WIlcox, Lecturer in English and Creative Writing, Manchester Metropolitan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/820102017-08-07T09:49:18Z2017-08-07T09:49:18ZStokes Croft: the saga of one British neighbourhood reveals the perverse injustices of gentrification<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181117/original/file-20170806-21730-ghtg9w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.aggiephotoflow.com">Agnès Lapin</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Nowhere is the sharp injustice of gentrification so grossly demonstrated as in Stokes Croft. With its <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2017/jan/22/bristol-street-artists-banksy-city-legal-graffiti-walls-public-art">world renowned street art</a> and buzzing local scene, this area is the main fount of culture and creativity, which has propelled the city of Bristol to international fame. For many years, Stokes Croft has been a seat of resilience and rebellion against the inevitable creep of corporate interests into <a href="https://www.bristol247.com/news-and-features/news/stokes-croft-named-as-one-of-10-hippest-areas-in-the-uk/">“up-and-coming”</a> areas. </p>
<p>This is a place where locals staged a peaceful sit-in against the opening of a chain supermarket – a protest which <a href="http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/laurie-penny/2011/04/stokes-croft-police-tesco">escalated into riots</a> when local squatters were evicted by police a few days later. One of Banksy’s first murals – <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-32132450">The Mild, Mild West</a> – still remains, a beloved memorial to the ravers who resisted police in the 1990s. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181016/original/file-20170804-24770-b53n9b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181016/original/file-20170804-24770-b53n9b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181016/original/file-20170804-24770-b53n9b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181016/original/file-20170804-24770-b53n9b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181016/original/file-20170804-24770-b53n9b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181016/original/file-20170804-24770-b53n9b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181016/original/file-20170804-24770-b53n9b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Stokes Croft: creative frontier.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/kylaborg/10910810143/sizes/l">KylaBorg/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But like so many creative hubs before it, Stokes Croft is becoming a victim of its own trendiness. Now, one of the area’s most central hot spots – Hamilton House – is at risk of being redeveloped. In our research on <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0042098014536239">developments in Stokes Croft</a>, we traced the tragic arc of dereliction, rejuvenation and gentrification up to the current moment. </p>
<h2>The story so far</h2>
<p>It’s hard to imagine Stokes Croft without the hustle and bustle that surrounds Hamilton House. The building has thousands of visitors every day. It is home to <a href="https://www.canteenbristol.co.uk/">The Canteen</a>, a bar, restaurant and music venue which also trains disadvantaged people in the hospitality sector. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181023/original/file-20170804-24770-1lwxzyh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181023/original/file-20170804-24770-1lwxzyh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181023/original/file-20170804-24770-1lwxzyh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181023/original/file-20170804-24770-1lwxzyh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181023/original/file-20170804-24770-1lwxzyh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181023/original/file-20170804-24770-1lwxzyh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181023/original/file-20170804-24770-1lwxzyh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Canteen at Hamilton House.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/heatheronhertravels/32796106653/sizes/l">heatheronhertravels/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It also hosts the <a href="http://www.thebristolbikeproject.org/">Bristol Bike Project</a>, providing bikes and services to underprivileged groups; the <a href="https://misfitstheatre.com/">Misfits Theatre Company</a>, a theatre and social group led by people with learning disabilities; and <a href="https://www.hamiltonhouse.org/whos-here/">many other groups and projects</a> providing everything from co-working spaces to event management.</p>
<p>The success story started in 2008 when the owners of the building, Connolly & Callaghan (C&C), invited a group of local people to come up with a plan for the community to make use of a derelict building in the centre of the high street. At the time, Stokes Croft was notably downtrodden; a place replete with pawnshops and massage parlours. Many people avoided walking through it at night.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181024/original/file-20170804-24770-a5ard6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181024/original/file-20170804-24770-a5ard6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181024/original/file-20170804-24770-a5ard6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181024/original/file-20170804-24770-a5ard6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181024/original/file-20170804-24770-a5ard6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181024/original/file-20170804-24770-a5ard6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181024/original/file-20170804-24770-a5ard6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Less than salubrious.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/gavinkwhite/10815768095/sizes/l">чãvìnkωhỉtз/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These people went on to form the community interest company Coexist. Their idea was simple: create the “operating system”, <a href="https://www.gov.uk/set-up-a-social-enterprise">a community interest company</a>, which rents out office spaces to artists, projects and various organisations under market rates. At the same time, necessary renovations and marketing were done by the free work of Coexist volunteers, keen to turn their neighbourhood into a more attractive place.</p>
<p>Since then, <a href="http://hamiltonhouse.org/">Hamilton House</a> has been central to the rejuvenation of Stokes Croft as a cultural and creative quarter, attracting many artists, creatives, charities and entrepreneurs to the building. Coexist has become a key actor in the quarter, alongside the <a href="http://www.prsc.org.uk/">People’s Republic of Stokes Croft</a> and other community groups. It even gained a moment of international fame when it introduced <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/mar/02/uk-company-introduce-period-policy-female-staff">a period policy for female staff</a>.</p>
<h2>A valuable asset</h2>
<p>Coexist reckons that Hamilton House brings in an annual revenue of around <a href="http://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/business/deadline-looms-bids-hamilton-house-57782">£21m, and is responsible for around 1,260 jobs in the local area</a>. It also provides free spaces, events and exhibitions worth around £100,000 annually to the community.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181018/original/file-20170804-27483-wckyze.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181018/original/file-20170804-27483-wckyze.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=341&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181018/original/file-20170804-27483-wckyze.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=341&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181018/original/file-20170804-27483-wckyze.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=341&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181018/original/file-20170804-27483-wckyze.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181018/original/file-20170804-27483-wckyze.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181018/original/file-20170804-27483-wckyze.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Coexist’s Community Kitchen at Hamilton House.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/biglunchextras/13242462134/sizes/l">Ruth Davey/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>By raising the profile of Stokes Croft, Hamilton House has also contributed to rising real estate values in the surrounding area. And now, the owners of Hamilton House are seemingly tempted to cash in. In November 2016, C&C notified the council of their intent to dispose of the building, so that the community asset lock on the property would be removed. </p>
<p>While Coexist has, up until now, always said that C&C have been “sponsors, instigators and landlords” providing essential support for the Hamilton House project, C&C have also benefited greatly from the hard work of the local community. The <a href="https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/09985446/filing-history/MzE3OTI4NzA5OWFkaXF6a2N4/document?format=pdf&download=0">financial statements for C&C</a> reveal that when Hamilton House was valuated in September 2016, the value of the property had increased by a whopping £3.44m, from £2.1m in 2008 to £5.5m today. </p>
<p>Existing legislation gave Coexist the right to a first bid, but the community interest company has been unable to compete with market rates. Their <a href="https://www.hamiltonhouse.org/coexist-bid/">pretty impressive</a> £5.5m, face-value bid was <a href="https://thebristolcable.org/2017/07/update-news-future-hamilton-house/">rejected by C&C</a> in July 2017. Bids ranging from <a href="https://www.bristol247.com/news-and-features/news/future-hamilton-house-looks-increasingly-uncertain/">£5.2m to £7.5m</a> have reportedly been made by other parties. </p>
<h2>A clouded future</h2>
<p>Although conversations continue, fears about Hamilton House’s future run high. C&C have served Coexist with a notice to vacate the building by August 11. An offer of a six-month recurring lease (with some caveats regarding the middle and back part of the building, which C&C want to develop) is on the table, but it means that Coexist and most of the tenants now lack the security to plan ahead. </p>
<p>A spokesperson for C&C <a href="http://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/business/deadline-looms-bids-hamilton-house-57782">said</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Connolly & Callaghan has supported and assisted Coexist for nearly a decade in its work in creating community. Coexist was brought into being in 2008 because Connolly & Callaghan wanted to create an experimental centre of excellence in sustainable community at Hamilton House, which we have owned since 2004 … Going forward, our intention is to maintain a flexible approach towards the future of Hamilton House. We hope to see Coexist continue its work in community building, and to also see Coexist build its own long-term social, environmental and financial stability.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181026/original/file-20170804-27459-k7l3j2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181026/original/file-20170804-27459-k7l3j2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181026/original/file-20170804-27459-k7l3j2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181026/original/file-20170804-27459-k7l3j2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181026/original/file-20170804-27459-k7l3j2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181026/original/file-20170804-27459-k7l3j2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181026/original/file-20170804-27459-k7l3j2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Paradise lost?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/jontangerine/6162330224/sizes/l">jontangerine/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Coexist and their tenants have made Stokes Croft into a more attractive area with their cultural labour. Here, local values, practices and people have worked to achieve social goods for the whole community, as well as those who visit. Now, the people who lifted up their local communities could be deprived of the fruits of their labour. </p>
<p>Of course, this resilient community is already exploring possible solutions. Coexist and the People’s Republic of Stokes Croft are proposing to use Bristol’s <a href="https://medium.com/@CoexistCIC/building-a-new-economy-for-stokes-croft-8b57ab476f7f">community land trust</a>, to take over the building. This would allow the property to be owned communally, protecting this important infrastructure from market interventions.</p>
<p>But for these solutions to work, regulation must be put in place, to limit the power of real estate owners and to acknowledge those who regenerated the area. Gentrification is often understood as inevitable, but it can also be deeply unjust. It’s time for councils and governments of all colours to recognise the twisted logic of gentrification – which leaves strong and resilient communities at the mercy of private developers – and put an end to it. It’s only fair.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/82010/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It’s time for governments to put a stop to the twisted logic of gentrification.Fabian Frenzel, Associate Professor in Organisation Studies, University of LeicesterArmin Beverungen, Junior Director at the Digital Cultures Research Lab, Leuphana UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/789872017-06-13T20:20:44Z2017-06-13T20:20:44ZIn defence of serendipity: the Silicon Emperor is wearing no clothes<p>Serendipity is the process of finding something useful, valuable or just generally “good” without actually looking for it. Throughout the history of invention and discovery serendipity has functioned as a sort of Freudian unconscious, leading – or, perhaps better, tricking – the curious human mind onto unexpected novelty. </p>
<p>And yet, only recently have we started to become truly aware of the crucial role of serendipity in our attempts to creatively grasp toward the future. </p>
<p>Over the last few years, it has become an important – if not overused – reference for the creative industries and for our innovation-obsessed economy in general. This is remarkable as “serendipity” was conceived in mid-18th-century literary circles. <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Horace-Walpole-4th-earl-of-Orford">Horace Walpole</a> <a href="https://interestingliterature.com/2015/01/28/a-short-history-of-the-word-serendipity/">coined the term</a> in 1754. </p>
<p>Walpole had come across the “silly fairy tale” <em>Peregrinaggio di tre giovani figliuoli del re di Serendippo</em>, an Italian translation of the Persian parable of the three princes of Serendip. During their travels, Walpole <a href="https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2016/01/28/the-invention-of-serendipity/">wrote</a>, they “were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things they were not in quest of”.</p>
<p>Walpole’s definition of serendipity spread through the world of literates and bibliophiles. Scientists were always able to relate to the term. Louis Pasteur’s <a href="http://www.bartleby.com/73/174.html">adage</a> about chance favouring only prepared minds reflects serendipity’s significance for scientific discoveries and inventions.</p>
<h2>Accident and sagacity</h2>
<p>Today, serendipity is emerging as an important reference for those whose job it is to make our economies more innovative, our industries and cities more creative, and our future, well, better.</p>
<p>Yet unsurprisingly, in this world of <a href="https://www.ted.com/">TED</a>, <a href="http://www.pechakucha.org/">PechaKucha</a> and awesome one-liners, serendipity is fast becoming a fad. </p>
<p>This is unfortunate as the notion offers more than meets the Google-glassed eye. Walpole defined the term as a convergence of accident and sagacity. </p>
<p>And this allows us to understand serendipity as a response to an age-old conundrum that the philosopher Plato baptised <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemic-paradoxes/#MenParInqPuzAboGaiKno">Meno’s paradox</a>: the search for new knowledge is a sheer impossibility as one either knows what to look for, in which case the object of the search is not new, or one doesn’t know what to look for, which makes the search impossible. </p>
<p>Serendipity offers a possible solution by suggesting that the new always enters the world through the back door of the accident. For true novelty to emerge, anomalies, detours or confusions are required to occur. </p>
<p>However, it is equally important to notice these accidents and recognise their potential. This is where sagacity comes in. It represents the ability to turn the virtuality of the accident into the actuality of something new entering the world.</p>
<h2>The capitalist dilemma</h2>
<p>Unfortunately, our infrastructures of innovation are neither susceptible to accidents of the disruptively generative kind nor particularly hospitable to the kind of sagacity that would recognise disruptive potential – in the non-Californian sense of the term. </p>
<p>This may sound counterintuitive, given the omnipresent chatter about disruption and digital innovation, but look around: where are the mind-blowing innovations promised by the prophets of Silicon Valley and their local subsidiaries? </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173523/original/file-20170613-10193-1v0lgx6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173523/original/file-20170613-10193-1v0lgx6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173523/original/file-20170613-10193-1v0lgx6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=726&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173523/original/file-20170613-10193-1v0lgx6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=726&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173523/original/file-20170613-10193-1v0lgx6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=726&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173523/original/file-20170613-10193-1v0lgx6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=913&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173523/original/file-20170613-10193-1v0lgx6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=913&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173523/original/file-20170613-10193-1v0lgx6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=913&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">One of the great contemporary icons of product innovation is basically a digitally pimped wristwatch.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Blake Patterson/flickr</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The new iPhone? Thank you for getting <a href="https://theconversation.com/iphone-updates-charm-and-annoy-in-equal-measure-but-apple-leaves-mac-users-in-the-shade-65086">rid of the headphone jack</a>. Flying cars? Nowhere to be seen. And what happened to supersonic air travel – ’50s technology that seems too advanced for the digital age? </p>
<p>If we look more closely at what passes as the great contemporary icons of product innovation, we might realise that these are a <a href="https://theconversation.com/apple-watch-why-are-so-many-prepared-to-pay-so-much-without-even-knowing-why-40059">digitally pimped wristwatch</a> and a car that takes away the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-winners-and-losers-in-the-race-for-driverless-cars-63874">experience of driving</a> (remember: this is the <a href="https://hbr.org/1998/07/welcome-to-the-experience-economy">experience economy</a>).</p>
<p>Harvard Business School professor <a href="http://www.claytonchristensen.com/biography/">Clayton Christensen</a> refers to this lack of real innovation as “<a href="https://hbr.org/2014/06/the-capitalists-dilemma">the capitalist’s dilemma</a>”: the economy is losing creative momentum thanks to its entrenchment in the matrices of finance. The risk-averse logic of finance, he argues, prevents companies from investing in exciting new ideas that could lead to new products and services. </p>
<p>Christensen’s argument links the innovative impotence of the economy to businesses’ increasing inability to serve society. Thanks to its thorough financialisation, the economic game has become radically hermetic. </p>
<p>The result is not just soaring social inequality, as <a href="https://theconversation.com/piketty-challenges-us-to-consider-if-we-need-to-rein-in-wealth-inequality-67552">bemoaned by Thomas Piketty</a>. It also cuts off economic rationality from the diversity of non-economic inputs needed to move the economy forward.</p>
<h2>The naked silicon emperor</h2>
<p>It would be wrong to believe that Silicon Valley is an exception to such economically dysfunctional navel-gazing. When its venture capitalists are not busy funding the latest app for dog shit collection, they tend to focus on the so-called <a href="https://theconversation.com/renting-isnt-lending-the-sharing-economy-fallacy-27084">sharing economy</a>. They are looking to invest in the “next Uber for X”. </p>
<p>The question is: how innovative are these platform business models in fact? They are certainly disruptive, but not exactly in the way that brilliantly innovative products or services are. </p>
<p>Look at the platform poster boys: Airbnb is disrupting the sustainability of urban living by <a href="https://theconversation.com/australian-governments-are-treading-lightly-around-airbnb-76389">driving up rents and real estate prices</a>, while Uber and its offshoots happily introduce <a href="https://theconversation.com/driverless-uber-cars-are-coming-to-disrupt-the-sharing-economy-but-capitalism-carries-on-as-usual-64245">feudalist work conditions</a> for their hyper-exploited pseudo-entrepreneurs. </p>
<p>And these companies can do these things because they can rely on massive funding that effectively takes them out of any market competition. </p>
<p>The goal of these financially overfed business-bullies is to create super-monopolies that capture entire markets to lock vendors and customers into their platforms – pseudo-markets that function according to their supreme (often algorithmic) rule. </p>
<p>These business models not only have disastrous effects on their societal “environment” but are also – because they absorb entire markets into the hermetic space of self-referential platforms – great inhibitors of serendipity and, indeed, innovation.</p>
<p>If this tendency towards platform capitalism goes unchecked, we will soon face a situation similar to that at the end of the Eastern Bloc. While the global party press (TED, <a href="https://www.wired.com/">Wired</a>, <a href="https://www.oreilly.com/">O’Reilly Media</a>) runs hot churning out the credo of the innovation economy, the hiatus between the image of the world according to the digital innovation gospel and the real economic (and social) stasis grows to comical proportions.</p>
<p>It is high time we called out the Silicon Emperor for being naked and did so in the name of innovation – that is, in defence of serendipity.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>The author is the keynote speaker at the June 15 <a href="https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/symposium-smart-city-creative-city-tickets-34763468470?utm_source=eb_email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=order_confirmation_email&utm_term=eventname&ref=eemailordconf">Smart City-Creative City symposium</a> hosted by Monash University’s <a href="http://mfjcme.wixsite.com/culturemediaeconomy">Culture Media Economy</a> (CME) research unit in Melbourne.</em> </p>
<p><em>The Australian launch of the author’s book, In Defence of Serendipity: For a Radical Politics of Innovation (Repeater Books, London 2016), will be hosted on Wednesday, June 14, at 4pm by CME. Register for the free public lecture and launch <a href="https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/in-defence-of-serendipity-book-launch-public-lecture-by-seb-olma-tickets-34788928622">here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/78987/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sebastian Olma does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The digital pin-ups’ business models actually inhibit serendipity and, indeed, innovation by absorbing entire markets into the sealed-off space of their platforms.Sebastian Olma, Professor of Autonomy in Art, Design and Technology, St Joost Art Academy, Avans University of Applied SciencesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/496382015-11-05T11:11:11Z2015-11-05T11:11:11ZHere are some more reasons why liberal arts matter<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/100758/original/image-20151104-29082-w67djv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">What constitutes liberal arts?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/ucentralarkansas/15344848005/in/photolist-pnYmGV-p6u71q-pnWMxN-oEEvfT-oekYB2-kLeyL2-owmTqV-dveBH2-5XdueK-owfKu6-zbGepm-ztBaER-a7US9d-gjQY2P-zrfmD9-vedWUa-vedQTn-azGqUh-azGrv1-azDLtr-azGrcf-azDLGT-azGr3E-azGqLj-azGrzd-9PJBvQ-ovpTMx-bhySYn-bhySyv-deLp81-ddJVFF-5SN7Zo-efBgZ5-efvw9x-efvwb2-efvwai-dnrQxK-4hLRBK-s42PJr-vedUL2-vbRY7A-uWAMxW-veu9Fn-uWHLJt-uWJ4MM-uWA3ed-vbRYnW-vbUPCq-vdDNt5-veaTPi">University of Central Arkansas</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Lately, in the <a href="http://news.sciencemag.org/2010/09/obama-advisers-call-greater-emphasis-stem-education">heated call</a> for greater STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) education at every level, the traditional liberal arts have been needlessly, indeed recklessly, <a href="http://thefederalist.com/2015/06/02/the-liberal-arts-are-dead-long-live-stem/">portrayed</a> as the villain. And STEM fields have been (falsely) portrayed as the very opposite of the liberal arts. </p>
<p>The detractors of the liberal arts (who usually mean, by liberal arts, “humanities”) tend to argue that STEM-based education trains for careers while non-STEM training does not; they are often suspicious of the liberal political agenda of some disciplines. And they deem the content of a liberal arts education to be no longer relevant. The author of a recent article simply titled, “<a href="http://thefederalist.com/2015/06/02/the-liberal-arts-are-dead-long-live-stem/">The Liberal Arts are Dead; Long Live STEM</a> conveyed this sentiment when he said, "Science is better for society than the arts.” </p>
<p>I see this misunderstanding even at my own institution, as a humanist who oversees pre-major advising and thus engages with students and faculty (and parents) from all over the university. The idea that STEM is something separate and different than the liberal arts is damaging to both the sciences and their sister disciplines in the humanities and social sciences. </p>
<p>Pro-STEM attitudes assume that the liberal arts are quaint, impractical, often elitist, and always self-indulgent, while STEM fields are practical, technical, and represent at once “the future” and “proper earning potential.” </p>
<h2>STEM is part of liberal arts</h2>
<p>First, let’s be clear: This is a false and misleading dichotomy. STEM disciplines are a part of the liberal arts. Math and science <em>are</em> liberal arts.</p>
<p>In the ancient and medieval world, when the liberal arts as we know them began to take shape, they comprised <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/title/seven-liberal-arts-in-the-middle-ages/oclc/9557474&referer=brief_results">grammar, logic, rhetoric, music, arithmetic, geometry and astronomy</a> (the last three we would count as STEM disciplines today; and music, dealing mostly with numerical relationships through sound, was really more akin to what we would today call physics). </p>
<p>Advocates of STEM are missing the point. The value of a liberal arts education is not in the <em>content</em> that is taught, but rather in the mode of teaching and in the intellectual skills that are gained by <a href="http://cae.org/images/uploads/pdf/Majors_Matter_Differential_Performance_on_a_Test_of_General_College_Outcomes.pdf">learning how to think systematically</a> and rigorously. </p>
<p>These <a href="http://cae.org/images/uploads/pdf/Majors_Matter_Differential_Performance_on_a_Test_of_General_College_Outcomes.pdf">intellectual skills</a> include how to assess assumptions; develop strategies from problem solving; test ideas against evidence; use reason to grapple with information to come to new conclusions; and develop courses of action to pursue those conclusions. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/100759/original/image-20151104-29054-3izjr3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/100759/original/image-20151104-29054-3izjr3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/100759/original/image-20151104-29054-3izjr3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/100759/original/image-20151104-29054-3izjr3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/100759/original/image-20151104-29054-3izjr3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/100759/original/image-20151104-29054-3izjr3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/100759/original/image-20151104-29054-3izjr3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Isn’t STEM part of liberal arts?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/brookhavenlab/7852456616/in/photolist-cXTTM3-egWMp9-jDyoUU-jDxxx5-jDynyC-8NUUAR-jDvomK-nEovGx-rxzshz-hxX8dX-ny9deQ-dYPgWE-fgE1w5-jDwfLR-dYPoWU-5okgm9-jbQLZq-dYPnbC-dYPjP5-dYHBvg-ffPBPT-dYHEh8-dYHBD6-dYHzV4-dYHzK2-dYPh3U-akiADg-pb3pS4-2yGPmF-djRJrz-q5G2vq-q4WybS-pPGsT3-q6SayD-bH9c2r-dkRwhy-2kht8N-akiAut-q7aPJd-akmjs3-qBcQ2L-vFRzPo-8Evc1-dN4ZLt-dNayNC-dNayzd-jBg9ur-qRukRY-qTGNQh-qBk6RZ">Brookhaven National Laboratory</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Yes, some disciplines might prepare for certain types of problem solving (how do I get a computer to integrate information from two different consumer data platforms in the most elegant fashion?) more strongly than others (what do I recommend to investors based upon my French-language research of markets in Madagascar?). </p>
<p>And some areas of knowledge might be more useful than others in certain industries.</p>
<p>But in all cases, the point of the liberal arts approach is to learn <em>how</em> to think, not simply <em>what</em> to know – especially since information itself is now so easily acquired through Google and the smartphone. If anything, content is too abundant for any single individual to master. What is much more important is knowing what on Earth to do with the glut of information available in most situations. </p>
<p>And here is where the liberal arts training comes in.</p>
<p>A liberal arts education (STEM-based or otherwise) is not just about learning content, but about knowing how to sort through ambiguity; work with inexact or incomplete information, evaluate contexts and advance a conclusion or course of action. </p>
<p>In other words, it is not about learning the prescription to achieve a textbook result. It is about having the intellectual capacity to attack those issues for which there is yet no metaphorical text or answer.</p>
<h2>Is liberal arts the choice of the elite?</h2>
<p>Now, let us take up the elephant in the room. Many people would argue an engineering degree balanced with some English courses might be a nice idea. </p>
<p>But for a student to major in English or studio art is sheer craziness. What does one do with a studio art degree except become a starving artist? What does one do with an English degree except wait tables? </p>
<p>Those who make such arguments usually conflate “liberal arts” with “humanities,” those disciplines that do not have an obvious “end career goal” or a “remuneration outcome” at the other side of the college degree. </p>
<p>When detractors hear educators like me say that “the liberal arts” are valuable, they understand us to mean that they fulfill something in the core of our souls. That is, that the humanities are personally and intellectually valuable, but not remuneratively so. </p>
<p>They hear us acknowledge that the humanities are decidedly not practical, and are thus are the purview of the elite and privileged who can afford to indulge in them. But, of course, the idea that the only remunerative professions out there are in science and technology is silly.</p>
<p>Whole industries do in fact exist that are not based on STEM premises: media, consulting, fashion, finance, publishing, education, government and other forms of public service are just a few. </p>
<p>And even those reputedly “tech” industries that STEM advocates see as our future (IT, health, energy) <a href="http://fortune.com/2015/06/24/tech-jobs-without-stem-degrees/">require all sorts</a> of nontechnical employees to get their companies to work. </p>
<p>Further, basic communication, speaking and writing skills are absolute must-haves of anyone who is going to climb the ladder in any <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/georgeanders/2015/07/29/liberal-arts-degree-tech/">high-tech industry</a>. </p>
<h2>What defines success</h2>
<p>That said, the so-called “practical” major (and I reject the designation) might have a more obvious, path to the entry level job of a solid career. This is only because the major has an apparently known professional pathway.</p>
<p>But that does not guarantee success in that field. </p>
<p>In fact, those other disciplines that detractors of the liberal arts (read: humanities) assume are dead ends could well be <a href="http://www.liberalartspower.org/lowdown/who/Pages/default.aspx">fantastic springboards</a> to amazing professional lives. </p>
<p>They are not a guarantee of one – and <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/03/the-myth-of-the-science-and-engineering-shortage/284359/">neither is a STEM degree</a>. But they give those students who have committed seriously to the study of excelling within their college discipline (be it classics, anthropology, or theoretical physics) the capacity and the ability to achieve one. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/100761/original/image-20151104-29073-1m7ib9j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/100761/original/image-20151104-29073-1m7ib9j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/100761/original/image-20151104-29073-1m7ib9j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/100761/original/image-20151104-29073-1m7ib9j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/100761/original/image-20151104-29073-1m7ib9j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/100761/original/image-20151104-29073-1m7ib9j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/100761/original/image-20151104-29073-1m7ib9j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Liberal education teaches students how to think critically.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/26254305@N08/15660921595/in/photolist-pRUjnz-5D9mGQ-uouWCA-ziGMt1-osBT2E-ovtLSg-3EPUWR-edVyhz-otrRsq-dxy7He-ob9vWm-rP3vW4-4XVUDZ-dAodiu-vDrEG1-oZi4ZH-qEiLMm-rRDcFh-p1bJZX-oTC9kS-qAtVYZ-rRBsXd-4u8xQJ-eWq9XX-68ifcj-yasdBj-Ed22H-geY5bk-eBzbLM-bmRgDS-fZkC5-6cVsp3-hi3g1a-yckWZ3-8ooWry-5yb9sf-6i7qAL-yff7M-4QDJLd-9fmNFW-asyqj7-53FP23-sjJJCB-6znTf9-8UEWUz-22UAA8-yAHSDU-e4Caw7-aciix3-5zyXgV">roanokecollege</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Some people talk about this as critical thinking; some as the ability to think outside of the box; some as “transferability” – the ability to carry critical intellectual skills from one challenge or industry to another.</p>
<p>In my view, done right, liberal education makes one smarter and more able to be successful and innovative on the path one embarks on. And although we can all point to exceptions (would that Bill Gates had graduated from college!), for the most part, it is those who know how to think nimbly, creatively and responsibly that end up building extraordinary careers.</p>
<h2>Why we need a liberal arts education</h2>
<p>Let us return to my earlier point about STEM disciplines. </p>
<p>We should not only accept that they are part of a liberal arts education, but we must understand that teaching them within a liberal arts framework makes the financial investment of learning them of greater value.</p>
<p><a href="http://engineering.dartmouth.edu/people/faculty/peter-robbie/">Peter Robbie</a>, an engineering professor at Dartmouth College who teaches human centered design, explains why liberal education is so critical to engineering training. He said in an email to me that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>creative design process of engineering provides the means for complex, multidisciplinary problem-solving. We need to educate leaders who can solve the ‘wicked problems’ facing society (like obesity, climate change, and inequality). These are multifactorial problems that can’t be solved within a single domain but will need liberally-educated, expansive thinkers who are comfortable in many fields. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>As we know, an engineer who has basic cultural competency skills (honed, for instance, through cultural studies) will be an attractive asset for an American engineering firm trying to branch out in China. </p>
<p>Likewise, a doctor who knows how to listen to patients will be a better primary care doctor than one who only knows the memorizable facts from medical school.
This is one reason that medical schools have recently changed the requirements of application to encourage coursework in sociology and psychology. </p>
<p>It is the ability to use these skills honed by different types of thinking in various contexts that allows people to build beyond their particular ken. </p>
<p>And that is what a liberal arts education – science, technology, humanities and social sciences – trains. It prepares students for rich, creative, meaningful and, yes, remunerative, careers.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/49638/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Cecilia Gaposchkin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It is those who know how to think nimbly, creatively and responsibly that end up building extraordinary careers.Cecilia Gaposchkin, Associate Professor of History, Assistant Dean of Faculty for Pre-Major Advising, Dartmouth CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/189582013-10-28T19:26:52Z2013-10-28T19:26:52ZGo on then … what are the creative industries?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/33790/original/6f79xr8z-1382678612.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Matthew Hutchinson</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Creativity is the X factor of modern industry. When it slumps, our economy splutters.</p>
<p>Creativity is the source of the unprecedented wealth of the last two centuries. Yet we still understand very little about it.</p>
<p>Ideas create the industries and societies that generate the capital and income that lifts the world up. That is simple to say but difficult to achieve.</p>
<p>In the 1990s we began to talk about creative industries. We bundled fashion, design, advertising, architecture, publishing, software, movies, television and similar enterprises into their own sector. They became a lobby. In major economies, creative industries make up about 3%-5% of employment. As poorer economies develop, the size of their creative industries grows.</p>
<p>The term “creative industries sector”, though, is a bit of misnomer. For any industry can be creative. Conversely, fashion and design industries and their ilk often are lame. Little is creative or even interesting about today’s consumer computer companies.</p>
<p>In 2000, creative industries evangelists promised us a brilliant future. Some 30% of the population would belong to the creative class. The baton of creativity would pass from computing to bio-technology. Broadband networks would revolutionise business. Yet none of this happened. </p>
<p>Instead we ended up with prolonged global stagnation. We are in this pickle because we are less creative today than we were 50 years ago.</p>
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">LucyPB2urJelly</span></span>
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<p>Any industry can be creative. Agriculture is just as important as media. Creativity should not be confused with glamour. Movies are glitzy but today they are also mostly banal. The days of Alfred Hitchcock and John Ford are long behind us. </p>
<p>The same is true of technology. If we compare the period 1930-1969 to 1970-2009, the per-capita number of significant Australian inventions declined.</p>
<p>More lobbies, more policies and more government money won’t fix this. Bio-medical research is a cautionary example. After 1970, research money <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Great-American-University-Preeminence-Indispensable/dp/1610390970/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1382676560&sr=1-1&keywords=great+american+university">in real terms</a> exploded. Yet the number of new molecular entities approved for drug use in the United States in the 2000s was barely more than in the 1950s.</p>
<p>The arts are equally miserable. In the 1950s, discussion raged about the relative merits of figurative and abstract art. Tradition was pitched against modernity, ornament against smooth surfaces. Then along came arts council funding. </p>
<p>This was followed by obsequious hyper-ventilating discourses and finally the “neo” and “post” movements. The result was tedium. We can barely recollect the names of the practitioners of this anaemic era, let alone compare them with the monuments of Cubism, De Stijl or Abstract Expressionism. </p>
<p>In the past 40 years, the most interesting work in the arts has been in commercially-minded design and architecture. Works like Rem Koolhaas and OMA’s 2008 <a href="http://www.oma.eu/news/2012/cctv-completed">China Central Television (CCTV) Headquarters</a> in Beijing are impressive. But these remain the exception.</p>
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<span class="caption">The China Central Television (CCTV) tower under construction in Beijing, 2007.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Michael Reynolds/EPA</span></span>
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<p>This suggests that, for all our rhetoric, we still do not understand how creativity works. We try to institutionalise something that defies institutionalisation. There is no document-driven procedure for creativity. It is very hard to nail down. This is because what lies at its heart is very odd.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/33788/original/yfy2q3xy-1382676480.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/33788/original/yfy2q3xy-1382676480.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/33788/original/yfy2q3xy-1382676480.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/33788/original/yfy2q3xy-1382676480.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/33788/original/yfy2q3xy-1382676480.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/33788/original/yfy2q3xy-1382676480.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/33788/original/yfy2q3xy-1382676480.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/33788/original/yfy2q3xy-1382676480.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ian Harvey</span></span>
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<p>Creative people do what most people including most clever people do not do. They take what others normally think of as being unrelated and put them together. That is what it means to be creative. It is a very off-putting thought process, not unlike that of an acerbic comedian.</p>
<p>Someone at AT&T <a href="http://www.corp.att.com/attlabs/reputation/timeline/17air.html">had the idea</a> of putting together the concepts of (wired) telephony and (wireless) radio in 1917. Almost a century later we carry in our pockets the fruits of that original thought meld. Very few people think like that. </p>
<p>Creative societies allow those who <em>do</em> the freedom to muse and the room to convince others that their outlier idea will soon enter the mainstream and define the norm.</p>
<p>Creative people look at the exception and see it as the rule. They are not being difficult or outlandish. While often witty, they are not self-consciously wacky. They just see X as Y. That is their gift and their curse. </p>
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tyler</span></span>
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<p>They see change as continuity not novelty. Creators are innate conservatives born with a wicked sense of irony.</p>
<p>Some societies and some eras go along with this. Some don’t. We pay lots of lip-service to the creative economy. But our time is not very creative. The arts and the sciences are dull. Technology and industry are not very innovative. No new industry sectors are emerging. This is a big problem. </p>
<p>The French economist <a href="http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/bios/Say.html">Jean-Baptiste Say</a> rightly observed in the early 19th century that in a modern dynamic economy supply creates demand. This means that without interesting and exciting products people save their money, and sluggish economies stagnate. That’s where we find ourselves in 2013.</p>
<p>Our larger problem is that we mistake glamour for creation. We think that working in the air-conditioned pastel offices of a designated creative industry makes us creative. It does not. We need to stop mistaking pretty labels for real entities.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/33785/original/hb2qy45w-1382676223.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/33785/original/hb2qy45w-1382676223.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/33785/original/hb2qy45w-1382676223.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/33785/original/hb2qy45w-1382676223.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/33785/original/hb2qy45w-1382676223.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/33785/original/hb2qy45w-1382676223.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/33785/original/hb2qy45w-1382676223.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/33785/original/hb2qy45w-1382676223.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Moses M</span></span>
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<p>We now have to go back to scratch. We need a hard re-think about what creativity is and how we encourage it. We need to de-regulate creativity and let it off the leash. Since the 1970s we have forged a society fixated on petty rules and stern processes. Universities are among the worst offenders. </p>
<p>The result is not creation but enervation. We call our research and development creative but mostly it is not. We are risk-averse and shy of discovery.</p>
<p>One of the few exceptions to this in the past 40 years was Silicon Valley in the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s. It was truly free-wheeling. It was a place where a young man like Steve Jobs could combine his love of modernist aesthetics and electronic technologies. But that’s long gone.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/33787/original/rg3234vm-1382676335.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/33787/original/rg3234vm-1382676335.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/33787/original/rg3234vm-1382676335.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=790&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/33787/original/rg3234vm-1382676335.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=790&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/33787/original/rg3234vm-1382676335.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=790&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/33787/original/rg3234vm-1382676335.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=993&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/33787/original/rg3234vm-1382676335.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=993&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/33787/original/rg3234vm-1382676335.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=993&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Steve Jobs.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Monica M. Davey/EPA</span></span>
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<p>Silicon Valley in its brief hey-day was philosophically libertarian. Today it is wearisomely left-liberal. Sanctimony has replaced discovery. Moralism has supplanted gusto. The fire of excitement has given way to the same ideology of correctness that haunts the universities today. Big ideas have been replaced by minute rules.</p>
<p>PayPal’s <a href="http://www.foundersfund.com/team/peter-thiel">Peter Thiel</a> is right when he observes that the technology and economics of our other key industries such as air travel and energy are stuck <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jX07zPupNdc">in the 1960s and 1970s</a>. American critic and scholar <a href="http://www.uarts.edu/users/cpaglia">Camille Paglia</a> is right when she observes that, since the early 1970s, the arts <a href="http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10000872396390444223104578034480670026450">have been a wasteland</a>. </p>
<p>And I can’t see much monumental in the sciences since the structure of DNA was discovered in the 1950s. The incidence of classic science papers declines sharply after 1970.</p>
<p>We are not like Germany in the 1890s or California in the 1950s. One produced a stream of great philosophy and science; the other a stream of great technology. Until the tap was switched off – in one case by totalitarianism; in the other case by big government liberalism. </p>
<p>Little of our era will enter the history of ideas. Twittering on about creative industries makes no difference if our industries are not creative.</p>
<p>Our biggest problem today is that we lack ambition, energy and imagination. Our problem is us. Only we can fix that problem.</p>
<p><br></p>
<p><em>This is a foundation essay for The Conversation’s new Arts + Culture section. If you are an academic or researcher with relevant expertise and would like to respond to this article, please use our <a href="https://theconversation.com/pitches/new">pitch facility</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/18958/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Murphy receives funding from the Australian Research Council for a project on creativity.</span></em></p>Creativity is the X factor of modern industry. When it slumps, our economy splutters. Creativity is the source of the unprecedented wealth of the last two centuries. Yet we still understand very little…Peter Murphy, Head of School of Creative Arts, James Cook UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.