ABSTRACT
“Creativity isn’t your baby. If anything, you’re its baby.” With these words, author Elizabeth Gilbert neatly summarized the generative effect of creative activity on makers themselves. Many artists and writers have described similar feelings of discovery when working on a painting or essay. Partly, this has to do with the generative qualities common to all intellectual and learning. But it also pertains to the making of art works made with other people in mind. This process-oriented notion of “becoming” has been explored by thinkers including Judith Butler, William Connolly, Gilles Deleuze, James Leach, Friedrich Nietzsche, Gilbert Simondon, Alfred North Whitehead—all of whom pondered how the “self” unfolds over time. Contemporary neuroscience also has explored the interconnections among people’s minds, confirming earlier theories of “actor networks” (Bruno Latour) or a dynamic “social brain” (Steven Sloman, Philip Fernbach), thus refuting conventional views of a static individual identity. Put another way, creativity derives largely from meanings people have in common.
