Chapter 13. Figuring it out: Old modes and new codes for multimodality, technology and creative performativity in 21st century India

Satya Nadella, Vikram Chandra and Manjul Bhargava, three public figures of Indian origin, have recently suggested that significant similarities exist between the creative processes involved in writing poetry and in producing computer codes. This paper explores some of the consequences of drawing on unfamiliar ‘non-western’ cultural traditions to augment current theories of creativity, coding and performativity. More specifically, it examines the premise that ‘creativity’ relies on an able grasp of rules, extends to a risk-taking capacity to break these very rules and, sometimes, to combine them with other embodied modes such as music and dance. The chapter argues that this premise is investigated in Indian treatises from Bharata to Nagojibhatta, who may have been early advocates of multimodality in the pre-modern world.