Creativity by sivam krish

CREATIVITY A computational perspective

What is creativity? Somewhere in our evolutionary trail that led to the chimpanzee 5 million years ago {all, 2010 #42}, we seem to have developed the ability to create mental models of worlds that do not exist. While animals and birds are able to use natural tools in interesting ways, they lack the ability to construct mental models required to manipulate, manage and transfer complex experiences, ideas and knowledge from one context to another. From studies of animal innovations, it seems that it is the combination of our abilities to create mental models and our inherent curiosity that gave rise to our ability to create. It seems that while curiosity helps us create personnel mental representations of the world, imagination helps us play with such representations in many different domains – giving rise to the occasional novel and useful result – that we call creative. Creative discoveries are borne out of our capacity “Imagination is more for imagination. Knowledge too seems to be borne important than knowledge” out of human imagination. New knowledge seems to arise out of the transfer of mental models from one domain to another ‐ enabled by human imagination. We may see creativity as the capacity of human imagination to create and play with Albert Einstein mental models or concepts, ideas and artefacts, resulting in the creation of entirely new possibilities. "Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought." — Albert von Szent‐ Györgyi

Though the concept of “imagination” seems to have been present throughout human history, the concept of creativity seems relatively new. The word “creativity” is surprisingly of recent origin, coined in 1927 by Alfred North Whitehead. For a very long period in human history, only God was in the business of creation, especially within the Judo‐Christian tradition. Even during the Renaissance, creation was seen only as an extension of God’s grace, carried out with his blessings. Only during the period of Enlightenment did “Man” take over God’s business of creation. But then Darwin disrupted man’s business. While Darwin’s wild guesses have now been proven to be mostly right, our own thoughts and understanding of creation remain anchored in the past. The “creation debate” continues today mainly because creation remains a mysterious process along with creativity which is even more mysterious. Despite this, creativity is recognized to be of great importance to the new economy which some claim to be driven by the creative class. A recent global survey by Adobe points to about 80% of executives believing that “unlocking creativity is critical to economic growth”. Creativity is now a matter of great importance. There is no shortage of discussions, books, journals on this subject. There is also no shortage of creativity salesmen who for a cost of a seminar fee will awaken in us a sleeping ability. Despite all this, there seems to be no accepted definition for creativity. Maybe creativity means different things to different people in different contexts. But there also seems to be some common ground. “Over the course of the last decade, however, we seem to have reached a general agreement that creativity involves the production of novel, useful products. Beyond this general commonality, authors have diverged

dramatically in their precise definitions... over a hundred different versions can be found in the literature.[4]” ‐ Wikipedia. Computational Creativity We are concerned here mainly only in the computational aspects of creativity or how we may recognize “creativity” in computational terms. For this, we need to settle on a commonly agreed concept of creativity. But we need to do this within the larger context of creativity – to which much of this section is devoted ‐ mainly because creativity is a combinatorial quality that is context dependant: To discuss it in purely computational terms will is to take leave from reality. So we discuss it here in its overall context. It is generally agreed that creativity is composed of the two key ingredients: novelty and usefulness. But then, novelty and usefulness are subjective terms. Novelty can be defined only in terms of existing products, designs, concepts or systems. That is, for a product to be novel it has to have a certain distance from what is currently known or in existence. To be “useful” is even more subjective; as what is useful to one person may not be to another. Creativity is therefore seethed in subjectivity, making universal measures of creativity meaningless. Creativity is personal The age of singular truth seems to be coming to a slow end. The world of modern science was born out of the quest for “universal truths” devoid of subjectivity. But this very quest gave birth to concepts and tools such as statistics and computers that enlarged its capacity to handle multiplicity and complexity. Programs that study your browsing behaviour online are not burning carbon in search of universal truths: They are seeking with great diligence, the differences in your behaviour to that of others who are browsing the same pages. Some programs know who you are and may also know your preferences even better than yourself. Most contemporary web services including that of Amazon create web pages exclusively for you – because they understand you as a statistical point. And it is in precisely that understanding as to how different you are from others – lies their competitive advantage. So the world that we now live in is very much based on “un‐universality”. Enormous progress has been made in the last few decades in understanding and quantifying differences which forms the basis for the new value paradigms. The world of manufacturing too is moving to personalisation, based on the same realization. Almost all web services that seek your dollars know how different you are to others. Web servers are able to not only quantify the differences but also use that knowledge to offer you something that they are more likely to consume. We now live in an age where we are able to quantify personal values. Can we not use similar methods to analyse and perhaps to some extent, quantify what you think as creative? It should be possible now to map and make use of individual preferences in the context of our own sense of novelty and usefulness. So regarding something as subjective no longer assigns it into the hands of irrationality. We need to study creativity in the context of our growing ability to handle complexity. We need to see creativity as subjective yet bounded within an analytical framework that allows for its greater understanding and management. Creativity is conferred While we know of many great musicians, we also find millions who make music. Some are more recognized than others and few are truly outstanding. More importantly, we know that there are many 3

famous musicians whose music we hate and those who are less known whose music we love. While we have the confidence to make such judgments on music, we generally find it difficult to judge creativity – because it seems to be something that is bestowed. It is no surprise that almost all the creative people that we know of are men of Anglo Saxon extraction based in either Europe or America – what about the rest ? Creativity is pervasive Creativity is not only an attribute that distinguishes us from all other species but it is something that is part and parcel of our being. Being human is being creative. Its extent may vary. Its recognition may vary. But if you observe carefully, you can see it everywhere. It is truly pervasive. It’s everywhere. But to see it you have to be creative too. It’s in your mind, that your recognize the creativity of others. Global survey on creativity A recent global survey on creativity by Adobe produced some very interesting results. The survey statistically proves this subjectivity beyond doubt. When you ask people of England how creative they are globally (in %), they bestowed on themselves a whopping 35% , and on their much loved neighbour France a miserly 3% . The same survey in France, discovered that the French saw themselves as 25% creative but believed those across the channel were greatly disadvantaged with 5% in terms of their creativity. In a similar vein, the US population sees itself as the most creative country by a significant margin. But given the inability of those in the US to identify major countries in a world map (also surveyed it is not clear if such high self ratings are due to the lack of awareness of the existence other countries or their own assessment of their own creativity. Even more interesting is the self assessment of the Japanese who see themselves as considerably less creative than to how the rest of the world sees them. What is not discussed, is the differences in the notions of creativity between cultures. Creativity in the contexts of authoritarian regimes and in the context of some Asian countries may be seen entirely in a negative light (with the exception of its ability 4

to create additional revenue). Singapore being a classic example of the struggle to balance the economic potential of creativity and what is seen as the social and political disruption that it may entail. It is the practice in some cultures, historically obsessed with stability, to measure creativity entirely along a negative axis. Creativity as a positive trait is not a globally accepted point of view. So not only is creativity complex, personnel and pervasive, its value is perceived differently in different contexts. Viewing creativity in performance space So far we have discussed design in the context of design space, let us now do the same with creativity. Let us assess creativity in design space. Since we know that creativity is about value, it would be best to assess it in performance space, because performance space is nothing but a representation of value. In this space, uniqueness is also easily measured; as it can be measured as a distance from known solutions. This is a very simple proposition. But then some may argue that the values that we are concerned with are so complex, that they are immeasurable. We need to question this assumption. Even complex human emotions can be quantified. The data structure that represents such emotions is well understood. Face modelling technology has matured to a point where we are now able to create genetic parametric models of the human face with which it is possible to both represent and assess emotional states with some level of accuracy. The same can be done for gender, age and ethnicity. Hence, every single human face according to its age, sex and emotive state can now be located in the performance space – with increasing levels of accuracy. This is possible only because the geometric genetics of the face is now well understood. Such understanding forms the basis of face recognition technologies that now survey and monitor major cities of the world, for people whose behaviour may be outside desirable bounds. A 3D Facial Expression Database For Facial Behavior Research The point here is that, in cases where the data structure of the object is well developed, its location in the performance space can be found with some level of certainty – despite the presence of individual variations. If we are able to create genetic representations, then it becomes possible to map between parametric designs and performance spaces. Genetic representations imply ‘exercisable models” ‐ for example if we are to measure smile as a performance measure we should be able to make the genetic model smile by a factor of 0.573; implying that we, to a large extent understand the mechanics of the human smile and are able to generate it with some level of accuracy. This was possible only due to the many decades of research into the anatomical structure, image processing, animation techniques and the mapping of millions of human expressions. 5

Once the relationship between design space and performance space is mapped, it is technically no longer a “design problem”, because the desired performance can be achieved by setting design parameters as in most routine engineering design problems. Personalized performance spaces Since creativity is a subjective personal measure, our assessment of it should be based on a personal measure as well. We introduce here the concept of “personal performance space” where the types and measures of performances is defined by us. It also allows us to indicate the relative importance of the various measures by allowing us to proportion the length of each performance axis based on its relative importance. In the example of the cereal box, we have three performance measures which are, the Volume, Volume Area and Tipping Angle of the box. < creative For the company, the volume of the box may be of considerable importance. For the marketing person Area within the company, the consumer facing the area of the box may of the greatest importance and for the mother who is tired of her children tipping the Tipping Angle boxes over, the Tipping Angle will be of significant importance. So we can see here that the performance spaces are seen differently by different people based on different considerations. When we map all known solutions in such performance space, the more common solutions will appear congregated, the really creative solutions will appear far away from them all. We can thus measure creativity as the distance from known solutions in personalized performance spaces. By positioning design representations in personal performance space, we are able to assess both value and novelty – the key ingredients of creativity – as a distance in performance space. But here the importance of three axis vary significantly to the different people assessing the design. For our purpose let us scale the axis length according to its relative importance. We may imagine this as the axis of importance, being longer for more important performance aspects and the axis that are of less importance being shorter – indicating the different sensitivities to changes along different axes. Volume Volume Volume Area Area Area Tipping Angle Tipping Angle Tipping Angle 6

The companies view Marketing departments view Mother’s view By scaling the length of the axis based on their importance we can ensure “novelty spread” – because novelty is measured here as a distance and that distance. The distance between know designs is a measure that needs to be scaled according to its relative importance. The mother in this example will differentiate the designs more by how stable it is than the advertisement area that is required to sell the box. Why beauty is in the eyes of the beholder The acceptance of personal measures inevitably adds a layer of complexity to the enumeration of performance. Because, it is likely that every person will consider different things as important, and their measurement of it will differ significantly, based on their own experience and exposure. Let’s consider two examples: People in Europe are likely to have a better measure (sensitivity) to the differences between French, Italian and Russian food than someone in Asia who would perhaps have a better differentiating ability on a wide range of Asian regional cuisine. If they are to taste a strange tasting plate of fish prepared by a Moroccan chef – they are likely to pass judgement on its taste based on their own experiences and exposure. They will both certainly notice the difference in taste but will not be able to make a judgment the way a Moroccan would be able to make on the quality of the dish. Socially accepted norms of judgment can only arise only out of the sampling of a large sample of Moroccan seafood dishes. We point out here, that a more cultivated audience will be able to assess creative nuances that the unexposed may never notice. Hence assessment of creativity will very much depend on the state of the sensibilities and sensitivities of the assessor. In cases where the assessors share a common culture and assessment frame work, then we begin to see socially agreed measures. The measure of creativity too is often socially derived. It is often based in relationship of the creative output to a significant sample size compared by a pool of decision makers sharing a common frame work. Two distinct types of creativity It is now generally accepted in design research that design is both about the search for a solution and the search for the problem and is referred to as the co‐evolution of the problem and solution space. This is best illustrated through the discovery of Viagra where a treatment sought for heart ailments unexpectedly activated another organ. Now, if design was seen strictly as a problem solving activity, then the particular problem that they wished to solve needs to be seen as a failure. But the researchers at Pfizer were smart enough to move the problem space in a much more valuable direction, reaping unexpected bounties.

Is this then a creative act of discovery? It may not be from the point of view of searching for a remedy for heart issues. But from the corporate point of view of creating drugs for solving the world’s pressing problems – it was indeed a creative act. Often, when framing of the problem is moved to a higher level (extending it to cover larger problem space), it would bring into its fold new regions of possibilities ‐ where unanticipated value may be realized. Pfizer would be a few million $ poorer if its researchers were mere problem solvers. Creative design entails openness about the desirable end state, whereas problem solving methods define the end state first as accurately as possible. Creative design exploration often entails the enlargement of the problem space and the opportunistic re‐definition of the problem towards creating different types of outcomes than originally intended. Next is another example involving an exercise to generate wash basins. There emerged unexpected solutions that included the wash table. "Creativity is not the finding of a thing, but the making of something out of it after it is found."

James Russell Lowell

In this case, the designer identified (like the Pfizer researchers) the potential value of the unexpected in the form of an innovative “counterless wash basin”. Here too, by formulating the design problem at a higher level, new opportunity space was discovered. Hence there are two types of creativity 1) Measured as a distance in performance space (with fixed goals) 2) Shift in performance space (goal is shifted opportunistically to create value) 8

We will henceforth focus mainly on the first type of creativity, while recognising that there is another type that depends on shifting the goal opportunistically. In most design activity both happen simultaneously. We also need to recognize here that goal fixation can ruin creative endeavours. This is the trap that optimisation happily falls into, often led by those who see design as “problem solving”. Design research labs, especially in engineering departments are stocked with the latter type of researchers.

A new definition of creativity We propose here a definition of creativity that would work within a computational framework, while accepting its subjectivity applicable in a wide range of human pursuits that include arts, sciences, design and business. “Creativity is the distance in performative space, from the known and existing solutions “ Where performance is defined as combinatorial value that is subjective, context dependant in a space where the axis of performative measurements are scaled according to their relative importance. Such a definition captures the dual requirements of novelty and value, but placed in an entirely subjective context. Such a definition will make it acceptable and even desirable for people to develop their own measures of creativity depending on different contexts. At the same time it renders universal measures of creativity meaningless. We next discuss creativity within the larger context of riskscapes, hopefully shedding some light into our love and aversion of creativity. This will be an attempt to clarify the contexts where creativity is valuable and where it is not and the price that it extracts on its practitioners– most of whom pay a heavy price for the belief in its virtues. Why it ain’t smart to be creative We question next some common assumptions on creativity. It’s generally assumed that creativity is a good thing. Why then are we all not creative? If you get stuck in a traffic jam, you probably will have some extra time to think about creativity, especially about how the creative acts of one or two drivers can disrupt your day. The action of the driver in question can certainly be considered novel (as it disregards traffic rules) and in most cases beneficial (as the driver benefits often from time saving tactics), while the less creative take longer to reach their destination. By the same token, bank robbery is a creative act. Pulling a gun at the cash counter and demanding cash would be generally be considered a novel behaviour and if the money was handed over, then it would be beneficial for the robber. But then, in a statistical sense it may not be the case, because regular bank robbing will increase the risk of arrests followed by less beneficial sequence of events. Hence we need to consider the phenomena of creativity from a personal and statistical point of view. Creativity has an occasional element to it – something that is ignored often. Creative acts statistically are neither beneficial nor successful. Marketeers of creativity have good reasons not to discuss this, but we need to study it under the context or risk and benefits in personnel organizational terms.

It is known that most mutations create negative results that cause pain and often death of the mutated member of the species. Without mutation, the species will not evolve and is likely to be extinct due to its inability to adjust to changing circumstances. Thus, mutation is beneficial for the species, while injurious to the mutant. Statistically, the chance of a positive mutation is extremely small. So, mutation is overall a negative aspect that we do not wish upon ourselves or our offspring – because it carries with it a high statistical probability of pain and early death. Is creativity similar? It probably is. Creativity is dangerous (statistically) for the practitioner but beneficial for the rest. Hence we laud creativity in others while avoiding it ourselves.

Creativity is about chaos "The things we fear most in organizations—fluctuations, disturbances, imbalances—are the primary sources of creativity."— Margaret J. Wheatley

Eco systems and societies strive for the optimum balance of creativity and conformity ‐ both are needed ; but in unequal measures. Mutation in nature occurs only in a small fraction of reproductions. Too much mutation will lead to chaos and collapse and too much conformity will lead to stagnation first and then collapse. The fear of disorder and chaos has led many civilisations to place order in a high pedestal. The societies that have gone through the transformation through chaos seem to now value and even preserve the conditions that give rise to it. Perhaps, the awareness of its transformative benefits seem to be written into its cultural DNA. The need for diversity and tolerance to deviation is not present in all societies. Societies that transitioned from monarchies to structured dictatorships tend to suppress any form of deviant behaviour in their wish to maintain heavenly order, as recommended by ancient thinkers who advised monarchs on how to avoid chaos. The ascendance of the liberal capitalist economies may be largely attributed to the tolerance of conditions required for creativity that enabled them to evolve faster than more stagnant societies where creativity is seen as a negative attribute. The concept of personal freedom in a way enshrines the concept of a limited amount of creative freedom, unless it comes in direct conflict with society. Though there have been numerous well funded attempts to replicate the success of the Silicon valley (in terms of its ability to create economic value) in many parts of the world, they have largely failed, due to the lack of mental and cultural infrastructures required to support the high levels of risk taking accompanied by high levels of failure; both of which are required to create high level outcomes.

Creativity is more about failure No one in the right frame of mind would encourage others towards failure or encourage them to take risks. But this collection of quotes points to the contrary.

"Show me a person who has never made a mistake and I'll show you somebody who has never achieved much."‐‐ Joan Collins

"...the creator of the new composition in the arts is an outlaw until he is a classic."‐ Gertrude Stein

"A fool is someone whose pencil wears out before its eraser does."‐‐ Marilyn von Savant

"He who never made a mistake, never made a discovery."‐‐ Samuel Smiles

"If you're not making mistakes, you're not taking risks, and that means you're not going anywhere. "‐‐ John W. Holt, Jr.

"If you're not failing every now and again, it's a sign you're not doing anything very innovative."‐ ‐ Woody Allen

"Creativity is allowing oneself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep."‐‐ Scott Adams

"A failure is like fertilizer; it stinks to be sure, but it makes things grow faster in the future."‐‐ Dennis Waitley

"And the trouble is, if you don't risk anything, you risk even more."‐‐ Erica Jong

"The essential part of creativity is not being afraid to fail." — Edwin H. Land

"Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties." — Erich Fromm

'The common denominator of all success lies in forming the habit of doing things that failures don't like to do.' ‐ Albert Gray,

Risks and failures are essential ingredients of success. Learning is about avoiding risks Let’s go back to our hunter gather days, when parents taught children what plants to eat and what not to. We were passing on the knowledge learnt from painful experiences of our own and of generations that came before us. Children with this knowledge must have certainly fared better than those who were not imparted with such knowledge, and some of them would have perished consuming poisonous plants. Knowledge helps us avoid risks. That is why parents are in the “Don’t do it” business, drumming in to their children what not to do and where not to go. Overall, this curtailment of creative freedom is beneficial. We encourage our children to exercise their creativity in safer grounds of music, art or drama and 12

discourage them from taking drugs. As they grow into teenagers they are biologically programmed and socially compelled to take more risks including drugs. However distressing such behaviour may be to their parents, such exploration of possibilities is in a way healthy as they rebel away from the stagnant values and belief systems of their parents. If they don’t, human society will not evolve and will quickly reach irreversible conditions of decay. "There is no doubt that creativity is the most important human resource of all. Without creativity, there would be no progress, and we would be forever repeating the same patterns."— Edward de Bono

But those who extend its boundaries carry the cost of it because this extension is fraught with risks and danger – as in the case of drug taking. So is any creative activity. By and large, it is greatly discouraged – for good reason. The purpose of schools is to increase knowledge – which inevitably reduces creativity. It is difficult to develop both. Knowledge is in a way the enemy of creativity – as it sets the bounds of what not to cross and what grounds to play in. That is what schools are for; however much we complain about them, we are not about to disband them. Educational systems are designed to ensure that students achieve a high level of competence in order to reduce the risk of their post‐school failure. The very purpose of knowledge is to find and define the safe bounds within which one may travel. The Valley of Death Creative exploration is not recommended for everyone, because it requires the crossing if the valley of death. "Success is on the far side of failure “

“I never made one of my discoveries through the process of rational thinking“

Expansion Albert Einstein.

RISK Thomas Watson Sr.

Limits of knowledge Creativity

"Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly”

PERFORMANCE

Pass Fail

Walter Lippman

RISK ""When all think alike, then no one is thinking."

Robert F. Kennedy

Exceptional performance lies outside the bounds of known knowledge, discovered by those who are blessed with a rare combination of boldness, brightness, determination, stupidity and passion. It is they that can cross the valley of death, into which you have the risk of falling once you move out of the safe bounds of knowledge.

Creative outcomes result in knowledge expansion and vice versa as pointed out by CK theory. There may be also conditions where new knowledge or developments have been made enabling the creative to move into virgin territories of possibilities outside the bounds of knowledge. The main purpose of “common knowledge” is to demarcate the regions of the possible and to keep the majority in safe grounds so that they do not risk falling. To direct all to the highest peak outside the safe range does not make any sense. Creativity is not for everyone. It is for those who are willing to fall, are able to handle that fall and that too only in contexts where it is worth the risk. If creativity could be exercised without risk, then every person will be creative and creativity will have little value. The point here is to emphasise the risk associated with moving from the known to the unknown is what keeps the large majority uncreative – for their own benefit. It is this fear of risk that makes us do similar stuff to what others have done previously, ensuring predictable and successful outcomes. The pressures of life are to reduce distances in performance space from known solutions but creativity requires the reverse. The distribution of perceived risk is the envelope that limits our creativity while knowledge informs us of its bounds. Those who have gone beyond these bounds have often misperceived the risks and knowledge required – but have managed to gain better understanding along the way f what was originally a foolish pursuit. We need to see creativity in the context of risk. It is not for everyone. “We are all creative. Those who are more creative than others have learned to take risks, to value complexity, to see the world, or their own surrounding with naivety. They have learnt to be creative, or their creativity has not been pushed down or stifled, and diminished by sarcasm and abuse,” Jane Piirto What kind of risks should we then take This is a hard question. Those who succeed often do not ask this question, If they did ‐ they probably would not proceed. Venture capitalists on the other hand deal with this dilemma day in day out, because they specialise in taking risks – in anticipation of return. They know from experience that most projects fail and only a small fraction succeed and an even smaller portion succeed brilliantly, to cover for the failures of the rest. The relationship between risks and rewards forms the core understanding of their profession. But they tend to take only one type of risk – those that have the potential of very high Steven Vogel. When success fails :Zq10 returns. Creative activity is therefore warranted only when the returns could be high. The returns need not be monetary.

Creativity is retrospective "Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats."— Howard Aiken

Creative outcomes are rarely recognised at the beginning. But the lack of recognition is not limited to creativity. "It's the same each time with progress. First they ignore you, then they say you're mad, then dangerous, then there's a pause and then you can't find anyone who disagrees with you." — Tony Benn British politician, in the Observer

It is the same with inventions. It is sometimes very difficult to assess inventions as and when they are created. The Internet is a very good example.. It remained unnoticed for quite some time and was developed for a very different purpose, of maintaining communications during nuclear wars. There are a number of examples of the inability of experts to recognize value. Creativity often suffers the same fate.

"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943

"This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us." ‐Western Union

"Who the hell wants to hear actors talk? “ H.M. Warner, Warner Brothers, 1927.

"We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out.” Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles,

However, the story changes once anything that is new is adapted. It is emulated with passion – creativity is thus retrospectively “bestowed” often by others copying it. No other form of recognition is as valid as copying. If a solution creates meaning and value in any context, you will certainly see others emulating it. But then there are many other creative acts that disappear like a flash in the pan. Shown is a double cap attached double drink that can score a distance in performative space (according to the inventor) but leaves no trace in the history of cap design. Yet there are also solutions that languish for a long time, to be widely adopted by others much later on, often in completely different contexts.

Enduring creative acts result in the extension of performance space resulting in the same region soon being populated by others ‐ as “Imitation is best form of flattery”. 15

Creativity requires persistence & passion "The best way to have a good idea is to have a lot of ideas." — Dr. Linus Pauling. "I didn't fail 10,000 times," Edison said. "I successfully eliminated, 10,000 times, materials and combinations which wouldn't work “. Had Edison been unwilling to fail, he would have given up after his second attempt. Creative acts are risky, energy consuming and costly in many ways. Often those who engage in it are driven more by passion than by reason and are able to muster tremendous amount of emotional and intellectual energy and show tremendous courage to admit adversity. Anticipatory Design Great designers have always been visionaries; therefore creative design is fundamentally futuristic as it entails the creation of what is not present. Thus the designs are based on anticipation of what is to be. Designers therefore anticipate the future. They have a good sense of how it (the performance space) is evolving. Without this sense, they will be making bad guesses and creating flashes in the pan, the importance and influence of w ich is short lived. Prof. Mihai Nadin, the founder of computational design believes that design is fundamentally anticipatory in nature. “The strength of human being, as a creative entity, is in anticipating, not in reacting to the outside world and its natural changes. Computational design is by nature anticipatory, provocative. In other words, it addresses a conceptual realm defined by the fact that the current stage of a system depends on its future...we understand that without the planning element, which is anticipation, design remains a catch‐up game, a form of reaction to change, instead of being an agent of change”. He argues, convincingly, that knowledge and understanding of the future is an essential ingredient of the creative design process. Knowledge and creativity are also not co‐related: “Concerning knowledge, on the one hand, one needs to know enough about a field to move it forward […]. On the other hand, knowledge about a field can result in a closed and entrenched perspective, confining a person to the way in which he or she has seen problems in the past.” (Sternberg 2003: 107).” Simonston (1984) conducted a study of 300 creative people ‐ born between 1450 and 1850 – on the correlation between their formal education and creativity. He concluded that the creative people neither had much education nor had little education. While there is no correlation between knowledge and creativity, there is correlation between creativity and intelligence. “Intelligence is the mental capacity for higher‐order conceptual activities of thinking and the acquisition of knowledge.” Li (1996). Creativity is perhaps the additional ability to apply it in unrelated domains. So it seems that creativity is in fact some transformation of knowledge. We have introduced the complex issues surroundings creativity which is shown as recognizable phenomena in performance space. The badge of creativity is socially bestowed and often restored retrospectively. It entails risk and involves the creation of new knowledge. 16

It is human to be creative Those who argue that machines can be creative forget that humans control the definition of creativity and they are unlikely to let go of it; because being creative is about being human. “What is unnatural and sad is for it to be repressed, suppressed, and stymied through the process of growing up and being educated. What happens to most of us is that somewhere along the way, and often necessarily, we begin to distrust our creative self. Survival dictates that we subordinate our creative poetic self to more practical prosaic self. We go along and forget who we are and who we were..... The creative poetic self is close to our spiritual, personal self, and when we express our creativity, we express our personal side.”– Jane Piirto

Recommended reading Creativity Genus and other Myths ‐ by Robert W Weisberg A well researched book that effectively destroys all known myths about creativity. It argues that creativity is a non‐special quality but simply an extension of our ability to think.