Creativity - what is it?

How to be creative. I have gone through a long phase of doing things now imagining and creating a product that I can lay down some thoughts around this.


Before the 'how', the question of 'what'. What can be termed as creativity?

IMO, it should be something as a way of looking at a question, a problem and coming out with a fresh, new answer or solution to it.

The field of arts - music, painting, story, movie all require creativity , originality and the freshness in the way you express something. It is very easy to identify if a movie is a copycat of something else. Even if it is remade, there can be fine tunings done to a specific region, language or taste which shows creativity.

In technology, the first product that comes out in what can be a trend setter is a result of creative thinking. For example, iPhone even though a cliched example, is a creative vision of how a smart phone should be setting the trend for a generation of smart phones.

A Google glass or a driver-less car, even though the first in a series to come, is more technology centric and the former brings in a more augmented feature to your already existing smart phone of using eye movements to browse or trigger an App. Same with driver-less cars which are the next level or leap of thinking in terms of driving cars.

So, creativity is not just about a technology change that brings in a better comfort to the end user, rather it should bring in a sense of 'beauty' combined with 'utility' than mere 'utility'. Utilitarian enhancements cannot be termed as creative. It is just a enrichment of a existing thing.

Creativity has to be something fresh and new of even existing things, having a tilt towards beauty and what the eyes can see and admire than mere utility. This kind of rules out all things that you just get a utilitarian value. Thus the Google glass and driver-less cars do not fall into the bucket of creativity while a iPhone seem to be fitting the bill.

In software, some fantastic things with the user interface that helps you to use something differently can be termed creative. Though I have probably narrowed the definition of creativity a lot here, which many of you may not agree with, I feel a lot of software  like the OS and compilers that does the 'grunt' behind the scenes may not even appear for evaluation of being creative for a end user.

Creativity is not about the process. It is not about the how. It is always about the outcome. I can be creative in building a mobile app, but it is not about the way I built it, it is about the final outcome and how it has changed the way we look at the problem itself. If the outcome is fresh and new for a end user, then the work is a piece of art.

A very broad and more accepted meaning of creativity is about coming out with something that never existed before. I sort of align to this definition. This is the real creativity. Probably the invention of 'telephone' or 'theory of relativity' are all finest examples of creativity in science and technology.

That was not just utilitarian, it was a new fresh thinking about a problem and creating something out of nothing.

Thus I feel creativity is something that flips the way we are looking at things currently by miles enabling a totally new angle into a problem.

Flow

I was listening to "Vennilave Velli Velli Nilave" Tamil song from "Vettaiyadu Vilayadu" movie. The song is composed by Harris Jayaraj. The movie itself I like especially the NewYork scenes where Kamal goes to investigate the serial killers and the interesting dialogues with Jothika. The scenes of NewYork triggers another thread in my mind. Sujatha's (Tamil writer) 'Pirivom Sandhipom' novel. Part II of that novel has great narrations of the protagonist's time there , the love, education, twists etc. The description of NewYork is from the angle of a student from tirunelveli background attending a university.

Coming back, Harris in this song and in other songs I liked from "Vaaranam Aayiram" is very structured. I mean the music follows a pattern which I don't see it with the latest Rahman's songs. By this I don't mean I dislike ARR. In fact I mean to say that I like ARR's lack of structure or unpredictability more. Especially the 'Mannipaya' song from 'Vinnai Thaandi Varuvaya' Tamil movie is a good example of the unpredictability of the turn of the tunes and the background score that comes and goes. I don't think it is a tune that can be played easily on your keyboard and it will in the end appear catchy. The song gets its value from the unpredictability and the orchestration itself.  I feel ARR has experimented more in his songs not only with instruments, singers, tunes but also with the way the song flows. It takes unpredictable turns and he seem to some how go anywhere he wants and finally be able to conclude aptly.

This I feel is like the way some one paints a modern art. They may start with a basic idea. But as they progress with the colors and sketches, new thoughts emerge. This is very much after seeing the interim output and based on that the next steps occur. This is like a continuous feedback loop. As a work of art or music progresses, you get new meanings and you change the course which is a more logical step and which would not have occurred to you when you began the work. I am sure most of the creativity hinges on continuous feedback and leaving it to guide the next step. This is not something a person with commercial interests would agree with. I feel humanity always evolves towards elegance, aesthetics in all the fields along with the utilitarian value of something.

I treat software also in this category. Developing software products of your own begins with some initial idea. However, as coding happens new things emerge. You read, hear, try new things. They can be new business models, new requirements, altogether new deviating ideas and so on. This is especially the case if you create software for yourself without time pressures, without some one having a concreteness about the outcome and the goals are absolutely driven by flow guided by usefulness and ease of use. That is where I feel even software turns into a work of art. The more you spend time thinking on what you are doing and refining it, it becomes more beautiful.

Note 1: I realize this article itself highlights the aspect of the 'flow'. It seem to meander from music to art to software one feeding as a input to the next guiding the overall flow.