So this entry is going to be a thinking entry, at present I do not exactly know what I am going to write about, however, it will be related to my most recent creative thinking work. I set the task for myself to first investigate any apps at apple's App Store that had to do with creativity and when that was only so-so I looked up thinking, less that so-so The two quality apps I found were WordMpress and Ulysses. The reason I liked Word Press is because it gives one a variety of tones, styles and whatnot to create posters and they are generally designed to fit together so that no matter what you do it will look like good design. This being said after you make neat posters it really doesn't do much more and if you are slick enough with Photoshop one could do it on one's own. Ulysses intrigued me more because because it offered writers a wide variety of tools that I suspect are going on in writers heads' as they write. One can write and you will get different prompts for word choices, definitions and research on the spot. My impression that it allows one to multi-task without leaving one window. Pretty slick, but I don't write and I probably will not write. Thinking did not present much in lines of aids for thinking but the process lead to me contemplating programs like Mind Node and then another I saw later in John Medea's talk on TED where a company structure could be mapped out and one could view not only the connections between departments but also keep track of the kinds of correspondence (in electronic form) that a member of a company has with that person.
Sine this did not push my thoughts too far forward I went onto another task I set for myself and was to watch at least two talks on TED about creativity and this time keep notes hoping to find confirmation of my existing ideas, or realize new things that others are doing, thinking about or reveal. I watched for like the fifth time Sir Ken Robinson's lecture about schools and creativity, John Madea's discussion of design, technology, art and leadership and finally Issac Mizrahi's discussion on his own creativity. Several things came to my mind but I am only going to discuss one right here. As I said before this is a thinking entry so what follows is unstructured but hopefully helps me reveal an idea to myself.
Movement as a creative thinking process.
The thought process started from here. Ken Robinson discusses in a joking fashion that university professors use their bodies as transports for their heads and that these people live almost entirely in their head. My mind started churning and I will copy verbatim what I wrote in my notebook: Professor - head - body is only a transport Then can we say that action should be encouraged as thinking? If so how can we use action as a creative thinking tool?
I am going to reach back into my history and memories and recall something I heard said in a cabin at a YMCA camp. One of the lead male councilors was discussing his love of sport and they way he described it was like this: When a person moves, completes an action like a dunk it is perfect artistry, the manipulation of the muscles to create in time something that is both useful and beautiful In regards to professional sport even the usefulness of it is inconsequential. While we make take very seriously how our favorite baseball, basketball or football team does, this has little effect on matters of the world. So in essence that dunk is art for art's sake. It's the creation of something beautiful simply for the purpose of performing the act.
So how do we turn movement into a tool for thinking. Personally, I have only weak ideas. One of my drawing teachers had the class exercise before beginning a studio drawing. Simple Qi Gong which I am not embarrassed to say worked exceptionally well. At times I have had my own students get up and move around to get the blood flowing, hopefully to the correct part of the brain that gets them excited about work. I've often told them to pat their heads and rub their bellies because it feels good and moves the blood around and will get them energized for drawing, painting or even just thinking. Most the time I get rolled eyes or laughter but the occasional student will oblige. I've never collected research on how this works. Another instance comes from my training in Wing Chun. I will by no means claim to be an expert in this field, but from what I have learned we are studying movement and sensitivity, as force comes in, roll away from it and into its source, as it retreats follow it towards its source, attack the center of your opponent. I also tell my students this, sit square to your work, focus on it, always go straight for its center. But most of what I have just written is about approach to working not thinking.
So how? I am hoping my friends who teach drama or my friends who dance can enlighten me. My ideas are that when given a way to think and then asking the body to speak that way, the individual will be revealed new connections, ideas and can translate that to completing a thought or solving a problem or making art. I am anxious to see what becomes.
P.s. As I was searching for the right photo for this entry the figurative lightbulb went off over my head. I chose a photo of someone who may be myself and friend making graffiti in Beijing. I like this photo (which maybe someone who is my girlfriend took) because when drawing on the wall, especially bit letters, movement is quite important and it is in movement that form revelas itself, not all my graffiti is planned out, I just center myself and release. Ah here is a key. More exploration ahead. And while on the subject also when playing the trombone, moving the arm is an art that effects the art of sound and Yoko Ono's word piece "When one is playing the violin, which is incidental, the sound or the movement of the arm"
