The Creative System in Action

Understanding Cultural Production and Practice

P. McIntyre,J. Fulton,E. Paton

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781137509468
• Topic: Art
• Subtopic: Art General

The first of its kind, this book focuses on empirical studies into creative output that use and test the systems approach. The collection of work from cultural studies, sociology, psychology, communication and media studies, and the arts depicts holistic and innovative ways to understand creativity as a system in action.

1

Introduction

Phillip McIntyre, Janet Fulton and Elizabeth Paton

Creativity. Nothing is as it seems. Or so it appears. Underneath the surface events of our lives, entwined with the beliefs that we have about the way the world works and the myths we use to prop them up, are forces at work that we may not recognize or even dare acknowledge. At the same time the choices we make as human beings in our everyday lives, and the creative decisions they entail, are not just simply imposed on us by those deep forces at play. This complex interplay of agency and structure can be explained in a number of ways. As an example, against the belief that creativity is an individually based phenomenon centred on extraordinary people are ranged a series of theories, concepts and evidence bases that serve to bring Western myths about creativity into sharp relief. This book tries to set aside the myths and often uncritically held beliefs, the things Pierre Bourdieu referred to as doxa or ‘the collective adhesion to the game that is both cause and effect of the existence of the game’ (Bourdieu 1996, p. 167) – as important as these appear to be in driving everyday creative action (Hesmondhalgh 2011, p. 20) – and attempts to provide evidence that creativity, as it occurs within the creative industries, can be best explained using a primarily rational approach.

In pursuing this rational explanation for creativity across a range of disciplines pertinent to the creative industries, including fiction and non-fiction writing, journalism, popular music, film and documentary, theatre, digital media, and the arts and design, this book has taken a very particular view, that is, that of the systems approach initially developed by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. This approach to creativity incorporates not just individual creators but also the social and cultural contexts in which they work. In many ways it attempts to satisfy Csikszentmihalyi’s call for an amalgam of the psychological and the sociological (1988, p. 336). The book argues that cultural production is a multidimensional phenomenon and the research work presented in it provides, we hope, a comprehensive exposé of this process.

Each author in this collection offers either an empirically based instantiation of the theory or an amplification and extension of it. Some do both. Either way, the work of Csikszentmihalyi, and as it turns out quite a number of other researchers, provides the springboard for these explorations of creativity.

Initially, the book attempts to give an ordered overview of systems theory to give the broad context of the development of these ideas. It then sets out a trajectory of the research literature on creativity as it has moved towards this systems approach. For much of the book there is then a focus on current systems-based research into cultural production and media practice, giving an overview of empirically based studies that use and test the systems approach. This set of collected research accounts not only provides evidence to support the theory through proffering empirical accounts of it but also demonstrates how differing research methods have proved useful in providing an alternate and more holistic way to describe and analyse a cultural producer’s creative output. As such, this book serves to provide an account of creative action that has seldom been applied to these selected areas of the creative industries. In doing this, the book demonstrates what we believe to be a fundamental idea about knowledge: some thoughts, ideas, theories or concepts reach a point where they move beyond their original instigator and become part of a larger paradigmatic shift in thinking. Each person who supplies confirmation of the ideas may add something new to it, thereby giving the initial idea a life of its own.

The first part of the book provides the theoretical background to the ideas described, tested, rethought and discussed in the later empirically based studies. The first chapter in this section, Chapter 2, situates the research on creativity in the broader context of general systems theory. It argues that one cannot fully understand complex entities by simply considering the individual parts. Many systems in the natural world contain multiple components interacting in dense, extensive and interrelated networks. These include social and cultural systems. As Keith Sawyer suggests, ‘social systems are complex systems that share many systemic properties with other complex systems, including the human mind’ (2010, p. 368). If so, there is a possibility that complex social systems could be understood to generate novelty just as readily as individuals do and in this case ‘a complete scientific explanation of creativity would have to include detailed accounts of both psychological and social mechanisms’ (Sawyer 2010, p. 368). Of course while this is only one possible explanation, this chapter briefly outlines the principal concepts of general systems theory and also sets out the paradigmatic shift towards systems thinking that has occurred within the research literature on creativity and cultural production. What needs pointing out here is that the initial work on creativity remained, in the words of Dean Keith Simonton (2003), largely psychologically reductionist. It was also eventually discovered that just concentrating on societal or cultural structures, in opposition to a concentration on the individual alone, would also not give us complete access to what is happening in a creative act. As Hennessey and Amabile (2010) suggested, what we need to do in order to understand how creativity actually happens is to include all of these processes, individual, social and cultural, as part of a creative system in action. They argue that:

only by using multiple lenses simultaneously, looking across levels, and thinking about creativity systematically, will we be able to unlock and use its secrets. What we need now are all encompassing systems theories of creativity designed to tie together and make sense of the diversity of perspectives found in the literature. (2010, p. 590)

Keeping Hennessey and Amabile’s suggestion in mind, in Chapter 3 Janet Fulton and Elizabeth Paton provide a detailed description of the systems model developed by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. The systems model is an example of an approach that incorporates multiple elements which must be present and active in order for creativity to occur since ‘what we call creative is never the result of individual action alone; it is the product of three main shaping forces’ (Csikszentmihalyi 1988, p. 325). For him, a domain, individual and field are all necessary but not sufficient component parts of the system in action. Instead of reducing our understanding of creativity to the separate components within this system, Csikszentmihalyi argues that we should be seeing these components as elements incorporated into an interactive and non-linear system. In addition, Fulton and Paton also briefly describe Pierre Bourdieu’s ideas on cultural production, pointing to some of the similarities and differences between these two complex sets of ideas, and provide evidence that applying Csikszentmihalyi’s and Bourdieu’s ideas can deliver a more comprehensive explanation of cultural production. If these ideas have any veracity, then it would be demonstrated in empirical research that presents evidence to support them. In the second part of this book various researchers do just that.

Phillip McIntyre in Chapter 4, for example, applies the systems model to creativity in contemporary Western popular music songwriting. He does this through an extensive ethnographic research study. Exploring the data collected in that study, Chapter 4 examines: the domain of songwriting; how songwriters acquire that domain in order to gain the habitus of songwriters; how the field operates in contributing to the selection of certain material over others; and, finally, how songwriters, as the person in the system, contribute to this systemic process and are located as agents within their own idiosyncratic sociocultural background. While McIntyre has explored elsewhere the tensions negotiated between the domain, field and agents involved in creativity, in particular questions of power and its application in the recording studio (2008), this chapter presents a complex account of the interdependence of agency and structure within the workings of the creative system.

Using qualitative interview data, Justin Morey discusses in Chapter 5 the extent to which the systems model of creativity is helpful in explaining the development of creative practice amongst dance music producers (he calls them sampling composers) who use samples in their work. He demonstrates how their creative processes can alter in response to the demands of both the field and the domain. Morey’s research reveals a dedicated practice regime for sampling composers of collecting, listening to, playing and making recordings, often from an early age, resulting in significant immersion in the domain of music production before producing work that may be validated by the field. For Morey, this field includes the music industry and their peers. He concludes that sampling composers have an extensive interaction with both the domain and the field and also acknowledges that the opportunities and constraints of technology, the music industry and copyright law are crucial in shaping these composers’ creative practice.

Paul Thompson also undertook an ethnographic investigation of the systems model of creativity incorporating some ideas from Pierre Bourdieu’s work on cultural production and Keith Sawyer’s work on group creativity, both of which can be seen to be allied to the systems approach. In Chapter 6, Thompson applies these ideas to the production of a popular music recording undertaken by a group of musicians, an engineer and a record producer in a recording studio in Liverpool in the UK. Through participant-observation, multi-perspective film recording and in-depth interviews, the dynamic interaction of the system’s interdependent factors of domain, field and the individual were exposed. In taking a scalable approach to individual and group dynamics, that is, moving from micro to macro levels, Thompson concludes that an agent’s ability to make decisions during the recording process is both enabled and constrained by their knowledge of both the field and the domain of record production, further illuminating the interrelated elements of agency, an ability to make choice, and structure, those things seen to determine action, within the creative system of record production.

Janet Fulton, on the other hand, sets out to answer the following question in Chapter 7: how do print journalists produce, or create, their work? Fulton states that journalism is seldom thought of as a creative form of writing. This situation may be primarily because it is conventional to associate the idea of creativity with artistic forms of cultural production. Journalism is not an ‘artistic’ profession and some see it as constrained by rules and conventions, or structures, giving little licence for a journalist to exercise agency, that is, it is thought that the existence of these structures leaves little room for print journalists to make creative choice. However, by applying the systems model of creativity suggested by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi to print journalism, as this chapter does, it can be clearly seen that journalism is a creative activity in the same way as such writing genres as poetry and fiction writing. Rather than differentiating between different forms of writing as high and low culture, or creative and non-creative, it is more productive to recognize that all forms of writing are creative. The chapter demonstrates that in print journalism, as in other forms of cultural production, creativity occurs when there is a confluence of an individual’s genetic make-up, personality traits, cognitive structures, home and family environment, education and life experiences, as well as the journalist’s interaction with the field and immersion in the domain of journalism. Couple these individual traits, and the idiosyncratic agency they imply, with the rules, conventions, techniques, guides and procedures of the domain, the collection of previously written stories, and the expertise, judgement and support of print journalism’s field and there is ample evidence presented here to indicate that each component of the system, field, domain and person, is necessary but not sufficient by itself for creativity to occur. From this we can see how creativity in print journalism occurs within a system of print journalism in action.

Using an innovative Practice Based Enquiry (PBE) approach to examining creativity as a system in operation, Sarah Coffee’s research, outlined in Chapter 8, included writing a series of 20 feature articles, titled Profiling Creativity, with each feature article based on a different creative practitioner and their experience of the creative process. The individuals profiled were drawn from a variety of practices, some traditionally associated with creativity and others not, in order to demonstrate the diversity of creativity as detailed in current literature on the subject. Each profile highlighted a different concept or aspect within the scholarly literature, as demonstrated by that particular practitioner’s experience. Engaging in the practice of freelance print journalism in this way provided Coffee with two sources for exploring creativity: the accounts of the 20 practitioners interviewed for the profiles and her own experience of the creative process in writing the series. In this way, she was able to compare her experience of creativity with that of the practitioners interviewed for the profiles and apply current literature on creativity to these findings. Her research confirmed for her the necessity of accounting for all three components of the system, field, domain and agent, in explanations of the creative process.

Based on ethnographic methods, including in-depth interviews with 40 published fiction writers with over 400 publications between them, and seven publishing industry professionals, the research presented by Elizabeth Paton in Chapter 9 shows that the systems model is also relevant to fiction writing. Paton’s study provides evidence, firstly, of how writers adopt and master the domain skills and knowledge needed to be able to write fiction through processes of socialization and enculturation. Secondly, the individual’s ability to contribute to the domain depends not only on traditional biological, personality and motivational influences but also socially and culturally mediated work practices and processes. Finally, the contribution of a field of experts is also crucial to creativity occurring in Australian fiction writing. This social organization, comprised of all those who can affect the domain, is important not only for its influence on and acceptance of written works but also for the continuation of the system itself.

Susan Kerrigan extends the idea of the creative system to documentary practice in Chapter 10 and she offers a reconceptualization of the model. Her research investigated the creative production of two documentary works on an Australian historical site, Fort Scratchley. She reflectively interrogated her own creative processes in making those documentaries and concluded that it was necessary to more fully locate creative practice at the centre of the system. Furthermore, her work here aligns the confluence approach of the creative system as complementary to two other creativity theories: the group creativity model proposed by Paulus and Nijstad (2003) and staged creative process theories as they relate to production processes. Kerrigan’s chapter is simultaneously about a practitioner drawing on their intuitive and embodied knowledge while also outlining their engagement in collaborative, social and cultural practice.

Also working in the area of film, Eva Redvall proposes in Chapter 11 that the complex production processes in the film and media industries take place within a screen idea system, where variations emerge based on a constant interplay between: the talent who possess certain training and a pertinent track record, who propose new ideas; the existing tastes, traditions and trends in a specific production culture; and the commissioners who have a certain mandate, ideas of management and amounts of money at their disposal. Redvall argues that while nobody knows exactly what might work in terms of finding success in the film and media market, Csikszentmihalyi’s ideas of creativity emerging from highly social and contextual processes provide an excellent framework for conducting case studies of the production of new variations and the way in which different conceptions of creativity, quality and value are constantly discussed during this kind of creative work.

Working in the related area of improvisational theatre, Stacy DeZutter shifts attention from the individual as the locus of creativity to creativity as the emergent product of interactions within a system. Her work on distributed creativity is an extension of these ideas and she demonstrates that when individuals collaborate to produce a shared product, the creative process does not reside in the cognition of individuals but rather is distributed across the members of the group, who form a cognitive system. Chapter 12 reviews DeZutter’s previous research (conducted in collaboration with Keith Sawyer), where she articulated the theory of distributed creativity and elaborated a method for studying it based in interaction analysis. She observes that certain creative actions are emergent from a group’s interaction and these may happen on multiple time scales. She also suggests additional ways scholars might employ the theory of distributed creativity to better understand, and potentially enhance, group creative processes.

New media scriptwriting is the area Michael Meany works in. His general focus is on humour. As he points out in Chapter 13, via Graeme Ritchie, ‘there is little doubt that the construction of humor is generally regarded as creative ... and any general theory of creativity should have something to say about humor’ (2009, p. 71). Meany suggests that most work on humour and creativity has focused at the level of text construction but he argues that creativity theory, in particular the systems model of creativity, provides a much needed framework for examining the making of comedy. Meany’s chapter describes a Practice Based Enquiry (PBE) project that employed artificial intelligence agents (chat-bots) as comedy performers. The interactions and relationships of the human and non-human actors encountered in this project affected both the creative process and the resulting product. Viewed in this manner, Meany concludes that creativity emerges from a network of complex relationships.

Finally, building on the research work already conducted into creativity and the arts and design, summarized more recently by Keith Sawyer (2012) and Anthony Williams et al. (2010), in Chapter 14 Phillip McIntyre and Sarah Coffee explore, through a set of semi-structured in-depth interviews, a comparison of the views of arts and design practitioners themselves with the recent systemic accounts of creativity. McIntyre and Coffee recognize that a number of irrational motives, myths and beliefs are often uncritically accepted as real by many creative actors and these have had an effect on particular forms of cultural production. They conclude that while there is a traditional set of ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures
• Acknowledgements
• Notes on Contributors
• 1 Introduction
• Part I Theory
• 2 General Systems Theory and Creativity
• 3 The Systems Model of Creativity
• Part II Research Using Systems Approaches
• 4 Songwriting as a Creative System in Action
• 5 The Creative Development of Sampling Composers
• 6 Scalability of the Creative System in the Recording Studio
• 7 Print Journalism and the System of Creativity
• 8 The Practice of Freelance Print Journalism
• 9 The Dynamic System of Fiction Writing
• 10 Reconceptualizing Creative Documentary Practices
• 11 Film and Media Production as a Screen Idea System
• 12 Distributed Creativity and Theatre
• 14 The Arts and Design: From Romantic Doxa to Rational Systems of Creative Practice
• 15 Conclusion: Future Directions?
• Index