Creativity is so important for social and technological development that people are eager to find an easy way to enhance it. Previous studies have shown that mindfulness has significant effects on positive affect, working memory capacity, cognitive flexibility and many other aspects, which are the key to promoting creativity. However, there are few studies on the relationship between mindfulness and creativity. The mechanism between mindfulness and creativity is still uncertain. Meditation is an important method of mindfulness training, but for most (...) people who do not have the basic training, it’s difficult to master how to get into a state of mindfulness. Animation has been shown by many studies to help improve cognition and is often used as a guiding tool. Using animation as the guiding carrier of meditation is more convenient and easier to accept. Therefore, this study adopted the intervention method of animation-guided meditation, aiming to explore: the effect of animation-guided meditation on enhancing creativity; the role of flow and emotion in the influence of mindfulness on creativity. We advertised recruitment through the internal network of a creative industrial park, and the final 95 eligible participants were divided into two groups: animation and audio guided meditation. The animation group was given an animated meditation intervention, and the audio group was given an audio meditation intervention, both interventions were performed 3 times a week and last for 8 weeks. Results: Animation-guided meditation significantly increased participants’ mindfulness and creativity levels; Significantly reduced their cognitive load compared to audio-guided meditation. Mindfulness has a significant direct effect on creativity, and significant indirect effects on creativity; Flow and PA act as the mediating variable. Conclusion: Mindfulness, flow, and PA all helped to improve the subjects’ work creativity. In addition to the direct positive impact of mindfulness on creativity, mindfulness can also have an indirect positive impact on creativity through flow and PA. Compared with audio, animation can significantly reduce cognitive load and help improve users’ cognitive ability, which is more suitable for the guidance materials of mindfulness meditation to enhance the effect of meditation. (shrink)

Flow (being in the zone) is purported to have positive consequences in terms of affect and performance; however, there is no empirical evidence about these links in visual creativity. Positive affect often—but inconsistently—facilitates creativity, and both may be linked to experiencing flow. This study aimed to determine relationships between these variables within visual creativity. Participants performed the creative mental synthesis task to simulate the creative process. Affect change (pre- vs. post-task) and flow were measured via (...) questionnaires. The creativity of synthesis drawings was rated objectively and subjectively by judges. Findings empirically demonstrate that flow is related to affect improvement during visual creativity. Affect change was linked to productivity and self-rated creativity, but no other objective or subjective performance measures. Flow was unrelated to all external performance measures but was highly correlated with self-rated creativity; flow may therefore motivate perseverance towards eventual excellence rather than provide direct cognitive enhancement. (shrink)

This chapter will look at metaphysics of flow in Iqbal’s thought. To do this, the influence on Iqbal by Henri Bergson, in particular, will be examined. Iqbal adopts many elements from Bergson’s metaphysical view. However, he also modifies many elements to fit his own philosophical vision. As is typical in his approach, Iqbal attempts to name figures from within the Islamic tradition that he sees as precursors to the metaphysical principals he is putting forth. Ultimately, the metaphysics of (...) class='Hi'>flow is at the heart of his conceptions of subjectivity and divine action explored in the following two chapters. (shrink)

SummaryApart from all the epistemological sophistications, the sciences today, including biological, social and human sciences, are accumulating data with a view to a common perspective of the world in which we live, common to all men beyond races and cultures. Only in this scientific perspective of the world must lie the philosophical foundation of the future world civilization mankind needs for its survival. This article is an effort, in as plain words as possible, towards this goal.

Creative role identity is an important antecedent of innovative behaviors. Both the mechanism of how external factors and individual factors affect the formation of creative role identity and details of this process have yet to be discovered. Based on data collected from 226 students in 6 classes at a university in Guangdong during the development of innovative projects, the influence of innovation climate on the students’ creative role identity, especially the mediating effect of flow, was investigated. (...) The results show that the innovation climate has a positive impact on creative role identity and that flow plays a partial mediating role in this relationship. (shrink)

To date, game-based learning programs that include comprehensive creativity skills and disposition training are still very limited. The present researchers developed a comprehensive game-based creativity learning program for fifth and sixth grade pupils. Further analysis presented relationship trends between mindful learning experience, flow experience, self-efficacy, and mastery experience. Eighty-three 5th and 6th grade participants undertook the six-week game-based creativity learning program. Upon the completion of experimental instruction, those who scored higher on the concerned variables improved more in self-evaluation of (...) both creativity ability and confidence, than their counterparts. Additionally, path model analysis revealed that mindful learning experience was a powerful predictor of both mastery experience and flow experience; it also influenced mastery experience through flow experience and self-efficacy during game-based creativity learning. The findings support the effectiveness of the game-based learning program developed in this study. Moreover, this study contributes to the theoretical construction of how game-based learning can be designed to facilitate mindful learning experience, flow experience, self-efficacy, and mastery experience during creativity training among pupils. Effective mechanisms include providing rewards for high-quality performance, challenging tasks, free choices of design components, immediate feedback, and idea sharing. The profound theoretical framework proposed in this study provides a valuable approach for creativity instruction through game-based learning or classroom instruction. (shrink)

The flow construct has been influential within positive psychology, sport psychology, the science of consciousness, the philosophy of agency, and popular culture. In spite of its longstanding influence, it remains unclear [a] how the constituents of the flow state ‘hang together’—how they relate to each other causally and functionally—[b] in what sense flow is an ‘optimal experience,’ and [c] how best to describe the unique phenomenology of the flow state. As a result, difficulties persist for a (...) clear understanding of the flow state’s structure and function. After explicating the standard view of the flow construct, I articulate several basic questions regarding its nature and functional roles, and I argue that these questions are best answered by integrating flow within broader streams of research on the dynamics of thought, on cognitive control resource allocation, and on creative thought. (shrink)

Creativity as the Original Form of Human Existence Creation is not merely the act of producing something; it is a fundamental event that reveals human beings as agents of creativity itself. Creativity is not a mysterious force granted from outside the human sphere, but an infinite generative principle inherent in the very structure of human existence. -/- Changmyeonghak’s Creative Theory does not ask, 'How does creation occur?' Instead, it illuminates the deeper truth that ‘the human being is already woven (...) from creativity.’ Thus, creation is not a matter of technical execution, but an ontological flow running through existence, and one discovers one’s true place—one’s original form as a creative being—only when one responds to and enters into that flow. (shrink)

The question of whether machines can be creative has been at the centre of debates among scholars and practitioners well before the inception of artificial intelligence (AI) as a recognised field of research. This paper reviews how some of the key thinkers in the fields of creativity and AI have approached this question, contextualising their views within the ebbs and flows of AI technological developments, from the 1950s until now. The thread of this overview is Margaret Boden's identification of (...) novelty, surprisingness and value, as the three cardinal features of creativity. This review will retrace the steps of the quest of artificial intelligence researchers as they strive to replicate each of these three properties within human-made machines. The paper closes with a reflection on how the third of these properties, value, prompts us to consider societal challenges raised by the widespread adoption of AI for creativity that transcend the question: ‘Can AI be creative?’. (shrink)

The unreduced solution to the arbitrary interaction problem, absent in the standard theory framework, reveals many equally real and mutually incompatible system configurations, or "realizations". This is the essence of universal dynamic undecidability, or multivaluedness, and the ensuing causal randomness (unpredictability), non-computability, irreversible time flow (evolution, emergence), and dynamic complexity of every real system, object, or process. This creative undecidability of real-world dynamics provides causal explanations for "quantum mysteries", relativity postulates, cosmological problems, and the huge efficiency of high-complexity (...) phenomena, such as life, intelligence, and consciousness, giving rise to extended applications, far beyond the critical limits of usual science paradigm. (shrink)

Creativity has long been understood as individual talent, exceptional ability, or the result of momentary innovation. Yet the most enduring forms of creation throughout history cannot be fully explained through inspiration alone. Creation has continued through structures capable of sustaining, deepening, and repeatedly reproducing creative production across time. This paper introduces Expertise-Embedded Architecture (EEA) as a judgment architecture for sustained creative production. EEA structures the generative conditions through which human creativity, intention, and judgment continue to operate across individuals, (...) organizations, and time. Within this framework, creativity is approached as something that emerges prior to formal language or systems. Human beings first sense creation, respond to it emotionally, and bring it into reality through intention. Through repeated acts of execution, thought gradually becomes structured, judgment develops recurring patterns, and intention acquires directionality. This accumulated continuity forms what this paper describes as founding thought and founding spirit. To sustain this continuity within organizations, this paper presents Brand DNA Architecture as a causal generative structure composed of Spirit, Ideology, Purpose, Vision, Role, and Mission. Brand DNA Architecture is approached as a generative mechanism through which creative intention continuously develops into organizational judgment, execution, and expansion. EEA functions as an architecture through which these generative structures become embedded into organizations in repeatable and sustainable forms. Human beings remain the origin of creativity, intention, and responsibility. Within EEA, AI operates as a structural alignment mechanism that supports the directional continuity of creative and organizational flows. Ultimately, this paper proposes that sustainable human creativity continues through structures capable of preserving directionality while allowing continuous generation across time. In this sense, EEA presents a framework through which human creative spirit may persist, expand, and contribute to civilization beyond individuals alone. (shrink)

This paper proposes the ontological foundation of Changmyeonghak, a creative-metaphysical system that reconstructs the nature of being through the principles of creativity, spirit, and will. -/- Classical Western ontologies emphasized either rational thought (Descartes), the constructive structure of mind (Kant), the self-unfolding of Spirit (Hegel), or blind volition (Schopenhauer). East Asian traditions emphasized qi, Taiji, and cosmological emergence (Zhou Dunyi, Zhang Zai). Yet none fully explained the dynamic, energetic, and creative continuity that characterizes lived human existence. -/- Changmyeonghak (...) introduces a ‘creative ontology’ in which being is not static substance but creative flow—sensed, resonated with, willed, and enacted through the human mind system. -/- Spirit and will are interpreted as two aspects of one creative force. Wuji (無極) is reframed not as emptiness but as infinite expansion. Human existence is reconceived as participatory mediation in a continuous creative field. This paper formalizes these ideas and establishes the ontological basis for Changmyeonghak as a unified creative-metaphysical framework. (shrink)

The creativity of Rozanov is realized as the flow of experiences and associations. This experiences are putting together by means of the topic-conception “becoming”, that belongs to ancient categories. This categories are used to collect the dividual intuitions of Rozanov. Doctrine of Rozanov is interpreted as the coordination between the outside and the inside ranges of becoming. The inside rang of becoming includes by Rozanov the movement of people and things from birth to death. The inside ranges are corresponded (...) with concrete things and represents the complex analogues to the outside range. The specific by Rozanov lies in the impossibility of things to stop eternal formation. By Rozanov this formation eventually determines itself. It is by Rozanov the folded type of entropy. Rozanov explicates forms of entropy, when he describes his life und the being of world. His descriptions are the is the evidence. We explain the cosmos by Rozanov with help of ancient ontological categories and determine his creativity as an interaction between cosmos and chaos. To find balance between cosmos and chaos is the main eksistential problem of his doctrine and life. The decision of this problem is by Rozanov imposable, but this impossibility gives the opportunity to understand the world of Rozanov in context of different directions of philosophy. (shrink)

“The question is no longer a particular reason or rationality plays the role of foundation, but is a matter of the life dynamic itself that flows along all that can be seen and felt”.1 The task of imaginatio creatrix is bringing to awareness in the philosophical camp that the methodological approach hitherto adopted needs to be given a second thought in the effort to reflect the growth in the understanding of the human reality and the complexity of the natural world. (...) This is phenomenological and much more. It is phenomenological because it is existential. It goes beyond concrete existential phenomenon to the scrutiny of the inner hallmark of meaning of the creative experience, leaving an opening for renewal in the entire philosophical world. The dynamism of the human capacity cannot be restricted to the rationality of man where the role of reason is only that of perceiving and ordering reality in its constitutive form. It has to be something more than this kind of rationality. It goes further than that to making meaning and bringing transformation of the visible reality and through that reaching out to invisible intelligible reality. Such is the case because reason as has been referred to: Is the synthetic interpretation of perception … called forth spontaneously by the stimulus of perception, and which, equally spontaneously, entails not only action upon the subject of perception, but also its transformation into an object whose properties can be named, measured, cognized, interpreted, and valued – all acts of creation which simultaneously serve to constitute the performative subject.2 It is this new understanding in the Tymienieckian philosophy of creative imagination, that not only completes the phenomenological inquiry down through the ages, it is also a new critique of reason. Going deeper than just phenomenological and in fact purely philosophical inquiry, one sees an opening to the sphere of the divine. Such is realised in Tymieniecka research into theodicy. This testifies for the diversity of possibilities of the phenomenological philosophy and its methodology. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Creativity in Teaching and Building a Meaningful Life as a TeacherDavid T. HansenMy point of departure in this essay is the idea that creativity in teaching often has less to do with inventiveness per se than it does with responsiveness. To draw on terms from John Dewey, creative teachers "rise to the needs of the situation" presented in the educational setting.1 They respond well to circumstances not because (...) they necessarily have the pedagogical equivalent of Twyla Tharp's talent for choreography or B.B. King's brilliance on the blues guitar; rather, I want to suggest that creative teachers, at least in many cases, "rise" and do what is needed because they have learned to pay attention both to students and to the subject(s) at hand. In other words, I propose that we consider the idea that creativity in teaching often manifests itself most vividly, if also subtly, in a kind of ongoing attentiveness, by which I mean a dynamic combination of patience, listening, and initiative.I will begin the discussion by first sketching a conception of creativity in teaching centered around the idea of attentiveness. Then I address two [End Page 57] consequences of this conception. The first is that the most suitable models of good practice for new teachers to start with are not the profession's versions, presuming such exist, of Pablo Picasso, Marie Curie, or Michael Jordan. I do not mean that it is uniformly inappropriate to place such models in front of teacher candidates, any more than it would be wrong to put before art students the work of a Cassatt or Rembrandt. However, I will argue that among the best and most consequential initial models are those experiences in which teacher candidates themselves truly listened to the doings of the world around them and heeded what was said, whether the latter "spoke" in the form of a work of art, a human voice or gesture, or the play of wind in the trees. If new teachers take seriously this kind of experience, they can gain a valuable perspective for approaching the long and often difficult process of appreciating teaching's details and engaging them in educational settings. I illustrate these claims by examining a field-based activity that was part of a teacher education program I used to direct.The second consequence of the conception of creativity in teaching I will put forward points to the title of this essay. If new teachers deepen their ability to pay attention and to engage in creative work, they position themselves to receive one of teaching's primary offerings to its practitioners, namely, a life of meaning."Ordinary" Pedagogical CreativityCreativity in teaching can take many forms. We witness it in the structuring of an artful lesson plan; in the logic, flow, and pacing of a dynamic lecture; or in a timely and evocative example or illustration the teacher employs to clinch a point in the midst of a class. All of this is familiar and an important, indeed indispensable, way to think about good teaching. Creativity in practice is associated here, among other things, with notions of expertise and of knowledge gained through experience.However, I want to add to this portrait the notion that creativity in practice can also spring from responsiveness. Rather than issuing solely from what the teacher brings to the educational setting — consider again terms such as expertise and knowledge — creativity can point to what the teacher is capable of deriving or drawing from it. Creativity as responsiveness denotes a form of openness to the setting, which may or may not complement or fit harmoniously with what is preset, prefigured, or anticipated. Experienced teachers would be the first to say that there are times when it becomes educationally vital to shelve a preset plan. There are times when one form of creativity in teaching, embodied in a well-wrought lesson plan, must give way to another form, embodied in what I am calling responsiveness. The art of teaching consists, in part, of balancing these expressions of pedagogical creativity.Let me share the following vignette as a basis for elucidating this point. One morning in March 2002, during which... (shrink)

In this contribution, we draw on findings from a non-formal, community music project to elaborate on the relationship between the concept ofeudaimonia, as defined by Seligman, the interactive dimensions of collective free improvisation, and the concept of collaborative creativity. The project revolves around The Ostend Street Orkestra (TOSO), a music ensemble within which homeless adults and individuals with a psychiatric or alcohol/drug related background engage in collective musical improvisation. Between 2017 and 2019 data was collected through open interviews and video (...) recordings of rehearsals and performances. Participant data was analyzed through inductive analysis based on the principles of grounded theory. One interesting finding was the discrepancy in the participant interviews between social relationships indicative of a negative affect about social group interaction versus strong feelings of group coherence and belonging. Video recordings of performances and rehearsals showed clear enjoyment and pleasure while playing music. Alongside verbal reflection through one-on-one interviews video recordings and analysis of moment-to moment observations should be used, in order to capture the complexity of community music projects with homeless people. The initial open coding was aligned with the five elements of the PERMA model. Overall, we observed more focus on Relationship (sense of belonging), Engagement (flow in rehearsals and performances) and Meaning (belonging to something greater than yourself) and less on Positive Emotion and Accomplishment (goal setting). (shrink)

This book is the first of a three-part series that focuses on how arts-based methods can be used to expand horizons for imaginative and ethical research and practice in education and human services. Each of the books are an assemblage of arts-based methods for creative adventures in education and human services. The chapters of the books describe, inhabit, and demonstrate the methods and document the multiplicities of insights, affects, and effects that emerged, and which include exploring the dynamically entangled (...) relations between people and contexts. -/- This book, Part 1, attunes readers in/to the adventurousness of the three-part series. It also includes chapters on theoretically informed creative/critical/collective/auto/ethnographic experiments in thinking, lip syncing, dialoguing on images, and making artworks. The chapters report on lessons from deploying these adventurous methods for creatively knowing and doing education and human services work. The methods also function as pedagogical spaces to inhabit, navigate, play with, play within, experiment with/in, and be productive and produced in, shedding light on how to generate spaces and find places for actively engaging with the ever growing, inexhaustible, energizing, exhausting, pleasurable, confronting, seductive, repulsive, and overwhelming possibilities of thought and action in education and human services. Readers are invited to engage with the chapters as research products to learn from and as works of art to escape into and find consolation, experience as a tonic, be invigorated, get inspired, feel joy, enter a pleasurable flow, see what sparks, and venture, play, wonder, create, and generate their own creative adventures in education and human services. -/- The three books (Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3) in this series are not organised around specific focused themes. Rather, each chapter in each book introduces and explores a method that is inhabited by the authors in a creative and speculative fashion to see what is generated. The Introduction/s and the 'Thinking Thinking' chapter in Part 1 are a good place to begin with each of the three books, and in turn, the 'Conclusion' chapter in Part 3 is a good place to close in reading each of the three books. The other chapters, however, are not in sequential order and accompany each other, and can therefore be read in any order. The authors invite readers to play and be adventurous with how they read, inhabit, and engage with the books. (shrink)

The phenomenology of the creative process has been a neglected area of creativity research. The current study investigated the phenomenology of artistic creativity through semi-structured interviews with 11 artists. The findings consisted of 19 interlinked constituents, with 3 dynamics operating within these constituents: an intuition-analysis dynamic, a union-division dynamic, and a freedom-constraint dynamic. The findings are discussed in relation to the issues of creativity and spirituality, intuition and analysis, the creative synthesis, affective components, and flow. The findings (...) display considerable overlap with previous research into the phenomenology of the artistic creative process, yet place particular emphasis on the shift in sense of self associated with creative experience and the energising effect of a synthesis of disparate elements. (shrink)

Bergson’s Creative Evolution was published in 1907, with the English translation coming out in 1911. His first two major works, Time and Free Will and Matter and Memory, had argued that duration is central to understanding the nature of reality, with our natural tendency to spatialise time leading to intractable problems. These “false problems” are a theme in all of Bergson’s work and the various freedom problematics that we have been examining. Following the method of intuition to explore the (...) nature of freedom for Bergson we will see that mechanism and finalism will emerge as the problematic that will be ultimately resolved in what Bergson will describe as purposiveness without purpose, or a revised finalism. (shrink)

This chapter deals with creative emergence—a maturity beyond the larval (temporal) stage. The process of getting out of the temporalizing habit, that is, manufacturing a world through temporal synthesis, is a process of dis-adjustment and aversion, which is the first, but by no means an easy, step. We begin by questioning and de-valorizing clock time. This does not mean that we stop living by clock time—that is absurd and obviously impossible. It means that we become critical of it through (...) a process of careful observation in which the immediate data of our consciousness begins to surface. It is the immediate data of consciousness that learns to resist chronic time and not some mental decision to do so. But what is immediate data of consciousness? Behind the uniformity of social chatter and cultural pulls and pushes that organize the mental plane, there is a continual upsurge of pre-representational flow that has no name or image. Once past convention and entrenched habit we become intuitively attuned to this flow. Our task is to learn to pay attention to this flow unmanaged and unmediated by the concept. This is the creative tension in teacher practice. (shrink)

This paper introduces a new conceptual framework, the Resonance Neural Network (感應神經網), redefining resonance (感應) beyond its traditional interpretations in philosophy and affect theory. While classical accounts of resonance are often aligned with affect—understood as pre-reflective emotional or bodily responses—this study advances a different perspective: resonance as the pre-cognitive vibration that initiates creative spirit and leads to practical realization. The Resonance Neural Network is defined as the capacity of the human brain–mind system to sense invisible flows of energy, meaning, (...) and relational patterns, and to transform such subtle signals into creative cognition and action. Intuition, “gut feelings,” and déjà vu are not dismissed as irrational impressions, but instead recognized as manifestations of an underlying neural-philosophical resonance circuit. This framework positions resonance not as mere inspiration, emotion, or affect, but as the first vibration of creative spirit, which becomes strengthened when structured through thought and translated into willful action. In doing so, it bridges pre-rational sensitivity with conscious creativity, offering a new foundation for understanding human creation, branding philosophy, and consciousness studies. By articulating the Resonance Neural Network as a distinct conceptual innovation, this paper lays the groundwork for interdisciplinary dialogue across philosophy, neuroscience, creativity studies, and organizational practice. It further proposes that resonance serves as the seed of Founding Spirit (hereafter FoundSpirit), thereby providing both an ontological and practical framework for exploring how pre-cognitive resonance shapes human will, endurance, and the pursuit of meaningful creation. (shrink)

This paper explores Nietzsche’s philosophical journey from the vitality of Greek tragedy to the critique of modern decadence and the vision of life-affirming creativity. Beginning with the Dionysian experience in ancient Greek culture, Nietzsche identifies a foundation of human vitality grounded in the ecstatic embrace of suffering, joy, and the chaotic rhythms of existence. He then examines the cultural, religious, and moral mechanisms of modern society, highlighting the ways in which Christianity, institutional authority, and social conformity cultivate resignation, life-denial, and (...) what he terms “slave morality.” Against this backdrop, Nietzsche proposes a radical transformation: a movement from resigned acceptance of fate to absolute affirmation, culminating in active, joyful, and creative engagement with life. The principles of amor fati, eternal recurrence, and Zarathustra’s dance exemplify this vision, emphasizing the cultivation of strength, creativity, and aesthetic vitality in the face of uncertainty, suffering, and limitation. Through this lens, Nietzsche transforms philosophy into a guide for living fully, turning the ordinary flow of life into a continuous act of value creation and celebration. (shrink)

This article presents the pedagogical paradigm of reflexive interaction and its application in the field of technology-enhanced learning and children’s musical creativity. The main feature of reflexive interaction is the repetition-variation mechanism: something is repeated and varied during the interaction, through a continual process of imitation and variation. In the context of the MIROR project (EU-ICT Project), we exploited the educational potential of the reflexive interaction paradigm and implemented the MIROR platform, an educational device consisting of a set of softwares (...) that implement the reflexive paradigm not only in music improvisation (as was the case for the first interactive reflexive system), but also in the field of music composition and dance. The platform was conceived as a tool to stimulate and develop musical and motor creativity in children, although it can also be used to teach a specific musical instrument. The hypothesis of the MIROR project was that reflexive interaction sustains and promotes the learning and creative expression processes of music and movement. This initial hypothesis, which stemmed mainly from the pilot study in which we observed children who were interacting with the first prototype of the interactive reflexive musical system, was subjected to a series of empirical studies conducted within the MIROR project, and was theoretically defined in order to lay down the foundations of the reflexive interaction paradigm and its pedagogical implications. This article summarizes the state-of-the-art of the project and brings together, in a comprehensive overview, the theoretical framework, the pedagogical concepts, the empirical studies, and the description of the MIROR platform, with the aim to reflect on the results achieved so far and point out the contribution of the reflexive perspective to the field of children’s instrumental learning and creativity. (shrink)

Ancient schematic systems originating in the Jewish and Chinese traditions that demonstrate dynamic integration of human consciousness with the material world offer fresh insights into the process through which technoetic art forms are created at the intersections of art, science, technology, and culture. Kabbalah is Judaism's esoteric tradition that reveals the deep structure of biblical consciousness through a symbolic language, conceptual schema, and graphic model for exploring the creative process. The Tree of Life schema is a network of 22 (...) pathways linking 10 nodes (sephirot) that represent stages in the creative process. The first three sephirot represent the artist's undifferentiated intention to create and the cognitive dyad in which a flash of insight begins to crystallize into a viable idea. Two affective dyads, largess/restraint and success/gracefulness, are balanced by the sephirah (singular for sephirot) of Beauty, the aesthetic heart of the entire process. The ninth sephirah funnels the integrated flow of intention, thought, and emotion into the world of physical action that is the tenth sephirah. The Kabbalistic schema is used to trace the process of creating Inside/Outside: P'nim/Panim, a technoetic moist- media artwork in which a biofeedback imaging system forms a feedback loop between changing mind/body processes and corresponding changes in digital self-portraits. (shrink)

In this chapter, we examine how a creative workplace can be created from a phenomenological perspective. For example, the attitude of Epoché): Suspension of Judgment, which reflects the importance of listening to what the other person is saying, is an essential element of dialogue. If you interpret the other person's words in your mind and arrive at a conclusion before you have finished listening, you may be able to listen verbally, but this does not imply that you are really (...) listening. In the realm of passive synthesis, we must be sensitive to whether the other person is really listening to us; moreover, people will not talk to someone who is not listening to them. In this way, we explain the relationship between dialogue and corporeality and the phenomenon of flow as expressed in collective creativity. (shrink)

This review essay on the literature on creative cities pays particular attention to the ways in which transnational mobilities contribute significantly to the making of such cities. The paper reviews critically both the literature and phenomena of creative cities and their transnational flows by framing the discussion around the mobility of ideas (creative economy/creative city discourse), the mobility of people (the migration of the creative class), the mobility of technology (the travel of the creative (...) cluster and architectural iconism phenomena), the mobility of finances (capital and investment flows), and the mobility of images (transnational artistic collaborations and products). (shrink)

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In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Foundations For Flow:A Philosophical Model For Studio InstructionKrista RiggsThe need for a new approach to studio instruction becomes evident when the current state of the profession and the effects of typical teaching methods are considered. In a profession with relatively little demand for a large supply of candidates for professional employment, realistically very few undergraduate music performance majors will achieve success as either orchestral players or as soloists. (...) Extreme competitiveness and the political hierarchy common in a typical music studio setting can squelch creativity and hinder a student's possibility to attain optimal experience in performance. Such an environment can pose a threat to a student's self-image and motivation, possibly becoming detrimental to the success of the student in any chosen occupation, whether ultimately within music or outside the profession.1As Roland Persson notes, studio teachers are generally hired primarily for their performance accomplishments and place in the historic lineage of their instrument's pedagogy without much regard for previous training in educational theories.2 With a lack of training in instructional methods or developmental theories, college music teachers tend to conduct lessons in the manner in which they were taught. Thus, little attention may be paid to individual differences or developmental issues.3 Studio instruction has also traditionally been approached [End Page 175] in a maestro-like, authoritarian manner with one-directional commands given as law from master teacher to seemingly subordinate students. Such a manner of teaching may contradict the tendency of creative individuals to show more deviant traits of critical and independent thought, possibly hindering the student's potential for artistic growth.4Many music students tend to gain much of their concept of self-worth based on how they perceive their musical ability to be assessed by their studio instructor.5 A dependency for approval can lead to the pursuit of unachievable perfection that can be detrimental to the emotional development and self-confidence of the student.6 A common focus on a final product in instruction rather than on the creative process of personal and artistic growth can also contribute to the detrimental setting of unrealistic goals and resulting lack of self-esteem in the student. Evaluation of artistically, intellectually, and emotionally developing students against an unattainable perceived aesthetic ideal or in comparison to other students of differing strengths and levels of development can hinder motivation while increasing anxiety, extreme competition, and negative emotional response in the learning experience.7 In a more personalized curriculum that centers on individual strengths and weaknesses through a mentoring approach, each student may be guided to develop the intellectual, emotional, physical, and spiritual faculties leading to optimal experience. From creative flow and the peak experiences of self-actualization comes intrinsic motivation for students to pursue creativity as a way of life, with further motivation to find moments for artistic expression and personal satisfaction in all aspects of their being.8A new model concerned with the development of the "whole" student as an individual can serve as a philosophical supplement to studio instructors who may not have received much training in developmental issues, educational theories, or related facets of the psychology of learning and performance. Although each aspect of the model can be considered separately, the potential of guiding a student toward the attainment of optimal experience is increased when all aspects are considered according to strengths and weaknesses present in the individual student. Incorporating the theories and ideas in studio instruction may help enhance a student's artistic and personal development while also strengthening a healthy mentoring relationship between teacher and student. While the model presents aspects of psychology alongside developmental and educational theories, the focus remains as a philosophical synthesis of diverse ideas into a unified system with flow at the center. Rather than aiming to deconstruct or refute opposing theories, the model synthesizes supporting ideas. As Estelle Jorgensen notes, the purpose of a synthesis-oriented or "synoptic" model is not so much to argue or refute contrasting views as it is to build upon the supporting theories and ideas of other writers. The "body of thought" serves an explanatory purpose [End Page 176] of the "clarification of terms and exposition... (shrink)

The purpose of this preliminary qualitative research study is to explore the role and function of multiple dynamic interactive aesthetic and intersubjective phenomena in the creative arts therapies process relative to transformation in perception, behavior, relationship, and well-being. A group of doctoral students and faculty studied these phenomena in an analogous creative arts therapies laboratory context using a method called Intrinsic Arts-Based Research. Intrinsic Arts-Based Research is a systematic study of psychological, emotional, relational, and arts-based phenomena, parallel to (...) those emergent in the creative arts therapies, using individual and collective intrinsic immersive and reflective experience in combination with qualitative and arts-based research methods. Our primary goal was to simulate the creative arts therapies experience in order to identify, document, and describe the complex transformative phenomena that occur at the nexus of arts-based expression, reflection, and relationships in the arts therapies. For the purposes of this paper transformation is defined as “.... a significant reconfiguration of perception and thought resulting in the lessening of psychic restraint and pain, allowing for the emergence of new psychological perspectives that contribute to living a more creative life” (Gerber et al. 2012, 45). Through a deductive thematic analysis of written accounts of these simulated creative arts therapies experiences by participant/researchers in the laboratory we identified three primary dynamic and interactive broad constructs that together, with more specific modifying themes, might account for and describe change within the creative arts therapies. These broad dynamic interactive themes are: ruptures, resolutions, and transformation; relationship and intersubjectivity; and, arts-based expressive processes. The more specific modifying themes include dialectical rupture and resolution, relational attunements and ruptures, imaginational flow, transcendence and ruptures, sensory/kinesthetic/embodied ways of knowing, and intersubjective transcendence. We propose that change in the creative arts therapies is driven more by a dynamic system of interactive phenomena the varying combinations of which create conditions for relational attunement, imagination, dialectical tensions and creative resolutions, and the ultimately creative transformation. (shrink)

According to Dreyfus and Dreyfus, skilled coping in sport occurs when an athlete reaches an expert level and can execute a sport skill on ‘automatic-pilot’, in a state of ‘flow’. In this paper we reframe phenomenological accounts of sport that try to depict flow-states as part of an athlete’s competency framework. We do so from the point of view of post-structural and post-phenomenological scholars such as Jacques Derrida’s deconstructive work on sovereignty and Jean-Luc Nancy’s ontological vantage of ‘being-with’. (...) This lens pushes us to challenge phenomenological accounts of sport such as skilled coping and flow that, we argue, portray zombie-like performances as optimal. We suggest that such a phenomenological account of sport is not only impoverished as Breivik has argued, but also misses the very promising aspects of sport that can generate the possibility for creative and relational experiences. In making this claim we aim to reorient sport philosophy’s uptake of phenomenology towards a relat... (shrink)

The focus of this research paper concerns the dialogue between science and theology. The current state of the dialogue involves a wide range of points of intersection that both pose and provoke questions concerning the very viability and coherence of such a dialogue. In particular, this paper examines the physicist/theologian, Robert John Russell's 'Creative Mutual Interaction' (CMI). The significance of the CMI diagram is that it names the basic interactions between science and theology and theology and science. These interactions (...) are presented as pathways, 8 in all, 5 of which flow from science to theology and 3 of which flow from theology to science. These pathways integrate a number of philosophical assumptions. These pathways can make scientists, theologians, and philosophers more aware of the philosophical assumptions at work between both theology and science. Russell, in his CMI, provides 8 paths to this interaction; 5 pathways where science informs theology and 3 by which theology informs science. In this thesis, I examine a test case of Russell's where he interacts the concepts of cosmology, eschatology, and bodily resurrection as it applies to Jesus Christ in New Testament Studies. (shrink)

Verbal narratives provide incomplete information and can be very long, yet readers and hearers often effortlessly fill in the gaps and make connections across long stretches of text, sometimes even finding this immersive. How is this done? In the last few decades, event-indexing situation modeling and complementary accounts of narrative emotion have suggested answers. Despite this progress, comparisons between real-life perception and narrative experience might underplay the way narrative processing modifies our world model, as well as the role of the (...) emotions that do not relate to characters. I reframe narrative experience in predictive processing and neural networks, capturing continuity between fiction, perception, and states like dreaming and imagination, enabled by the flexible instantiation of concepts. In this framework, narrative experience is more clearly revealed as a creative experience that can share some of the phenomenology of dreams. (shrink)

Because Western experiments assume creativity is an individual phenomenon and rarely investigate how trust and openness might build collective resonance, flow, and creativity, the creative whole typically amounts to less than the sum of the parts. The author argues, however, that group creativity increases as members develop, especially through Wilber's (in press) transpersonal stages. He illustrates how organizational leaders have facilitated creativity through reflective practice. Presenting evidence regarding the field effects of collective consciousness, he suggests that our minds (...) and hearts interact in subtle yet powerful ways, which leaders can intuit, to support the emergence of collaborative creativity. (shrink)

Reality, the world, others, and the inexhaustible source of sense are always ‘present’ even in the imaginary realm, which nevertheless seems to move away quite emphatically from them. Now, the most radical argument showing that human existence is pervaded by inauthenticity was the one claiming that consciousness is always and necessarily mystified: it only attains contingent points of view that are challenged by a host of others. As noted, it is impossible to get out of this dialectical vortex devoid of (...) synthesis. Merleau-Ponty presented this claim in The Adventures of the Dialectic, but he also showed that, even though it is beyond dispute, it nevertheless correlates with a view that allows us to rule out any pessimistic conclusion: he thus made the case that consciousness can find its salvation precisely insofar as it is nothing other than a flow of images. (shrink)

The Zhuangist ideal of wandering is characterized by the navigation of the plurality of daos in response to changing circumstances. In practice, this is achieved through a series of flows in skilled activities that have goals built into them, which are prescribed by objective constraints of the circumstances in relation to the agent’s own desires. Since flow cannot go on without interruption, detached reflection is called for when challenges interrupt an episode of flow. The emotion essential to moments (...) of detachment is wonder—a cognitive emotion that prompts creative engagement with the novel, peculiar, and strange. (shrink)

Folding almanacs are magico-medical objects which were worn and used by doctors in fifteenth-century England to perform rituals of medicine and to align the timing of diagnosis, prognosis and treatment to earthly and cosmic cycles. As a multimedia artist, my curiosity was taken by these hand-held objects of care. To my contemporary eye, they are essentially artist books. A further connection came through my own lived experience of breast cancer. A year of intense treatment, including six cycles of chemotherapy followed (...) by mastectomy, significantly complicated my relationship to my own body and to medicine. This creative engagement explores how and why I tried making my own folding almanacs, using modern materials, and what I learned when one of these was accepted for Un-boxing, an international travelling exhibition. These ancient folding almanacs encapsulate a world view where people’s lived experiences of being in a body was held within a flow of relationships with other bodies, human and non-human including animals, the moon, stars and planets. A close reading of the visual and material languages I used in this remaking offers insights into a personal health history folded into bigger questions of what we might allow into an expanded field of ‘medicine’. (shrink)

The article explores the impact of the Yijing on the aesthetic theory of the early Qing Dynasty painter Shitao. Based on compelling evidence, it illustrates the close interconnection between Shitao’s aesthetic theory and the onto-cosmology of the Yijing. He adeptly integrated its concepts into his artistic framework, emphasizing the pivotal role of individual creativity and the preservation of a holistic approach throughout the creative process. In his seminal work, “Remarks on Painting,” Shitao presents an exceptionally distinctive theory of Holistic (...) Brushstroke inspired by the teachings of the Yijing, Daodejing, and Chan (Zen) philosophy. Based on these profound philosophical traditions, he creates a unique and innovative approach to the art of painting that transcends conventional boundaries. This article focuses on the specific parts of Shitao’s aesthetic theory that relate directly to the Yijing, revealing his alignment with the aesthetics of the literati painters. It illuminates the long tradition within Chinese aesthetics, firmly rooted in the foundations of the Yijing, in which the act of creation and artistic expression is seen as a profound reiteration of the cosmic creative force—the Dao itself. In this context, the artist becomes a channel through which the universal creative energy flows, producing art that reflects the very essence of existence. Shitao’s aesthetic theory, deeply influenced by Yijing and Daodejing, reflects a harmonious connection between the natural world and the human spirit, emphasizing the interconnectedness of all things that resonate with the rhythm of the cosmos through the interplay of ink and brush. (shrink)

The importance of enterprises significantly improving their innovation performance by working closely with customers throughout the innovation process has been emphasized in recent literature. However, the role of organizational innovation environment in customer creativity and the impact of customer knowledge matching on the innovation environment are not sufficiently explored. Based on the Social cognitive theory and Flow theory, his investigate the factors that influence enterprise innovation performance in the context of customer participation in innovation, as well as how businesses (...) can foster an online innovation environment that fosters customer creativity. The mixed-methods study, which combines qualitative and quantitative research, is used to create the scale item that measures the study’s main variables. Structural equation modeling and bootstrapping estimation was performed on survey data collected via questionnaire from 392 consumers who participated in online service innovation in an online virtual brand community between June 2018 and May 2019. The study obtain the following main results. First, the innovative environment of customer online participation in service innovation fosters customer creativity. Second, two mediation interactions exist: creative self-efficacy and positive emotions, both of which partially mediate the relationship between customer creativity and the innovation environment. Third, while customer knowledge matching influences the intermediary effect of creative self-efficacy on innovation environment and customer creativity, it has no effect on the intermediary effect of positive emotion on innovation environment and customer creativity. (shrink)

The article is devoted to the coordination between the mass und the elite in the creativity of V. V. Rozanov. Rozanov’s vision focuses the attention of readers on the transition from the elite to the mass, that takes place in the culture. This transition is by Rozanov connected with the important for his look on the category “the life”. We consider, that Rozanov means exactly the life for example when he describes in his first work “On understanding”. The phenomenon of (...) understanding is explicated by Rozanov as inexpressible and unspeakable. In our opinion this statement brings Rozanov’s position together to some intuitions of the philosophy of the life, that speak out his contemporaries G. Simmel and M. Scheler. Rozanov represents in images of his late works the flow of the life. We think, that Rozanov’s main idea (the understanding) unites his first treatise and later works. This idea actually points out the flow of the life. Rozanov emphasis it, stressing the impalpability of usual things in his later works. The thinker registers this impalpability, making it clear for his readers. The concept of the understanding, expressing the concept of the life means by Rozanov the world of the elite and every attempt to limit this world means for him the movement to the mass culture. Rozanov try to protect the elite culture, to save it from the predomination of the mass culture. In such way he try to keep up the philosophy, the literature as significant living institutions. Rozanov wants to prevent the technique and standards from the possession above the life, but all his efforts are futile. On the contrary Rozanov hastens the process of equality of the elite and the mass. (shrink)

What if reality fundamentally consists in events and processes rather than things? All actions are situated within processes, influenced by a broader set of preceding and concomitant flows of digital information and other actions. This paper offers a process philosophy perspective that sees things as merely constellations of processes. Decisions within these processes, moreover, must usually be made within time constraints. Rather than a view of time, such as in process theories, as being tied to notions of entities, variance, or—at (...) best—the flow of things, process philosophy sees time as duration: tied to consciousness, sensemaking, and free will. While principles for conducting positivist, interpretive, and critical research have been widely discussed in the IS literature, criteria and principles for a process philosophy perspective are lacking. In the context of Bergson and Whitehead’s creative evolution process philosophy, this paper proposes a set of five principles for the conduct of process philosophy research in information systems: (1) heterogeneous multiplicity, (2) immanence in a process, (3) experience over abstraction, (4) consciousness in duration, and (5) a relational ontology. We describe these in detail and discuss some potential applications, methodological issues, and related difficulties in the principles’ implementation for IS research. We highlight their value for requirements engineering in large-scale projects. (shrink)

This essay explores the nature of absorbed experience which occurs when we are deeply immersed in a practical activity, such as when we make a work of art. This absorption is at the heart of all concentrated activity and reinforces those moments of engaged creativity when self-consciousness is freed from the calculations of the ego. Such occasions cannot be willed or predicted, but rather appear to arise spontaneously as in a stream of consciousness in which there is recognisable flow (...) that is undisrupted by language. Indeed, there is evidence that in these engaged moments, language itself is held in abeyance and that embodied activity takes over as we lose ourselves in the practical experience of making. Both the literature and artists’ accounts of their practice have tended to overlook the nature of these experiences. (shrink)

This book reveals how, when, where and why vitalism and its relationship to new scientific theories, philosophies and concepts of energy became seminal from the fin de siècle until the Second World War for such Modernists as Sophie Tauber-Arp, Hugo Ball, Juliette Bisson, Eva Carrière, Salvador Dalì, Robert Delaunay, Marcel Duchamp, Edvard Munch, Picasso, Yves Tanguy, Gino Severini and John Cage. For them Vitalism entailed the conception of life as a constant process of metamorphosis impelled by the free flow (...) of energies, imaginings, intuition and memories, unconstrained by mechanistic materialism and chronometric imperatives, to generate what the philosopher Henri Bergson aptly called Creative Evolution. Following the three main dimensions of Vitalist Modernism, the first part of this book reveals how biovitalism at the fin de siècle entailed the pursuit of corporeal regeneration through absorption in raw nature, wholesome environments, aquatic therapies, electromagnetism, heliotherapy, modern sports, particularly rugby; water sports, the Olympic Games and physical culture to energize the human body and vitalize its life force. This is illuminated by artists as geoculturally diverse as Gustave Caillebotte, Thomas Eakins, Munch and Albert Gleizes. The second part illuminates how simultaneously vitalism became aligned with anthroposophy, esotericism, magnetism, occultism, parapsychology, spiritism, theosophy and what Bergson called "psychic states", alongside such new sciences as electromagnetism, radiology and the Fourth Dimension, as captured by such artists as Juliette Bisson, Giacomo Balla, Albert Besnard, Umberto Boccioni, Eva Carrière, John Gerrard Keulemans, László Mohology-Nagy, James Tissot, Albert von Schrenck Notzing and Picasso. During and after the devastation of the First World War, the third part explores how Vitalism, particularly Bergson's theory of becoming, became associated with Dadaist, Neo-Dadaist and Surrealist notions of amorality, atemporality, dysfunctionality, entropy, irrationality, inversion, negation and the nonsensical captured by Hans Arp, Charlie Chaplin, Theo Van Doesburg, Kazimir Malevich, Kurt Schwitters and Vladimir Tatlin alongside Cage's concept of Nothing. After investigating the widespread engagement with Bergson's philosophies, Vitalism and art by Anarchists, Marxists and Communists during and after the First World War, it concludes with the official rejection of Bergson and any form of Vitalism in the Soviet Union under Stalin. This book will be of vital interest to gallery, exhibition and museum curators and visitors plus readers and scholars working in art history, art theory, cultural studies, modernist studies, occult studies, European art and literature, health, histories of science, philosophy, psychology, sociology, sport studies, heritage studies, museum studies and curatorship. (shrink)

The idea of 'flirting' with space is central to this book. Space is conceptualised as being in constant flux as we make our way through various contexts in our daily lives, and is considered in relation to encounters with complexities and flows of material culture. This book focuses on journeys, which are perceived as dynamic processes of contemporary life and its spaces, and how creativity happens in the inter-relations of space and journeys encourage creativity. Unravelled through a range of empirical (...) case studies of journeys through and encountered with space, this book builds new critical syntheses of the intertwining of space and life. Based on investigations undertaken by the author over the past 20 years, it explores the mundane and the exotic, the 'lay' and the 'artistic', combining and inter-relating them in a diversity of time and expression, fleeting and surviving. Such investigations, using both visual and non-visual material, include examinations of allotment holding, the work of artists, caravanning and tourism, photography and parish maps. The analyses of such seemingly disparate subjects are linked together and build on each other to create a fascinating and original view of humanity's interaction with space. Included are fresh discussions of belonging, disorientation and the working of identity and play. The notion of 'gentle politics' is introduced. (shrink)

Artification: Making and world-building: Sensory intelligence: Gestalt perception: Tacit knowledge: Creative collaboration: Multimodal storytelling: Drawing: Image collecting: Semiotic play: Photography and embodiment: Feminine archetypes: Flow state: Technology and creativity: Emergence.

In the aesthetic theory of the German-Baltic philosopher Nicolai Hartmann (1882-1950), the focus on the creative act is criticized for dwelling on the least comprehensible aspect of the field of aesthetics. Instead, Hartmann proposes dedicating himself to tasks such as the analysis of the structure of the work of art. Flow psychology, in turn, emerged from the questions of the Hungarian-American psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1934-2021) about visual artists, such as painters, designers and sculptors. The theory of the (...) class='Hi'>flow state investigates, among other processes, the creative act in the arts and sciences, pointing to possible applications in other areas of life, such as family life. Our working hypothesis is that flow psychology, in addition to enabling a refutation of aesthetic conceptions contrary to theorizing about the creative act, can also broaden the scope of philosophy, with regard to themes such as the values and background of the work of art. (shrink)

This research investigates flow experiences and explores meaning construction for artistic practices that differ in haptic nature. In addition to the phenomenological analysis of interviews, videos of artistic practice and practice-based research were employed to obtain both retrospective and real-time records of the physicality of artistic practice. Drawing on authors who emphasise the automatisation of actions in flow and heightened body awareness flow is reconceptualised in non-representational terms as optimal precognitive engagement with the world. In this light (...) meaning in flow results not from bringing order to the mind as Csikszentmihalyi proposed, but through its embodied construction in activity. Analyses revealed that the sources of enjoyment and meaning, the relationship between artist, tools and artwork, and the nature and extent of self-differentiation differ between artists who work in two and three dimensions, and whose physical actions differ in the production of their artwork. 2D artists derive enjoyment from their creative process and meaning from capturing an atmosphere or place, and attribute artistic control to their artwork. 3D artists derive more enjoyment from the product of their artistic activity and meaning from the recreation of the self in material form, and do not attribute artistic control to the artwork. Consequently, embodied physicality of activity appears fundamental to similarities in flow experiences and meaning-making: accounts of flow and the meanings generated in activity differ between activities that differ in their haptic or performative nature but are similar among haptically similar activities. (shrink)