Enhancing the creative process for learning in primary technology education

When undertaking design and technology activities, children are provided with opportunities to create solutions to problems in new and innovative ways. The mental processes involved in the generation of new ideas may be enhanced when children’s attention is not focussed and is allowed to wander in a relaxed and uncompetitive environment. Research indicates that the two mental states, generative and non-generative, cannot exist simultaneously. This paper reports on a research project which investigated the impact on children’s thinking when a period of non-focussed thinking became part of the technology process. The results support the previous proposition that a child’s non-generative/analytical mental state needs to give way to a generative state so that a child can be more fully creative. Moreover, from this study that documented children’s ideas during their involvement in a design and technology activity, teachers are urged to provide an incubation period as part of the technological process in the classroom, so that children’s creativity can be fostered.

Strategic thinking and the creative process in event management

This thesis asserts that event management requires strategic and creative thinking. This is necessary to envision alternative approaches in an evolving communications landscape. Using a rich, qualitative analysis with one major case study, the conclusion is that events must shift from an operationally led to a strategically informed creative process.

The artist and the computer : understanding the creative user

This paper is focused on understanding the creative computer user for the purposes of informing the design of future creativity support systems and related software. We present an investigation of a successful Australian artist, Jill Lewis, who paints on canvas. In particular, we highlight the interesting part that existing digital technology plays in her creative practice, and we identify and describe in detail two specific uses of this technology. We terml these uses "electronic collaging" and "media switching". We go on to attempt to relate this artist's creative process to two theoretical models of the creative process.

Sublime : process and mediation

The research challenged traditional notions of the transcendental sublime by identifying the material basis of the experience through the practice of painting. Material interaction within the creative process revealed new insights, illuminated through the sublime experience. The sublime was indicated as a materially-based, generative experience mediating between subject and world.

Sublime: process and mediation

The Sublime: Process and Mediation expounds on the concept of a 'Material Sublime' as relevant to the development of artistic practice. The author maintains that the creative process is generative, highlighting the connection between nature, the body, and latent forms of knowledge as revealed through material interaction significant in the activity of painting.  She argues for a co-emergence maintaining the sublime experience traverses a liminal space wherein binary oppositions such as the distinction between mind and matter are negotiated.   

Creative architectural design with children: a collaborative design project informed by Rhodes's theory

Since the United Nations adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1989, there has been global consensus that children need to be involved in the planning and design of their environment. There exist various international initiatives that support collaborative design with children, with co-design projects conducted in different areas of the world. Evolving from the global context of co-design, this project explores creativity in relation to architectural design with children. Between October and December 2011, a team of architecture students from Deakin University worked with children from Roslyn Primary School (both institutions located in Victoria, Australia) to design a playground structure. Informed by Rhodes’s (1961) theory, creativity in this co-design project was addressed through the four dimensions of creative designers, creative context, creative process, and creative design outcomes. The findings of this study corroborate Rhodes’s theory of creativity, and suggest that it is useful to engender creative architectural design with children.

Improvisation in visual art practice using a photographic process

In this article I discuss how I have come to understand embodied processes in my visual art practice using photography. I danced professionally for 25 years and performed in various contexts including classical ballet repertoire, contemporary dance, and commercial dance. I choreographed for various productions working with a group of dancers for seven years before studying visual art. I experienced a particular sense of embodiment as a live performer in which prescribed movements were learnt, performed and repeated as if second nature. Transitioning into a conceptually based visual art practice the creative process was flipped around. Using painting, sculpture, performance (in a different context) and photographic methods I explored ideas from which forms such as video/audio installations, photography, performance art and painting emerged mostly in a gallery context. Although I still think of forms of movement as content, in a visual art practise the idea or concept invokes form.

Pragmatic dramaturgy: the creative management of limits in performance-making processes.

This thesis proposes the lens of pragmatic dramaturgy as a way of understanding the complex interactions between process and performance that define theatre practice, and investigates the ways in which performance making practice is shaped by encounters with a range of limits that impact the creative process.

Promoting and supporting requirements engineering creativity

Requirements Engineering (RE) is a commencing phase in the systems development life cycle and concerned with understanding and specifying the customer's requirements. RE has been recognized as a complex cognitive problem solving process which takes place in an unstructured and poorly understood problem .context. A recent understanding describes the RE process as inherently creative, involving cycles of incremental building followed by insight-driven econceptualization .of the problem space. This chapter relates this new understanding to various creative process models described in the creativity and psychology of problem solving literature.

A review of current attempts to support problem solving in RE using
various design rationale approaches suggests., that their common major
wealmess lies in the lack of support for the creative and insight-driven problem solving process in RE. In addressing this weakness, the chapter suggests a new approach to promoting and supporting RE creativity using design rationale. The suggested approach involves the ad hoc recording of rationale to support the creative exploration complemented by a post hoc conceptual characterization of the problem space to support insight driven reconceptualization.

Crafting organization

The recent shift in attention away from organization studies as science has allowed for consideration of new ways of thinking about both organization and organizing and has led to several recent attempts to 'bring down' organizational theorizing. In this paper, we extend calls for organization to be represented as a creative process by considering organization as craft. Organizational craft, we argue, is attractive, accessible, malleable, reproducible, and marketable. It is also a tangible way of considering organization studies with irreverence. We draw on the hierarchy of distinctions among fine art, decorative art, and craft to suggest that understanding the organization of craft assists in complicating our understanding of marginality. We illustrate our argument by drawing on the case of a contemporary Australian craftworks and marketplace known initially as the Meat Market Craft Centre ('MMCC') and then, until its recent closure, as Metro! ‡ Stella Minahan was a board member and then the Chief Executive Officer of the Metro! Craft Centre.

The editor as animation inbetweener

With digital compositing and digital special effects, the traditional edits of cut, dissolve and wipe, are being augmented by a more complex, yet liberating, creative process. This paper will explore how the language of film editing may be shifting and evolving due to new tools at the filmmakers disposal (and the ease with which to use them).

With the convergence of all media into the digital realm, the distinctions between animation and live-action filmmaking are continuing to blur. In fact, editing live-action film is now often similar to the process of animation. In many ways, the film editor is becoming like an “animation-inbetweener, ” of the “key posses” that have been “drawn” by the cinematographer.

This new animator/compositor/editor uses a variety of methods for creating inbetweens in order to connect two distinctly different scenes. These can include the use of; morphing, animated mattes, digital animation, and controlled complex dissolves. Not only can this process create a unique visual style, but in addition, new languages can also be explored.

Eisenstein was very interested in how new meanings can be created by the linear juxtaposition of distinctly different scenes. But what does it mean when these two scenes are allowed to evolve into each other?

Furthermore, the editor, can now easily allow selected elements to transcend between shots. It is now possible for the editor to decide what portions of the scene are most important, and what the viewer should take with them into the next scene. What should be highlighted, or what elements should be suppressed.

In order to illustrate these ideas, this paper will look at the earlier film editing theories of, Eisenstein, Pudovkin and G.W. Pabst, and the traditions and theories of animation. It will also showcase contemporary compositing/editing examples.

Perceptions of the impact of art : implications for the art sector

This paper explores how individuals perceive art and its impact, and what implications these perceptions have for the art sector. Much previous research into the impact of art has been based on perspectives of art and impact implicit in government policies. This paper posits that to increase demand for art activities, a greater understanding of individuals’ perspectives of these two concepts is necessary. The paper reports findings of a three year research project into the impact of art based on the perception of the individual. Findings highlight three key areas: first, it is not the art product, but creativity or the creative process that results in impact; second, that individuals are autonomous in the creation of art experiences and the resultant impact; and third that there is a link between the motivation to have an art experience and the perceived potential impact.

Towards the development of a conceptual design management model for remote sites

Remote and environmentally sensitive sites present unique challenges for participants involved in the design and construction process. Worldwide advances in information technology coupled with improved site accessibility and manageability has enabled the construction industry to undertake such projects with greater ease. Furthermore, research on information technology in construction has begun to focus our attentions on our increased ability to work virtually in distributed teams. These remote sites have a range of development potential as clients have varied interests including; tourism, scientific investigation and resource exploration and processing which impact upon the management of the design process. These sites pose unique challenges to the project teams and in particular for the management of project design. The conceptual design phase is often marked by an iterative and creative process, which tends to be a sociologically oriented world where designers respond to a range of functional, aesthetic, environmental and even spiritual concerns. Strategic decisions made during the briefing and conceptual design stage may impact upon construction logistics and sustainability. Detailed design for construction tends to be a production oriented world. There is a significant body of literature that addresses the application of lean thinking to improving the interface between detailed design and construction production. There is little literature that takes a holistic view of design management for remote sites. The lean design management field of research has much to contribute to the design management of these projects. The review of the literature indicated that much of the lean thinking has been primarily concerned with sequential production. However, lean thinking is based upon principles of flow and value, which is also conducive to the complex process involved in design management for remote sites. A conceptual model is developed that considers both the production and sociological approaches to design management, in response to the peculiar demands of the site and their project teams.

Understanding social creativity amongst event professionals : an action research approach

Live events represent a significant and growing sector of the creative industries but the creative process underlying this sector is little researched in the event management context. Despite the increased consumption of virtual and online media, the live event remains a popular channel of expression for a wide range of creative art forms and commercial messages. Live events use such messages as 'props' or 'stages' to produce memorable and emotionally positive moments for audiences. The creative process behind developing a live event is in itself a live event, involving groups of event professionals working in a social context to conceptualise ideas for their audiences. This research fills the gap for event professionals in the creative industries by seeking to understand the creative process intrinsic to live events. This paper suggests that social creativity is used to develop live event concepts. The phenomenon of social creativity identified from the existing literature is explored in the context of its application to event professionals. An Action Research approach is recommended to better understand the key antecedents of social creativity and how they can influence event concept development.

Madonna of the eucalypt : novel and exegesis

The thesis comprises a novel and exegesis. The novel explores migration and spirituality in a family saga that moves from the islands of Sicily to the Australian Mallee desert. The exegesis concentrates on the "unknowability" of the creative process, which is explored through the journey motif.