Introduction
The world is calling out for more creativity in education, business and society. With so much depending on this fundamental aspect of human intelligence, it’s imperative to understand that our current definition of creativity is so flawed that we are not able to grasp it’s meaning, and are therefore hindered to make effective changes.
Our lack of clarity regarding creativity is caused by historical shifts in the understanding and defining of basic reality. Classical Greek philosophy envisioned the natural world as the physical expression of a greater ideal reality. In order to align their artistic, scientific, and philosophical ideas with the natural world, they sought to understand the formal structure that lay beneath material appearances. The Age of Reason took us on a path of separating observations of the physical world from any abstract notion of form or idea. In our own century, scientists have rediscovered that reality is actually made of pattern and form rather than substance and presents us with relative rather than absolute truths. Given this history, it’s no wonder we are confused as to the meaning of creativity and its role in nature.
Kurt Wenner proposes a profound and all-encompassing insight about the source of creativity and its great power to transform the world and our relationship to it. He will explain how a clear and incisive understanding of the creative process is essential in order to understand our historical misconceptions so that we can construct a new paradigm. Because creativity is what enables ideas to become manifest in the physical world, it is an essential component both of nature and of human experience. Only through understanding the essential structure of creativity can we make meaningful and effective changes in contemporary thought.
Kurt Wenner has spent a lifetime working within the arts and education. His artwork has been seen in more than 30 countries and he travels the globe for exhibits and talks. Wenner received the Kennedy Center Medallion for his work in arts education.
Part 1- Creativity in Nature
Artist Kurt Wenner, will talk about the meaning of creativity, not as an anomalous function of the human brain, but as an all-encompassing feature of the universe. In the same way that we can describe physical entities in terms of finite mathematical relationships between time, space, and energy, we can also describe them in terms of pattern. Predictability, which is the foundation of science, is pattern, and pattern is intelligence. Because any pattern of energy embodies universal creative principles it also has innate creative potential. Patterns of energy accumulate, transform and influence each other.
If we set aside the phrase laws of nature and Euclid’s postulates, then everything in the universe has meaning. The laws of nature should in fact be called the creative principles of nature and geometry should be understood as a diagrammatic expression of energetic relationships. Geometry is what allows us to see nature think.
Creativity is the manifestation of an idea in the physical world and the creative process of the universe is as predictable and rational as any natural law. When atomic elements form molecules or life alters its environment to create a balance, or when life becomes self-aware and creates its own reality, it is all part of the vast creative potential of the universe.
By understanding the creative principles within nature we can align our own works with the formal structure and patterns that are at play in the universe. This releases us from struggling with random and ill-informed designs, products, and structures that strive for novelty, but fight against the greater energetic flow that is all around us.
Part 2- The Structure of Creativity
A leading speaker in the field of arts education, Kurt Wenner, understands creativity like no other. He knows that when creativity is discussed it is treated as an ethereal, intuitive quality, which is impossible to understand. In reality, there are two aspects of creativity, the creative idea and the creative process. The creative idea is not a part of the physical world and therefore defies verbal definition. The creative process, however, is very clear and straightforward. The properties of duality, relationship, proportion and symmetry form the basis for all natural and human creative activity. The musical scale, the proportions of architecture, the attributes of color and sound, along with the structure of seashells and crystals are all defined by the same formal qualities.
It is the formal and organizational qualities in an entity that contain the essence of further creative development. Crystals can grow, organisms can reproduce and humans can think because patterns of energy are ectropic. This means that when energy is patterned, it attains the potential to accumulate and pattern “loose” energy. A pattern of energy can absorb more loose energy than it consumes, which enables growth or transformation. Ultimately it is the recognition of our kinship with other patterns of energy in the natural world that inspires empathy, aesthetics, and even love.
The 21st century has given us amazing new tools with which we can create radically innovative works of art, music, entertainment and architecture. By understanding the structure of creativity itself, we can make better use of computer graphics, digital technology, 3D modeling and printing, as well as a host of other new technologies that are underused because of our limited conceptual abilities.
Part 3- Human Creativity
In this talk, Kurt Wenner will compare the qualities of human creativity to those of the natural world. Human creativity is tied to creativity in the natural world by the formal qualities of duality, relationship, proportion and symmetry. But human creativity also has a distinctive quality not seen in the natural world. This uniqueness is due to the metaphorical nature of human thought. We see the world in terms of symbols and we organize great hierarchies of symbols to develop languages.
Language encompasses not only oral and written conventions, but includes music, drawing, dance, mathematics, and scientific notation. Because symbols have a metaphorical relationship to what they describe, all human thought expressed in any form of language is metaphorical. The symbol cannot be the object described, but only have a conceptual link to it. We can therefore observe reality in a pure state as in meditation, but the moment we describe our experience we are working with symbols and therefore creating a metaphor.
Often a linguistic representation is the most important part of the human creative process. A musical score is not a symphony, a blueprint is not a house, and a written play is not a performance, but all of them are creations. They already belong to the physical world because ideas have been expressed in terms of language. Symbols have an immense power for us, which causes us to forget their origin and thereby confuse our representations with reality.
When we forget the metaphorical nature of our creations, our discoveries become rules and conventions; fixed and static decrees of society that prevent further exploration. When this happens, creativity must reassert itself, awakening the direct connection between humanity, nature, and reality. Creativity can then strip away convention and allow us to regain our roles as protagonists in the drama of existence.