Artistic Vs. Applied Creative Action!

I sit in front of my computer and I stare at the blank document. I think, and I think, and then I can’t! Through the eyes of my mind, I see myself running after vague, dissimilar thoughts…trying to catch them; so that I may hold them still to understand and then develop them into a structured, coherent article. I try it for a long time; time that I don’t measure! Then I feel tired and get a cup of coffee. The coffee is expected to wake me up from the tired half-sleep, and jog my mind into action! Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn’t. Today, it didn’t…and this is why you find me talking about it. Yes, this is what I want to talk about – The move from cognitive idleness to creative action!

Creative action is different from any other kind of action. It requires our action to result in creation and as we all know, we can’t create mechanically. Our mind needs to be involved in the creation process – from the beginning to the end.

I think that there are two types of creation processes and the creative actions required for these two types of processes are essentially different. Let us call these two creation processes:

• Artistic Creation
• Applied Creation
  

Artistic Creation:
In the case of artistic creation, almost all creation happens within the confines of the mind. In artistic creation, among other artistic activities, I would include writing (prose/poetry), drawing & painting, and composing music!

Artistic Creative Action:
If we look at the process of artistic creation (or the artistic creative action,) it can be divided into the following parts:

• Define the creative goal.
• Select potential input ideas.
• Synthesize the ideas to orient them to the creative goal.
• Express your ideas through the chosen medium of expression.

The above classification addresses the process of artistic creation. I define artistic creation as creation that has artistic expression as its paramount goal. Artistic creation is not targeted towards a specific audience. It isn’t born to please a target audience; it is born to express the thoughts of the artist, who is a writer, a singer, a dancer, a composer, or a painter!

Let us look at these points once again.

When we engage in artistic creation, we don’t sit down with a piece of paper and write out our goal. It exists in our mind. It is malleable. Artists often begin with a loosely defined un-written goal, and then begin forming connections between related thoughts.

They select some ideas and discard others. Their selection or rejection isn’t based on a given set of rules and guidelines – it is often based on intuition. According to Gestalt psychology, intuition can be groomed and this is what the artists do. They groom their intuition through intuition. They are continuously making judgments about everything that is relevant to their creative expression. These creators don’t weigh their preferences on the cold scales of logic. Instead they base their decisions on what they feel is good. The good news is that the sharpened sense of discrimination ensures that they make the right selections more often than the wrong ones.

Next, they synthesize the selected ideas to align them to the creative goal. This process of synthesis too doesn’t follow rules set by others! There are no templates to go by. Creative artists abhor templates. They choke in a template-friendly environment! They want to let their thoughts follow a course that they decide – and they decide not on the basis of what the audience likes, but on the basis of what they like.

Finally, when they express, the creative artists allow the words or the colors or the notes of music to flow through their thoughts and spill on the page, the canvas, or in the air!

The question is – how is this process of artistic creation different from the way we, the instructional designers create?

The question also is – if it is different then why? Is there a need for it to be different?

Applied Creation:
The first question is easy to answer. Artistic creation is different from the way instructional designers create. I would like to call our creation process, the Applied Creative Action.

Applied Creative Action:
Let us look at the Applied Creation process (or applied creative action.) We can quickly divide it into the following steps.

• Define the instructional goal.
• Analyze the audience.
• Determine the competencies that our course should develop in the audience.
• Select the content.
• Design the activities that will enable the audience to learn effectively.
• Develop the content so that it becomes easy to implement and understand.
• Evaluate whether or not the learner has learned.

Wow! We’ve got seven points instead of the initial four! We now speak of another entity called the audience. We also find ourselves talking about a set of objectives that our content should achieve. There is also a reason behind the design/development of each activity. Finally, we also wish to determine whether or not the learner learned!

It is easy to see that the applied creation process is:

• More rigid
• More specific
• More result-oriented

Simplistically speaking, the artistic creation process is like a mountain spring, which carves its path intuitively; and which has fun all the way. The applied creation process is like a canal, which has to flow within the confined of the barrages and which has a goal to achieve; it has to transport water to the farms and villages. Lives depend on it!

This is also true for instructional content. Learners depend on it. When we create instructional content, we follow a structured approach to content development. Thus, we don’t draw a blank as often as an artistic creator does. We don’t have to carve out each bend for the route that our thoughts take; those who’ve walked this path earlier have already chiseled some. We don’t have to rely completely on our intuition for selecting the content. However, with these benefits we also face some challenges. While the artistic creator has the artistic license to deviate from the expected and the logical course, we don’t have the same license. The artistic creator can thrive on just the “A” of the ARCS and just the “D” of ADDIE; the creator of instructional content has to measure the utility of each effort on every instructional parameter.

Often artistic and applied creativities overlap. Often we, the instructional designers, find ourselves struggling to either fan or douse the fire of artistic creativity within us. The more artistic among us, often feel suffocated while working within the instructional structures of theories and models. However, it’s easy to see that these theories and models help us do our job, by directing our thoughts in the right direction.

So, coming back to where I started. When I began this little write-up, I began as an artistic creator. I waited for the thoughts to come; they didn’t. Then I decided to slip into the role of an instructional designer. I began the process of applied creation. I had a concept in my mind. I wanted to bring out the difference between the two processes and connect with you. I wrote my goal. I thought of my audience. I knew that you and I were alike in the way we approached creation. So I decided to talk to myself and in the process connect with you. Next, I wanted to differentiate between the two creation processes; and I needed a terminology for it. So, I formed the terms – artistic creation and applied creation! And then…the words began to flow. I found that I was writing for my audience – for you.

Author: Shafali R. Anand