Recently in creativity Category

Worth the seven minutes...How if would be if a house was dreaming. [via freshome]

The conception of this project consistently derives from its underlying architecture - the theoretic conception and visual pattern of the Hamburg Kunsthalle. The Basic idea of narration was to dissolve and break through the strict architecture of O. M. Ungers "Galerie der Gegenwart". Resultant permeabilty of the solid facade uncovers different interpretations of conception, geometry and aesthetics expressed through graphics and movement. A situation of reflexivity evolves - describing the constitution and spacious perception of this location by means of the building itself. This was produced by Urbanscreen - Art Direction : Danier Rossa

555 KUBIK_ extended version from urbanscreen on Vimeo.

The Toronto-based street artist Posterchild has been turning unused flier boxes in his city into planters. He's done four so far, which you can check out on his blog. [via GOOD magazine]

Richard Florida - whose "creative class" theory I spoke about before - recently wrote a blog entry on the merits of high-speed rail and its place in the economic recovery (crisis/opportunity).

To review, the "creative class," he states, will be an important socioeconomic group if this nation stands a chance going forward. Our nation was ruled, first, by an "agricultural class," then a "working class," and finally a "service class." But Florida says it will be the "creative class" that will drive our ace in the hole: innovation.

His three necessities for a thriving "creative class," or the Three 'T's:

1. Talent, or the need for a highly talented, educated, and/or skilled population

2. Tolerance, or the need for a diverse community and a "live and let live" ethos

3. Technology, or the need for technological infrastructure necessary to fuel an entrepreneurial culture.

Talent is tied to our education system. President Obama, are you listening?

Tolerance, as Friedman wrote in The World is Flat, is a cornerstone of every thriving society in the world. (And the United States were built for tolerance.)

Technology, or rather a technological infrastructure, is important. And although you may not think about high-speed rail as a technological advance, it is. But it isn't being employed enough, especially in America.

High-speed rail. It doesn't sound important, interesting, or particularly life-advancing, but it is. This isn't the Monorail to EPCOT that we're talking about.

It is 95.6 miles from New York to Philadelphia. Driving time is roughly 1 hour 49 minutes. Utilizing the current fastest high-speed rail? 36 minutes! And North America only needs 12 rail lines (one per mega-region; see below). It even makes us happier. (Emphasis mine.)

Philadelphia becomes a veritable suburb of NY, its commute time shrinking from nearly two hours to slightly more than a half hour. Washington-NYC and Boston-NYC become hour-and-a-half trips. San Diego becomes a bedroom suburb of Los Angeles. And commute times shrink considerably across Cascadias' main cities: The time to get from Portland to Seattle shrinks to just over an hour, while travel between Seattle and Vancouver is reduced to less than an hour. It would take just slightly longer than an hour and a half to get from Charlotte to Atlanta. And commutes between Dallas and Houston and Dallas and Austin shrink to an hour and a half or less.

Better high-speed rail connections promise considerable economic efficiency gains. And they also promise to relieve the psychological burdens of commuting by car. Research by behavioral economists like Nobel prize-winner Daniel Kahneman finds that long car commutes are among the things that most adversely affect our happiness.

My apologies for the lack of posts this week; I'm on vacation in Miami Beach. I've been here for two days and have eaten about 12 empañadas. Delicious.

Upon arriving, the first thing I noticed in the Miami International Airport were works from last year's Four Freedoms exhibition at the Wolfsonian Museum on the campus of Florida International University. The exhibition was reinterpretation of Norman Rockwell's series of oil paintings.

The museum is closed on Wednesdays, so we're heading over there tomorrow. Then, it's off to Little Havana in Miami proper for some culture and more empañadas!

Oh, and I got engaged, too. That was good!

47-year-old Michael Harold Lynch, of Bellevue, WA, took his anger over a speeding ticket to a new level when he paid his $206 fine in small change soaked in urine and mailed it to the payments division of the Multnomah County courthouse.

Even better, federal law had not been broken, since it is not against the law to mail a box of bodily fluids, as long as it's properly packed and doesn't emit an obnoxious odor. Court staff could only smell the contents once they opened the package.

Good to know.

The Grand View Coffee Shop opened in tiny Vassalboro, ME yesterday. The signs on the window read as follows:

6 a.m.-6 p.m.

Over 18 only.

No cameras, no touching, cash only.

Why? Because the baristas and wait-staff are topless. Yes, topless. How (un)fortuanate.

cre⋅a⋅tiv⋅i⋅ty - the ability to transcend traditional ideas, rules, patterns, relationships, or the like, and to create meaningful new ideas, forms, methods, interpretations, etc.

Creativity, the forefather of innovation, is paramount. As Americans, our chief export for years has been the fruits of our innovations. Especially in the struggling global economy, we'll need to strengthen our strong suit to stay relevant. So that means we need to be more creative. How do we do that?

One of the preeminent thinkers in the field of creativity found the zone. You know the zone. You've been in the zone. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls it the flow. You've felt the flow. You know the flow.

Creativity is a fickle beast. Csikszentmihalyi claims that only two elements come into play when finding the zone: skills and challenges (see chart). If your challenges are greater than your skills, you'll find yourself apathetic, worried, or anxious. If your skills are greater than your challenges, you'll find yourself apathetic, bored, or overly-relaxed. Feeling of arousal in the former and control in the latter signal a close proximity to the flow. It's there. We just need to find it. And we need to find it fast.

If you get it right - if your challenges and skills grow together - you're in the flow. That's where we all want to be. It is the state of "intrinsic motivation." It is a self-powering, serendipitous feeling that comes about when work and play overlap.

Csikszentmihalyi found nine byproducts of "feeling the flow:"

1. Clearer goals
2. Higher degree of concentration and focus
3. Loss of self-consciousness
4. Distorted sense of time
5. Direct and immediate feedback to action
6. Balance between ability level and challenge
7. Sense of personal control over actions
8. Activity becomes intrinsically rewarding
9. Increased awareness of action results

In the past, Kottke has talked about the nearly identical realm of "relaxed concentration." He gives examples from sports and entertainment, among others. Csikszentmihalyi calls it "focused attention," but that is a distinction without a difference. Either way, all else falls away save the task at hand.

Knowing how to find the flow is important, especially with the upcoming rise of the creative class. Yes, green-collar jobs will be extremely important and creativity must play a role in that, but the creative class in general will be the backbone of the American ideal in the near future. If we are to continue the longstanding tradition of the US as trailblazer and leader in the global economy, creativity must be fostered. Innovation will die if creativity is stifled. Innovation will stall if creativity is just left alone. Innovation can only thrive if creativity is actively pursued. This shall be our task.

Dr. Richard Florida uses the term "creative class" and found it's existence tied directly to three requirements (or the three T's):

1. Talent, or the need for a highly talented, educated, and/or skilled population

2. Tolerance, or the need for a diverse community and a "live and let live" ethos

3. Technology, or the need for technological infrastructure necessary to fuel an entrepreneurial culture.

That's it. That's all we need for creativity. Then we match skills with challenges and get in the zone. And off we go. Happy. Healthy. Wealthy. Wise.