I am focused on creativity and expression and how we tap into a source of inspiration and are driven to express it.
You don’t write papers with titles like Letting Loose the Light, The Next Knowledge Medium, or Toward Portable Ideas if something like this isn’t on your mind.
Or a book titled Breakthrough for that matter.
Singers
This painting by Emily Davis Adams is one in a series of her paintings of Lorraine Hunt Lieberson. Each painting captures an instant, a still frame, from a video of Lieberson singing. As Emily said in in a note to my wife,
“… her music (voice) has been a great inspiration to me. When she sang this Aria, I felt she was really touching the great unknown, as it were.”
By their nature paintings are visual but silent.
Why do we feel Lieberson’s voice so keenly when we gaze on the painting?
Does it touch a powerful resonance in us of her creativity and expression?
Paradoxically, as you look quietly at the painting, you can experience the passion of her singing.
What did Adams feel as she saw Lieberson and created this?
Adams’ sense of touching the great unknown is sustained, evident not only in the painting, but also in the small water colors (left) that she did as studies for the series.
Creative Teams
My encounters with creativity have brought me in touch not only with “aha” moments of personal invention when a big idea comes forth, but also with intense moments in collaborative settings when a team working together creates something that none of them could have done on their own.
Eric Whitacre’s Virtual Choir (above) conveys some of the wonder you can feel when many voices come together in a choir, whether in a real hall or a virtual one with computers intermediating the contributions of the singers.
Opportunities Now: Questions
What technologies can foster the creation of ideas by teams?
What technologies can foster the movement of ideas so they can be shared?
What areas are ripe now for technology in exploring high performance creativity by teams?
These threads of creativity and collaboration may come together now in nascent projects of augmented team intelligence.