Creativity’s a funny thing. Not only is it often thought of as an intangible quality that is bestowed on a rare fortunate few , but we are somewhat used to thinking that those rare few work alone, or that they at the very least, call the shots. Creative agencies have people called ‘creatives’, whose job it is to be creative and direct other people who aren’t creative.

Now of course we have partnerships like Lennon and McCartney, Simon and Garfunkel, Morecambe and Wise, Adam and Joe, examples of people who were on the same wavelength to such an extent that they can produce things which are wonderfully more than the sum of their parts.

But lately I’ve got thinking that creativity itself is starting to take a different turn. Permit me to take you on a tangential dive into one of my pet loves.

Those who know me will know that I go on about gaming a lot. Too much, perhaps. And not in a l33t speak, last-weekend-I-played-CoDMW2-til-my-eyes-bled kind of way, but in a way which acknowledges that gaming’s move into mainstream is an event of real cultural significance, and that entertainment and art may never be the same again.

I have also been, for some time, fairly convinced of the analogy between a game having a designer and a novel having a writer – great novels can be crafted into works of art because often they are written by people with singular visions, who have control over every line, word and punctuation point (to a degree – I realise this is a somewhat naive conception of the contemporary publishing world, at least).

As gaming and the means by which to create games became popularised over the last, say, 20 years, it has become more and more possible for the creators of computer games to exhibit an analogous level of control over their creations. Picture lone programmer/designers, hunched over their machines in the late hours, just as the penniless artist might at their desk furiously scribbling / painting / typing when in the throes of an idea on a dark night, until everything is Just. Right. I believed that if the trend continued, you would eventually get games which were just as honed, just as artful, as great novels.

However, having worked at a digital agency for some time now, it hit me the other day that that vision is unlikely to be the future, for computer games. I’m not discounting the possibility that single individuals can produce captivating gaming experiences; people like Jason Rohrer and Daniel Benmergui. But the thing about games is that they can be so complex and so full of variables, and require so many different skills, that actually the creativity you need to produce a great game is of a very different kind. Some games like Aquaria are created by designer – programmer collaborations, so you get a kind of Lennon-McCartney partnership, more still are created by small teams, like a band jamming to thrash out a song, and others are created by vast studios, like an entire orchestra getting together and saying ‘hey guys, shall we write a concerto? Dave, you take violin.’

To give an example: Bioshock contains innumerable imperceptible touches contributing to the feel of the game as a whole – the way that desks are left open when they’re searched; the way that Houdini splicers teleport in a plume of blood red mist; the way that lone enemies talk to themselves in wrecked corridors as a manifestation of their insanity.

Now, although it’s entirely possible that the same person came up with all of these little ideas, is it really likely? Is it likely that all of these were dictated by the same person who came up with the Ayn-Rand inspired dystopia that is Bioshock’s setting? Is it even likely that whoever decided to set the game in a decrepit, dripping art deco labyrinthine city under the sea, is an individual, rather than a group of writers?

Or is it more plausible that all of these things fell out of when a group of people threw everything they had into a Magimix and pressed ‘On’? For the record, I don’t know who came up with those ideas. Perhaps not even the people who came up with them know. Or maybe it was in fact all one person with a savant-like ability to describe the minutiae of a nightmare they had after finishing Atlas Shrugged in a single sitting.

To bring it back here, the point I’m making is that digital experiences are now so complex, so involved, that to rely on one person to call all of the creative shots would be a nightmare. I’ve produced websites with little touches which I couldn’t have foreseen and told a developer to implement – these decisions come out of discussions and collaboration, and that’s where creativity lies now. We’ve all heard about megalomaniacal directors or musicians dictating absolutely everything on the projects in which they’re involved – but that’s a very difficult thing to do with a digital experience, more so than anything else, I would venture.

And as digital experiences become increasingly common, and increasingly admired, perhaps that will change our conception of creativity. I’m not for a moment suggesting that there’s no room for an individual’s vision, or for the leadership of a creative team, but perhaps there will be less of an emphasis on “genius” as applied to an individual – perhaps what will be most important will be people’s capacity to interact with one another. If games (and digital experiences in general) will become significant contributions to culture, and many of those games are produced by teams, perhaps some of the most valuable contributions to culture in times to come will be put forth by groups, rather than lonely artists. Your thoughts, ladies and gents?

Creative, crowdsourcing, games, Gaming, social media

We at Open CC like to keep abreast of the latest developments in our sector – and one of the ways in which we do this is to keep a keen eye on some blogs that we like.

We have an internal newsletter which features the headlines from these blogs.

We thought it might be nice to share this newsletter with the readers of our own blog.

Simple as that. Enjoy!

Apple’s 4th-generation iPhone revealed: Gizmodo has revealed images of the new iPhone after one of Apple’s engineers left it in a pub.                       http://www.engadget.com/2010/04/19/apples-4th-generation-iphone-revealed/

LinkedIn makes new connections: Following Twitter’s announcement last week, LinkedIn announces new sponsored groups ad model.                                  http://www.adweek.com/aw/content_display/news/client/e3i3a5406892176b1a13aebfc0791db3154

Ingenious: Free music if you talk about it on Facebook or Twitter: Tweet-for-Track and FBConnect-to-Track mean artists can encourage their fans to spread the word about them in exchange for free music.                                                                 http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/04/ingenious-free-music-if-you-talk-about-it-on-facebook-or-twitter/#ixzz0leC1eEaY

Twitter’s @Anywhere service goes live: This service allows third-party websites to integrate Twitter functionality and content.                                              http://www.nma.co.uk/news/twitter%E2%80%99s-@anywhere-service-goes-live/3012339.article

iPhone and iPod applications for schools: Useful applications for teachers and schools, ranging from an app for managing timetables to a curious ‘PhoneBook’. http://www.teachingnews.co.uk/2010/02/iphone-and-ipod-apps-for-schools/

blogs, iPhone, iPod, LinkedIn, social media, Twitter

So a recent Geek Dad post on Wired.co.uk asks us whether children are getting spoiled by touch screen technology. It raises an interesting point, particularly in the context of Adam Standings description of catching his son: “smearing his hands all over the TV screen in a bizarre fashion. It turned out that he was trying to change channel the same way he had seen me select music on my iPhone by scanning the Cover Flow system.”

It also interestingly echoes Matthew Robson's glib declamation to Morgan Stanley last summer that 'anything with a touch screen is desirable&apos.

With the developments in gesture based control on the Wii, DS, Playstation Move and Natal, not to mention the iPad and MS Tablet, it&aposs not all that wild a speculation to suppose that the not-too-distant future may see office workers in their cubicles flinging images and files around a la Minority report, like a weird and solemn mass game of charades. But is it spoiling children? Are we setting them up for a fall? Well, no. At least, no more than the development of the telephone or the automobile did (which some might argue is a great deal). Let's imagine a situation where someone who grew up believing touch screen control was completely ubiquitous, was presented with a 1980's gameboy. At best it might excite their curiosity, in the same way that floppy disks or betamax do current adolescents. At worst, dripping disdain.

I would, however, be very surprised to see them left paralysedly clueless, pawing ineffectually at its 2 tone screen. But then, I rather naively think I could get along alright without my mobile phone.

What is worth noting is that Adam's son smearing his hands on the television set may be a harbinger of a real step change in UI design. As people's expectations change to the degree that they think every screen is a touch screen, so UI design will have to keep up. It may be that the UI designer's skillset may be virtually unrecognisable in a couple of years.

Design, touch screen, Usability

… is not an intangible unknown springing fully-armed from the genius of the few.  It takes work. A few helpful pointers in this little video, which I caught on the Plain Janes blog.  Thanks Janes!

Rethink Scholarship at Langara 2010 Call for Entries from Rory O'Sullivan and Simon Bruyn on Vimeo.

Creative