The Creativity Complex: Art, Tech, and the Seduction of an Idea

Steen, Shannon

doi:doi:10.3998/mpub.12083938

Shannon Steen

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"Creativity" is a word that excites and dazzles us. It promises brilliance and achievement, a shield against conformity, a channel for innovation across the arts, sciences, technology, and education, and a mechanism for economic revival and personal success. But it has not always evoked these ideas. The Creativity Complex traces the history of how creativity has come to mean the things it now does, and explores the ethical implications of how we use this term today for both the arts and for the social world more broadly. Richly researched, the book explores how creativity has been invoked in arenas as varied as Enlightenment debates over the nature of cognition, Victorian-era intelligence research, the Cold War technology race, contemporary K-12 education, and even modern electoral politics. Ultimately, The Creativity Complex asks how our ideas about creativity are bound up with those of self-fulfillment, responsibility, and the individual, and how these might seduce us into joining a worldview and even a set of social imperatives that we might otherwise find troubling.

Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. How We All Became Creative
2. The Creative Society
3. Creativity in the Classroom
4. Discarded Creativity
5. Creativity’s Monsters
6. Creative Futures
Epilogue
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Resources

Screenshot from recording of Reagan delivering his campaign announcement.

Ronald Reagan Announces for Governor: 01/04/1966

From Chapter 2

Figure 2.1. “A Need for Action”: Reagan Announces “The Creative Society.” Courtesy of Ronald Reagan Presidential Library & Museum.

Photograph of Reagan being presented with an oversized key to the Governor’s Mansion by seven Reagan Girls, dressed in matching outfits complete with red berets.

Ronald Reagan Greeting Supporters

From Chapter 2

Figure 2.2. “Reagan Girls” greeting their candidate. Courtesy of Getty Images.

Photograph of several students using duct tape, pipe cleaners, popsicle sticks, and other craft supplies in a Maker workshop.

Photo of Waag Futurelab Maker Education Lab

From Chapter 3

Figure 3.1. Maker Education at work: “taking shop class into the 21st Century.” Courtesy of Waag Futurelab.

Venn diagram listing digital fabrication, community awareness platforms, crafts and do-it-yourself, and creative industries as Maker activities.

Diagram of Maker activities

From Chapter 3

Figure 3.2. Maker activities. Courtesy of MDPI.

Maker Faire Bay Area

From Chapter 3

Figure 3.3. Maker Faire Bay Area, the first of the licensed faires. Courtesy of Mikolas Zuza.

Photograph of several steampunk-style vehicles displayed outdoors at the Makers Faire.

Steampunk Vehicles

From Chapter 4

Figure 4.1. Steampunk Village at the Makers Faire. Courtesy of Marco van Hylckama Vlieg.

Photograph of steampunk-style laptop, encased in dark wood and with brass ornamentation added.

Steampunk Laptop

From Chapter 4

Figure 4.2. Steampunk Aesthetics. Courtesy of Datamancer.

Print of a steampunk version of the Death Star from Star Wars, depicting a huge, globe-shaped satellite moving in deep space with various metal devices for measurement, surveillance, and weaponry.

Massive Solar-Orbiting Electrically Mechanized Analytic Engine

From Chapter 4

Figure 4.3. Eric Poulton’s “Massive Solar-Orbiting Electrically Mechanized Analytic Engine”—the Death Star as Panoptic Surveillance. Courtesy of Eric Poulton.

Photograph depicting a steam train engine with a bright red cowcatcher at the front and a Victorian-style house mounted on the back. On board the engine are several people in Victorian explorer costumes.

Neverwas Haul

From Chapter 4

Figure 4.4. Obtainium Works’ Neverwas Haul. Courtesy of Samuel Coniglio.

Steampunk Treehouse

From Chapter 4

Figure 4.5. Five Ton Crane’s Steampunk Treehouse. Courtesy of David Schnack.

El Pulpo Mecanico

From Chapter 4

Figure 4.6. Duane Flatmo’s El Pulpo Mecanico. Courtesy of Duane Flatmo.

A photograph of a three-and-a-half foot tall brass statue that depicts a human figure in a conquistador hat striding forward with great energy. The vigorous movement of the figure is suggested via rippling metal waves that radiate backwards from the figure’s legs, back, buttocks, and shoulders. As with much classical statuary, the figure’s arms are truncated just past the shoulders.

Unique Forms of Continuity in Space

From Chapter 4

Figure 4.7. Umberto Bocconi, Unique Continuity of Forms in Space, 1913. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

A photograph of the full stage space. One small screen on the left displays a hand projected from behind by overhead projector. Sarah Fornace, the actor playing Frankenstein, stands in front of this screen while another performer grabs her shoulder from behind. A second overhead projector casts the image of her frightened response onto a larger screen that dominates the stage, along with the hand projected onto the first screen.

Frankenstein A

From Chapter 5

Figure 5.1. Manual Cinema’s 2018 Frankenstein, highlighting obsolete multimedia technologies. Courtesy of Alyssa Schukar.

Photograph of the actress playing Mary Shelley standing onstage holding her infant daughter, with multiple projections of her shadow displayed behind her. The stage image uses the same multiple screen and projection strategies as in the previous photo.

Frankenstein B

From Chapter 5

Figure 5.2. Mary Shelley’s motherhood as the framework for the Manual Cinema production. Note the performers manipulating the overhead projectors in the lower left part of the image, and the steampunk-goggled musician in the lower right. Courtesy of Elly White.

University of Michigan Press
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The Creativity Complex: Art, Tech, and the Seduction of an Idea

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Ronald Reagan Announces for Governor: 01/04/1966

Ronald Reagan Greeting Supporters

Photo of Waag Futurelab Maker Education Lab

Diagram of Maker activities

Maker Faire Bay Area

Steampunk Vehicles

Steampunk Laptop

Massive Solar-Orbiting Electrically Mechanized Analytic Engine

Neverwas Haul

Steampunk Treehouse

El Pulpo Mecanico

Unique Forms of Continuity in Space

Frankenstein A

Frankenstein B

Shenzhen: The Silicon Valley of Hardware A

Shenzhen: The Silicon Valley of Hardware B

Soft Power A

Soft Power B

Soft Power C

The Creativity Complex: Art, Tech, and the Seduction of an Idea

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