Articles Comments

David Porter » Entries tagged with "creativity"

The Great British Love and Tolerance of the Eccentric

Eccentrics are ‘off centre’ or ‘beyond the norms’ of others. They can be thought crazy, are unafraid to be different and add to the colour of British life. Eccentricity isn’t confined to the UK, though HistoryUK.com said: ‘England may be a small country but seems to have more true eccentrics than many larger countries’. All nationalities enjoy practical jokes, dress outrageously, behave to shock and have mindsets that see differently. French author David d’Equainville (Manifesto for a Day Put Off) founded International Procrastination Day, to promote ‘positive procrastination’ in the fast-paced, results-driven world. It’s an act of resistance against orders, a ‘defence mechanism’. He accepted some would delay the Day. Creatives are frequently eccentrics, too. Britain’s Official Monster Raving Loony Party manifesto (there’s also a US version), includes such ‘fun’ demands … Read entire article »

Filed under: Articles at Suite 101

Mash-Ups Mix the Old and the Now to Make Art for Today

People no longer expect to believe what they see and hear. With scant regard for truth, fusion technology dupes everyone in the name of fascinating art. Mash-ups of films, books and songs have been around for awhile. The same principles create a new form of visual art, too. Photographs that span time zones put people together who were not alive contemporaneously. Mash-up basically means creating a new art form from fusing existing works such as photos, video clips, graphics, text or animation. Computer manipulation technology makes it relatively easy, but there are some inventive, innovative and unusual new art works being born. Visual Image As Propaganda Jane Tallim, Media Awareness Network’s education specialist cited the city of Ottawa’s promotional brochure in 2001, which used a digitally-enhanced photo, a blended creation to convey a more … Read entire article »

Filed under: Articles at Suite 101

Creating Great Arts in Hard Economic Times

Tough periods for the arts and practitioners can be inspirational, producing original and challenging work; but is it necessary to suffer for the arts? As recession haunts the early 21st Century, and budgets are cut to tackle government debt and borrowing, people ask: What is the role of the arts in hard times? How do they help people deal with both social problems/crises and their own private fears? Writing in the UK’s Daily Telegraph, 23 October, 2010, Mark Hudson wondered: ‘Is austerity the mother of creativity?’ As a writer himself, he described the difficulty of earning a living writing, particularly in the UK, but said that financial pressure can act as creative spur when people are forced to be inventive to survive. The same may be true of arts organisations, theatres, dance studios, … Read entire article »

Filed under: Articles at Suite 101

Thought Experiments, Mind Games and Creativity

As thinking computers and self-propagating machines are virtually imminent, there is more than ever need for creative philosophical debate and questioning. Between 1996-2003, director of the nonprofit group, Mind Justice, Cheryl Welsh received over 1,800 claims of mind control. She found “a strong case that the US, Russia, and major countries are developing and conducting classified mind control non-consensual experiments.” This issue is addressed by major legislatures, some human rights groups and the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR). Her thesis considered cold war electromagnetic radiation and mind control weapons in the former USSR; previous experiments for weaponization; lack of legal protection for human subjects of state-secret experiments; and looked at various developments of ‘weapons to neutralize the enemy without killing’. All governments like to contain/control people, inside its borders and out, … Read entire article »

Filed under: Articles at Suite 101

Loyalty, An Old Fashioned Virtue Still Prized in Some Quarters

Has loyalty declined to merely a commercial exercise in customer building, or are some elements of fidelity still worth preserving today? The Free Dictionary offers definitions of loyalty as ‘The state or quality of being loyal. A feeling or attitude of devoted attachment and affection. Often used in the plural: My loyalties lie with my family. A feeling of allegiance’. However, there is little agreement on what one can or cannot be loyal to. Other people, institutions, places of work, belief systems, the personal family, the extended family, the criminal family, sports teams, the government, the country: all engage philosophers, psychologists, sociologists, psychiatrists, marketing/media gurus, political theorists in debate. At one end of the scale loyalty is patriotism; it’s antithesis is betrayal/treachery. It encompasses regimes regarded as odious (like Nazism, the wilder … Read entire article »

Filed under: Articles at Suite 101