TechnoCreativity 2.0: Towards Innovative Societies
TechnoCreativity 2.0: Towards Innovative Societies.
People who do not separate art from science in the process of creation of new ideas increase their creativity and innovation. For this reason, education plays an important role since it is possible to educate through creativity without separating Humanities and Sciences. In 1966, ten artists belonging to Fluxus, an artistic movement, and ten engineers from Bell Labs,worked together to create ten performances shown in New York the same year. From this union, important innovations were born such as: cordless telephones, remote controls, infra-red cameras and more. Many of the engineering contributors, including Billy Klver who organized the event, acknowledged the success of joint collaboration and the use of scientific knowledge in a way never before experienced by them. Therefore, new technologies were developed because of artists needs to create their works. But today, our scientific and technological societies suffer from some phobia in connecting Humanities and Sciences within processes that generate new ideas. In the words of Robert M. Pirsig (2006) "All this technology has somehow made you a stranger in your own land". This feeling prevents innovation in those new methods of learning which could otherwise emerge and creativity is adversely affected in the same way.
Somehow, we have forgotten the power of imagination as a generator of ideas. Likewise, teachers and professors have to overcome barriers in teaching creativity in the Arts and Sciences. Innovation is strongly connected with creativity and industry requires innovation. An excellent example of creative learning in Arts and Sciences is the case of the Media Lab at MIT. As David Edwards says the MIT Lab "has over the last two decades pioneered new forms of media art and various technological bridges between art, science and industry.
The Bauhaus School and Black Mountain College are pioneering examples of creative learning academies and understanding Humanities and Sciences as knowledge without separation. It is true that the scientific thinking differs from art processes because science is founded on rigidly logics when dealing with Nature. But now, artistic thinking infuses science with imagination and offers opportunities to play with the creative process. Perhaps this creative process unpredictability combined with the scientific method, produces brilliant innovations and new ways of thinking which are more appropiate to our current era.
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EDWARDS, E. (2008): Artscience. Creativity in the post-Google Generation. Harvard University Press. Cambridge. London.
PIRSIG, R (2006): Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. An Inquiry Into Values. HarperCollinsPublishers.
New York. Catalogue of the exhibition (2006): 9 Evenings Reconsidered: Art, Theatre, and Engineering, 1966. MIT List Visual Arts Center. Cambridge. Massachusetts
