[This text is part #1 of the trilogy I wrote with my dear friends William Barter and Mirian Rodrigues. The idea for exploring these topics further came from our podcast episode together. You can read the full text of part #1 in Portuguese here.]
The current generation of the Creative Economy is based on doing and led by the makers. The democratization of personalization, greatly stimulated by the Internet, was also, in a certain way, the democratization of creativity. Now we all have the means to make and create. For example, we can identify the growing popularity of DIY (Do It Yourself) culture, as well as fast and free access to tutorials, materials, and educational content on different digital platforms.
Shifting the focus from the product to the creative process was the great leap of this generation.
However, what we are now more obviously persuaded to consume are the means to create. As Kirby Ferguson, creator of Everything is a Remix, once said, “we want the same, but different”. In the age of the Creative Economy, creating has become a lifestyle, packaged as an experience. Unfortunately, so much creation has left us blind to what really matters. “Doing for the sake of doing” and “doing more and faster” keep us anesthetized and inattentive, while giving us the illusion that we are being productive. Without realizing it, we keep creating more of the same, but different. It doesn’t matter how many cat videos you’ve seen or created – there’s always room for more.
At the same time, we see a growing concern about the impact of our attitudes and creations. Just creating is not enough – we also need to ask ourselves why it matters. But the answer to this question has been forgotten and its responsibility transferred to algorithms, which now tell us what should and shouldn’t be created.
Undoubtedly, this process of shifting the focus from the product to the process was important in gaining more autonomy and freedom to create. However, in this new era in which social responsibility is essential for the development of creativity, the need to evaluate our creations is once again of the utmost importance and can no longer remain exclusively in the hands of algorithms.
But this evaluation shouldn’t only take place at the outcome; it must take place throughout the process, from identifying and analyzing the problem, proposing possible solutions, and, finally, accepting or rejecting these solutions. In other words, creativity is the consequence of the continuous evaluation of the creative act by the individual and, subsequently, by the group. From this point on, we need to practice what I have called deliberate experimentation: our intention must be oriented towards experimentation, self-evaluation, and learning, and our attention oriented towards both processes and results.
Furthermore, with the emergence of complex environmental, social, and humanitarian issues, the mind of a single individual doesn’t seem to be enough to meet these new technological demands. So, with the maker generation, we have creativity as a social construct. It is integrated into the thinking of culture and society, actively collaborating in its construction through creative ecosystems.
We always build using what is already available. We create new technologies using technologies that already exist and, by doing this, we grow exponentially. The same happens with the development of ideas and concepts since they come from existing knowledge. It’s no different with creativity; we’re building on the shoulders of giants.
We experience the contradiction of keeping what we already know the way it is, while, at the same time, yearning for novelty and change. But this conflict between being conservative and disruptive is what makes the wheels of culture and society turn. As much as we like what creativity symbolizes today, we need to accept the fact that, like everything else on the planet, it is also constantly changing.
In the words of actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt, “There’s a more powerful feeling than getting attention: paying attention.” Therefore, our attention must turn to the impact of our actions and creations, to stimulate attitudes that promote social and cultural development. Creativity is not only responsible for personal self-realization but is also the fruit of social interactions.
Creativity will only be fulfilled when we are able to cultivate ecosystems of questioning minds, where the exchange of ideas and the construction of knowledge are its most valuable assets.