O(map) course opening lesson.
Hello everyone and welcome to this opening lecture of the O(map) creativity course.
My Name is Catherine Barron, and I am the author of the O(Map) theory of creativity, and the course designer and facilitator. I am delighted to have you along on this journey of discovery and look forward to getting better acquainted with you.
Let’s get straight down to business.
This first session will deal with equipping you with the extra skills you require to augment your normal mode of communication, so that you can participate comprehensively with every aspect of this course, particularly those concepts that are beyond the reach of the expressive capabilities of verbal language.
You will have read in the introductory blog what those difficulties are and why extending ways in which we think, feel, see and communicate is necessary.
This method of working is something that I developed so as to overcome these difficulties myself, as my research into creativity became completely mired by trying to examine it by means ill equipped for the job. Knowledge or information about creativity is scientifically describable within a certain bandwidth of the creativity spectrum. However, verbal language and scientific data alone, is not enough to make accessible the full spectrum of creativity that is available to human beings. It is rather akin to the phenomenon of qualia, which is a knowing that is non transferrable by descriptive language or any other external means. Qualia it is something only knowable by personal conscious experience.
Because creativity is the life force of evolving consciousness, it is only through conscious experience that it can be fully understood and accessed. You will have already received a brief discussion on Frank Jackson’s thought experiment, Mary’s room in your preparation document, and where ever you stand on the argument as to whether or not it disproves physicalism, none of these arguments around the thought experiment take into account one other glaring fact that has been tested empirically; that is, that despite the probable similarity in our conscious experience of colour, that experience is always individualistic and completely subjective when we are asked to respond to how these colours relate to each other.
Let me clarify that. Identification of colours within the spectrum is something we may agree upon, the expressive qualities of their various accumulative effects, is not. Finding your own authentic response to colour relationships, means that you have tapped into a part of conscious experience that is exclusive to you as an individual. It is not a matter of opinion or taste; these can be cultivated and are often the result of cultural and other kinds of environmental conditioning. It is a matter of resonance, and even though you cannot say exactly what will resonate with you or why, you will know it when you find it or it finds you. It is in this resonant knowing, that the creative force moves most fluidly.
Of equal importance, is haptic activation. Working with your hands opens up a channel for another type of communication with yourself, that is widely recognized in therapeutic circles for its ability to tap authentic hidden or unconscious knowledge. The process is simultaneously mindful and meditative, a unique combination of opposite psychic orientations, where the mind is both focused on its task as well as open, idle, and receptive. The reason for this, is that a range of oppositional neural networks in the brain that usually counteract each other, work cooperatively during a creative activity. We will delve into this further when we look at what neuroscience contributes to creativity research in a couple of weeks.
For many people, the very word art is forbidding. If you are not an artist or have little interest in art, you might think it a lunacy to try to deliver this very complex subject to non-artists in this way. I am aware that this method of working may be off putting and even frightening for some. I am aware that Modern and Contemporary art in particular, can be challenging on a conceptual level and many people simply don’t know what to think about it. This is not to patronise you in any way, I am an artist with an interest in art all my life and I am often confounded by the ambiguous complexity of contemporary art works and the density of the language that is supposed to make them accessible. On the upside, creativity is not about what you think, it is about how you see, and one of the ways you see, without having to think anything about it, is in colour.
Marrying creativity to the subtractive colour model, gives visibility to a phenomenon that is very difficult to fully understand by the use of information to describe it. As forces of nature, light and creativity just so happen to share a number of characteristics and so, understanding how one works, gives us a way of seeing how the other one might work also. It is a conceptual correlation, not a scientific one, but nevertheless, I have found this correlation to be abundantly clarifying. So, our first lesson is all about colour and how we are going to use it as a vehicle of both understanding and expression. This we will do through a combination of instructional videos and practical exercises.
The first video you will watch, is a brief over view of colour theory, the subtractive colour model theory to be precise. We actually perceive colour in 12 different ways, but the subtractive colour model is the theory of colour pigments, which is what we are dealing with in art making with material colour such as paint. It is also available as a fully illustrated transcript for you to download in hardcopy and keep as a reference for your files. You may need to refer back to it from time to time.
What I am providing for you is a tailor-made synopsis of a sprawling subject that is widely researched and written about, and there are many artists that have dedicated their careers to exploring colours’ bottomless potential for expression. You could research this subject for a lifetime, without discovering all of its mysteries, and that is its gift, its beauty and its fascination. So how much further research you want to take on, either academically or artistically, is up to you. What I will present here however, is ample to get you started and more than enough information to help you fulfil your assignments. It is also enough to be a useful metaphor, by which you will be able to see and understand, what creativity is and how it works with ease. That is the whole point of the o(map), it is a way to make something very complex visible, so that it can be easily seen and understood.
The second video, demonstrates a series of techniques that you will find helpful if you have never painted or made any visual art before. It is divided into several shorts of less than a minute, so that you do not need to look through the whole reel to look again at any one thing. Here we will deal with every item in your tool kit, including how you will compile your 5 reference folders, and how you will interact with your diary.
The third video, will explain the exercise brief on subjective timber, the transcript for which is downloadable in hard copy. There are two parts to this brief, part (a) and (b). Part (b) will not be downloadable until you have uploaded the completed the assignment in part (a). I will give you feed back by slack on part (a) within 24 hours of your assignment being uploaded so that you can proceed with part (b) with the benefit of a critique from myself as well as from your fellow students. All assignments and feedback will be in the public forum. Student participation is vital to the quality and potential expansiveness of your learning experience.
This exercise on subjective timber, was devised by Johannes Itten of the Buahaus almost a century ago, and in all the years that I have used this exercise, it has never failed to deliver for a student of any back round, and regardless of artistic experience, a successful and authentic subjective expression of the brief requirements.
So don’t worry, there is no right or wrong way to do this exercise, there is only a way for you to discover what resonates with you and what doesn’t. All you have to do is pay attention to your own responses until you find it or it finds you.
If you have any questions at all about the first lesson, please enter them into slack, either to the general chat room so that everyone can see them, or privately to me. I will address every enquiry with 24 hours.
Lastly, I hope you enjoy every minute of this exciting adventure. I can promise you it will be an adventure. It will be surprising, illuminating and ultimate empowering. You will come to understand more about what it is to be a creative being and how you can master the creative force that is within you.
Good luck. Have fun. And talk to you all soon.
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