Chris Bilton

University of Warwick

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Playing to the gallery: myth, method and complexity in the creative process

Edward Elgar Publishing eBooks (2013)

Chris Bilton

Playing to the gallery: myth, method and complexity in the creative processCognitive theories of creativity highlight the complexity of creative processes and suggest that artists succeed in reconciling very different, even contradictory, ways of thinking and frames of reference in their work.Yet in the presentation of creative practice, artists are often complicit in the selective misrepresentation of their own work by markets and institutions.These selective misreadings of the creative process disconnect the creative act and the creative person from the contexts which give them meaning and value, resulting in a simplified, individualised portrait of the artist's work.The chapter begins by reconsidering Raymond Williams' concept of culture as 'structure of feeling'.In the shift from 'cultural' to 'creative' industries, we are in danger of overlooking the important interaction between individual talent and collective cultural values highlighted by Williams.This shift will be considered in relation to the political rhetoric of the 'creative industries', the commercial imperatives of branding individual artists, and the self-doubt and evasiveness of individual artists.Finally the chapter will consider how partial representations of artistic creativity influence our perceptions of innovation, and how 'myths' of creativity distort our understanding of cultural change. The culture of creativityTheories of creativity emphasise the complexity and multiplicity of the creative process.In particular cognitive approaches to creativity have debunked what Robert Weisberg calls 'the myth of genius'the belief that creativity is associated with a special type of thinking or a special type of person (Weisberg 1993).Instead Weisberg argues that creative thinking draws upon several different types of thinking, including such rational elements as domain-specific expertise, memory and logic.Other commentators

Creative work

Misrepresentation

Creative Industries

Value (mathematics)

Presentation (obstetrics)

10.4337/9780857939814.00019

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Citations (7)

The Disappearing Product and the New Intermediaries

Chris Bilton

Intermediary

10.1017/9789048540150.007

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Citations (1)

Sources and Suggested Further Reading

Chris Bilton Cummings Stephen

10.1002/9781119208280.oth1

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Citations (0)

Seven Virtues of Strategic Organization

Chris Bilton Stephen Cummings

This chapter presents seven organizational virtues that can help to promote innovation, entrepreneurship, and leadership – or creative strategy. Each of those requires finding a balance between two extremes rather than pursuing excellence, and that balance would be relative to the organization and its context. The virtues of strategic organization relate to seven domains: culture; politics; learning; idea generation; job orientation; organizational architecture; orientation to change. The virtues discussed in the chapter are: integrating and fragmenting; democracy and dictatorship; naive and expert: deutero-learning; subjective and disembodied; distracted and blinkered; open planned and closed planned; and static and flux.

Excellence

Dictatorship

Strategic leadership

10.1002/9781119208280.ch15

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Digital transformation in the arts : a case study

Chris Bilton Ruth Leary

This paper considers the interaction between digital technology and cultural organisations and the challenges and opportunities this presents for practice and for policy. The paper is based on one of eight 'digital R&D' projects supported by NESTA, Arts Council England and the AHRC, designed to analyse the effects of digital innovation in UK arts organisations. The paper focuses on a series of residencies in three UK arts organisations. The research aims to identify the cultural conditions which support or prevent short-term digital innovation becoming 'embedded' in the ongoing practice of a cultural organisation. The paper considers differing practices, attitudes and expectations between creative technologists and arts organisations. These differing 'cultures of innovation' may help us to understand why digital innovations often fail to move beyond temporary and pragmatic problem-solving towards more challenging, transformational effects on organisational strategy and culture.

Performing arts

Digital Culture

Digital strategy

Digital art

Cultural Policy

Source

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Citations (0)

What is Creativity?

Chris Bilton Stephen Cummings

This chapter defines creativity as a temporal system with three levels: creativity's content, creativity's outcome, and creativity's process. Creativity's content includes innovation and purpose to add more than individual value. Transforming contexts and redefining problems are part of creativity's outcomes. The creative process requires us to connect together unfamiliar frames of reference and utilize different types of thinking; it might also require us to connect with different types of people. The chapter also presents definitional framework of creativity, which highlights the link between content, outcomes, and process. Creativity contains innovation and value, which transforms the context in which it occurs, and which results from a process of paradoxical bisociative thinking.

Creativity technique

Value (mathematics)

Content (measure theory)

10.1002/9781119208280.ch2

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Citations (0)

Managing creativity: exploring the paradox

Cultural Trends (2011)

Chris Bilton

Managing creativity: exploring the paradox, edited by Barbara Townley and Nic Beech, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2009, 364 pp., £60.00 (hardback), ISBN 978-0-521-51853-6 Creativity is ev...

10.1080/09548963.2011.563917

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Citations (45)

Uncreativity: the shadow side of creativity

International Journal of Cultural Policy (2014)

Chris Bilton

AbstractThis paper argues that our fascination with creativity is distracting and potentially destructive, resulting in a tendency to discard projects and people before they achieve their potential. 'Uncreativity' is used to recognise the importance of continuity over change, the contribution of intermediaries and administrators to creative processes and the possibility of reconfiguring and refining existing ideas rather than inventing new ones. The paper argues that the 'discourse' of creativity prioritises novelty over value. This leads to an unsustainable emphasis on new ideas and initiatives in organisations. For individuals, it encourages an overemphasis on individual talent and relentless self-belief. This partial understanding of creative processes results in unrealistic expectations and self-destructive and self-exploiting behaviours. Uncreativity is proposed as a necessary element in creative processes for both organisations and individuals. Cultural policy and cultural management need to acknowledge the important contribution of these uncreative elements as well as simply endorsing 'creativity'.Keywords: creativityuncreativityintrinsic motivationinnovationcreative labour Notes1. Beeman's research was quoted by Jonah Lehrer in his Citation2012 exploration of the creative process, Imagine: how creativity works (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), p. 13–19. Lehrer's own research has subsequently been discredited due to fabrication of some interviews and quotes and his book has been withdrawn by the publishers.

Intermediary

Creative Industries

Creativity technique

Value (mathematics)

10.1080/10286632.2014.892933

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Citations (33)

Toward a New Understanding of Creative Dynamics: From One-Size-Fits-All Models to Multiple and Dynamic Forms of Creativity

Technology Innovation Management Review (2015)

Stephen Cummings Chris Bilton dt ogilvie

IntroductionCreativity continues to be a widely used buzzword in management. However, managerial approaches to creativity are limited by two paradoxical conditions. First, a multiplicity of differing notions of the term "creativity" are used across different sub-fields of management. Second, an assumption is held by many managers that "creativity" is a singular concept that

Dynamics

10.22215/timreview910

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Citations (5)

Manageable creativity

International Journal of Cultural Policy (2010)

Chris Bilton

This article notes a perception in mainstream management theory and practice that creativity has shifted from being disruptive or destructive to 'manageable'. This concept of manageable creativity in business is reflected in a similar rhetoric in cultural policy, especially towards the creative industries. The article argues that the idea of 'manageable creativity' can be traced back to a 'heroic' and a 'structural' model of creativity. It is argued that the 'heroic' model of creativity is being subsumed within a 'structural' model which emphasises the systems and infrastructure around individual creativity rather than focusing on raw talent and pure content. Yet this structured approach carries problems of its own, in particular a tendency to overlook the unpredictability of creative processes, people and products. Ironically, it may be that some confusion in our policies towards creativity is inevitable, reflecting the paradoxes and transitions which characterise the creative process.

Mainstream

Creativity technique

Confusion

Creative Industries

10.1080/10286630903128518

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Citations (53)