The King of Pop

            Despite the controversy over his personal life, Michael Jackson was a legend. According to Vanity Fair’s article by Nancy Griffin, as of 2010 Thriller was still the most popular music video ever. And who can honestly say they’ve never attempted to copy Michael Jackson’s iconic dance from that 14-minute video? Although Michael Jackson’s music career is often overshadowed by allegations against him of sexual abuse against children, it is undeniable that his music and style were spectacular. He managed to overcome racial prejudice in order to become one of the most famous artists to ever live.

           

             While it is unfortunate that the eccentricity of Michael Jackson’s personality has overshadowed his amazing career, one has to wonder: is it right to ignore his idiosyncrasies either? The controversial and conflicting character of Michael Jackson has many parallels to both Sternberg (1984) and Csikzsentmihalyi’s (1997) theories of creative personalities. Michael Jackson was a magnetic character. He was good-looking, and a life-long entertainer. He had an imaginative dance style, and killer vocals. On top of all this talent, Michael Jackson was extremely ambitious. From the start of his career, he compared his own successes to those of major stars like Madonna. With this desire for accomplishment came his pride from his success. Rather than being embarrassed about his royal title, “King of Pop”, Michael Jackson accepted and encouraged it. At the same time, Michael Jackson was humble—even timid. He recognized his own flaws, and even spoke about them with those who worked closely with him.

            Perhaps the most haunting dichotomy of his personality was the split between wisdom and naivety. Michael Jackson was a prodigy. From a very young age, Michael Jackson was touring with his brothers as the Jackson 5. He was the star almost from the start, and his father worked him very hard. Michael Jackson frequently reflected how he never had a childhood; instead, almost from birth he had joined the work force under his father’s management. Perhaps this contributed to his retained childishness, his naivety especially about relationships with people. His best friends were children; he said he felt more comfortable with them. As reported by Griffin, one of the children Michael Jackson was friends with, Ryan Folsey, remembered Jackson as being at a mental age of 13 when he was actually 25. One of the men who helped choreograph Thriller claims that Michael Jackson would ask him very simple questions about sex, questions that a man of 25 years would be expected to know, and even accuses Michael Jackson of being “’socially retarded’” (Vanity Fair).

 At the same time, however, Michael Jackson was a creative genius. In the fields of business and entertainment, Michael Jackson excelled. It appears that his early devotion to his career—which was, to a large extent, forced on him—compromised his emotional development. He only knew how to be an amazing artist, he didn’t know how to socialize with anyone besides the three mannequins in his bedroom that he called friends. Michael Jackson stands as a tragic prodigy, a man who exemplifies many of the dichotomies characteristic of creative personalities. Early preeminence and a strict father-manager led to a King who was emotionally too young to rule.  

Reference:

Griffin, Nancy. "Michael Jackson's Thriller." Vanity Fair. July 2010. Web. 28 Feb. 2016. 

<http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2010/07/michael-jackson-thriller-201007>.  

Authenticating Oneself as a Human and the Digitization of Books

Ever find yourself hurryingly trying to buy a ticket to that not- to- be missed concert? You scroll down all the way to the bottom of the page to find a box prompting you to type out some distorted array of characters. How annoying right! These pesky barriers that are in between you are your coveted concert ticket are called CAPTCHAs and they’re actually quite useful! CAPTCHAs prevent ticket scalpers from creating computer programs that can buy up all your tickets even before you have a chance to finish typing your name. CAPTCHAs work because humans have no trouble deciphering those squiggly words while computers simple can’t do so just yet. So, while typing up a CAPCHA might take those full ten seconds, you’re actually validating yourself as a human! Cool right?

  

Sometimes the random sequence of word pairing is not so fortunate 

Howard Gardner, a researcher of creativity, defines a creative individual as someone who. "defines new questions in a domain in a way that initially considered novel but that ultimately becomes accepted in a particular cultural setting" (p. 66). Well it turns out, 200 million CAPTCHAs are typed a day (impressive). Although strange and somewhat annoying the first time you see a CAPTCHA, today they have become a very normal process when buying tickets. However, that means that humanity as a whole waists about 500 thousand human hours A DAY typing out CAPTCHAs. So, the creator of this program, Luis von Ahn, decided he wanted to use this otherwise wasted time towards the betterment of humanity.  

BUT HOW

He realized that what makes CAPTCHAs so special is a person’s ability to authenticate themselves as a human through this program. Luis von Ahn asked himself what is a problem that computers can not solve, but that humans can in time frames of ten second chunks. This creative is doing what J. Jason van Steenburgh and his fellow researchers like to call reconstructing a problem by, "developing a representation of the problem and applying heuristics to transform the problem space so that it looks like the solution space" (p. 481). This is an example of an exceptionally creative person discovering a problem no one knew existed and solving this problem. Luis von Ahn realized that CAPTCHAs, although necessary, took up so much of humanity’s time. So he sought a solution by trying to think of an already existing problem that could be solved by the element of a CAPTCHA that make’s it so special.

Ready for his brilliant answer?

Through his reimagined Re- CAPTCHA project, each time a person authenticates themselves as a human through a CAPTCHA, they also are helping to digitize very old pieces of text! (mind blown). See, most computers are unable to translate old, worn, squiggly text from ancient articles of writing. But guess who can – YOU! Every time you scroll down to the bottom of your page to find two CAPTCHAs, you can go ahead an pat yourself on the back for doing such good work for the betterment of humanity.

Here's the video! Definitely worth the view! 

Works Cited: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ht4qiDRZE8
Gardner, Howard. Creating Minds. Basic Books. 1993, 2011. 
Steenburgh, J. Jason, & Fleck, Jessuca I., Beeman, Mark, Kounios, John. (2012). Insight. The Oxford Handbook of Thinking and Reasoning. 

What are the Arts of Life?

As a Recreation and Leisure Intern at Misericordia, I see creativity around every corner of my job.  Misericordia is a residential facility for adults living with developmental disabilities ranging across the spectrum.  I specifically assist with art, yoga, and dance classes.  Living with a disability requires creativity to simply manage every day tasks. Yet, through art, music, yoga, dance, and more—the residents at Misericordia strive to express their creativity in unlimited ways.  My experiences at Misericordia inspired me to search out other communities for Creatives living with disabilities, which led me to the Arts of Life studio in Chicago.

The Arts of Life studio is a space for artists both with and without disabilities to work together and create together.  The studio functions somewhat in a co-op model. Whenever a new artist wants to join the space, the entire community must vote and agree upon it. The studio was started by three individuals—a 70-year-old woman (commonly referred to as “granny”) with an intellectual disability and a mental illness, a “self-taught, unconventional artist” and a professional with knowledge about developmental disabilities.  The three founders brought in nine others with developmental disabilities who had been living together.

Collaboration is the key component of the Arts of Life studio, as evidenced by their motto: “Creating. Sharing. Growing.” The creating and sharing components are obvious in the co-op and the art, but it is the growing component that I find most creative.  The studio runs on four core values:

1.     Inspiring artistic expression

2.     Building community

3.     Promoting self-respect

4.     Developing independence

The most unique part of the studio is that it is actually a Developmental Training (DT) program, which is why growth is the third portion of the motto.  For people with developmental disabilities, behavioral issues can often arise. DT programs assist in behavioral modification in hopes of adjusting the individual into everyday life activities such as maintaining a job, education, or other extracurricular activities.  Arts of Life is considered an “alternative” DT program for people who may have had issues in other programs.  My mentor and supervisor, Sarah Wainright, had an internship at Arts of Life in college and described the studio as “very punk” and a space for people who “enjoy the autonomy of art.” The studio is a space of growth for a community that holds artists of all types to a free and autonomous lifestyle of creativity, development, and expression.

I think the creative idea that rings most true from Gardner’s text in the Arts of Life Studio is the triangle of relationships diagrammed as themes in the text—but most importantly the relationship between an individual and other persons in his or her world.  I think creativity, especially in the traditional art sense, is thought of to be an individual activity.  The Arts of Life studio dismantles this idea completely, just as Gardner writes, “the role of other individuals is crucial throughout their development” (p.8). The creating and sharing process at Arts of Life studio needs a community in order for artists with and without disabilities to flourish.  Most uniquely, the "alternative" developmental training program implores the assistance of other individuals and commands growth from all participants in an innovative way. 

Works Cited: 

http://artsoflife.org/our-story

http://www.misericordia.com/

Sarah Wainright Interview (February 18, 2016)

Creating Minds by Howard Gardner

Photos of art by studio artists: 

Tiger by Pam Robe

Skeleton Girl by Danny Frownfelter

Medium: Blood (Artist's)

Ice, chocolate, garbage...in the 21st century, many of those who appreciate modern art have come to accept materials for sculpture that deviate from the traditional metal, clay, and stone. But perhaps the most shocking medium that has been used to date is the sculptor's own blood. That's right, 52-year-old Marc Quinn has been sculpting self-portraits of himself...using himself. The London-based artist has created a new sculpture every 5 years since 1991, using a cast of his head and about 10 pints of his own coagulated blood which he collects over time. 

His series of these sculptures, titled Self, enthralled the public and confounded critics, setting the tone for his out-of-the-box works that explore unconventional themes - from Sphinx (2006) to The Toxic Sublime exhibition (2015). Marc Quinn's art certainly embodies divergent thinking. He said in one interview that he chose the blood medium because he wanted to "push the material boundaries of sculpture," not to mention that “blood was the only part of my body I could take out without mutilating myself.” 

In his book, Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi questions what traits distinguish those who are exceptionally creative. He writes, "If I had to express in one word what makes their personalities different from others, it would be complexity. They contain contradictory extremes - instead of being an individual each of them is a multitude." Quinn studied history and art history at the University of Cambridge, and says that he never had any formal art training - which was certainly different than many of his contemporaries. In the early 1990's, however, he became prominent as one of the original Young British Artists, a group known for turning London's contemporary art scene upside down with their provocative work and reckless ideas. These artists refused to wait for institutional approval to present their work, and, in Quinn’s view, “the idea of bringing real life into art" is what united them. 

This notion can certainly be found in Self, which Quinn sees as "a 21st-century vision of progress," inspired by Rembrandt's series of self-portraits. He wanted to express his aging and changing self, a look into all of the complexities of a creative. In fact, Self was made at a time when Quinn was struggling with alcoholism. Perhaps the most profound description Quinn provides of Self is,"it depends on my life to be created – it’s made from the substance of me; and so I think of it as the purest form of sculpture to sculpt your own body, from your own body." 

Sources:

http://marcquinn.com/exhibitions/solo-exhibitions/selfs

http://www.artnews.com/2014/05/12/marc-quinn-as-middle-aged-young-british-artist/

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow: The psychology of optimal experience. New York: Harper & Row.

When Misanthrope Met Melody: The Legacy of Serge Gainsbourg

My first encounter with the music of Serge Gainsbourg happened about a year ago while sitting in a bourgie little café in one of the more chic neighborhoods of Santiago, Chile. This café had a tendency of playing the same loop of easy listening music on repeat — given how often and for how long I would find myself frequenting the establishment to catch up on homework or writing, I grew accustomed to drowning out the seemingly bland playlist with my own music. One day, however, before I could put on my headphones, my ears perked up at the sound of a jaunty organ opening and a breathy falsetto declaring "je t'aime, je t'aime" over and over again. Now I only know enough French to earn a few bemused looks from a native speaker at best, but from the first few verses I already knew this song was something else. The lead male singer was practically growling into the mic, whispering half-spoken, half-sung little nothings that only could have meant one thing for his female counterpart. And then, much like the patrons at the Parisian café that received the distinct honor of being the first audience to hear "Je t'aime...moi non plus" (I love you...me neither), I put down my coffee cup in astonishment at the sound of what can only be described as a woman having a very convincing orgasm (real or fake, the world will never know).

What in God's name had I just heard? I quickly discovered the song was one of the most well-known French language songs by perhaps the greatest French musician to date: Serge Gainsbourg. It turns out that, similar to other non-French speakers, I discovered Gainsbourg through the shock of the new of "Je t'aime" and went from there. I was immediately struck by just how prolific of a musician, artist, and creator this self-proclaimed ugly, misanthropic lothario turned out to be. This wasn't your grandmother's French chanson heartthrob: this guy was making lyrical innuendos, wooing one "it girl" after the other, self-medicating heart attacks with a steady diet of cigarettes and alcohol, and generally making an ass of himself left and right until the day he died.

Despite being one of the most polemic figures in French culture, no one can deny that Gainsbourg was anything less than a genius when it came to creating new and unexpected musical endeavors. Be it jazzy chanson (French pop) songs about suicidal train station ticket attendants, scandalous Eurovision entries about "lollipops,” seductive duets with his bombshell muses, a rock and roll album about the Nazis, or even a reggae version of the French national anthem, Gainsbourg was a seemingly endless well of creative energy; he wrote over 550 songs over the span of his career. While you don’t need to know French to appreciate his genius, any francophile will tell you that one of the most enduring and impressive aspects of Gainsbourg’s music is his clever yet almost subversive wordplay. His mastery of puns, innuendo, rhyme, and wit only adds to the charm of the already innovative instrumentals. Much like Picasso or Stravinsky, just as he created a new trend, he was already off cooking up another shock-wave. As Howard Gardner describes, artists like these consistently create innovation after innovation while always alluding (albeit in an original and distinct way) to earlier artistic milestones of previous generations (10).

But for me (as well as many music critics), Gainsbourg's magnum opus is the 1971 concept album Histoire de Melody Nelson. At only 28 minutes, the story focuses on the narrator (Gainsbourg) falling in love with a young English teenager named Melody Nelson (Jane Birkin, Gainsbourg’s most famous lover) after accidentally hitting her with his Rolls Royce. Their Nabakov-style romance ends, however, when Melody dies in a freak plane crash brought on by a mysterious cult. The music is ahead of its time in its fusion of funk, gorgeous orchestration and choral arrangements by Jean-Claude Vannier, and a formidable, near spoken-word performance by Gainsbourg. The accompanying music video is the perfect example of early 1970s France: psychedelic, artistic, perverse, groovy, and inexplicably cool all at once. The legacy of the album lives on — the first sign of its influence is heard in the bassline of Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wild Side,” and other musicians picked up bits and pieces of its style as time went on.

The only way I can describe listening/watching the album unfold is by comparing it to the first time I saw the original Nijinsky choreography to Stravinsky's ballet The Rite of Spring. There was something so inherently weird, if not outright sick, about the whole ordeal, yet something about it was so intriguing that I couldn't help but grow to love it with each subsequent listen (nota bene: do not watch either work right before bed — you will probably have some very trippy, if not downright alarming, dreams).

When Gainsbourg died in 1991, then French President François Mitterrand declared, “he was our Baudelaire, our Apollinaire… He elevated the song to a level of art.” Despite the tendency for some to write him off as a dirty old drunken cynic, I think it’s safe to say that his true legacy as a champion of “the shock of the new” will live on every time some unsuspecting listener has to put down their coffee cup in disturbed fascination. As he put it, “ugliness is in a way superior to beauty because it lasts.”

Sources:

http://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2011/feb/28/serge-gainsbourg-20-scandalous-moments

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/12852-histoire-de-melody-nelson/

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/15717-gainsbourg-percussions/

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2001/feb/02/culture.features

Gardner, Howard. "Chance Encounters in Wartime Zurich. Creating Minds: An Anatomy of Creativity Seen through the Lives of Freud, Einstein, Picasso, Stravinsky, Eliot, Graham, and Gandhi. New York: Basic, 1993. 10. Print.

Joshua Miels

Nowadays, you can scroll through your Instagram feed for five minutes and discover 50 new artists in the palm of your hand. Despite there being so many ideas already out there, we continue to be impressed by the creativity and work put forth by random strangers. Even though I’ve looked at more artists' profiles than I'd like to admit, Joshua Miels' fresh innovation has made him unforgettable in my mind. Joshua Miels, a contemporary portrait artist from Australia, isn’t afraid to switch it up. He combines traditional and modern techniques, jumps between different media, and lets his mood dictate the tone of his artwork.

Like Einstein and other creatives, Miels has a strong visual imagination. He doesn’t start with a final image in his mind, but rather lets the work challenge and surprise him.

Another commonality between Miels and Einstein is their early childhood curiosity within their domain (art). His earliest memories of drawing were “gluing toilet paper to a sheet of card and pouring a lot of different coloured paints onto the page.”  

Reminiscent of other creatives we have studied, Joshua Miels has a wandering imagination and an active mind. In interviews, he has explained that he cannot stay with a style longer than a few weeks. His mind keeps moving forward and doesn’t stick within the limitations of what he knows. Miels isn’t afraid to listen to the constant stream of ideas that flow through his mind. He’s comfortable with the idea of the unknown and isn’t intimidated by the option of failing.

Most importantly, Miels integrates various styles and isn’t afraid to take inspiration from other artists. While he views his biggest challenge as finding time to paint, he credits this “lack of time” for forcing him to develop a wide range of skills by studying other artists. His style is a “collaboration of many artists” he loves, brought together into his own unique work. He proves to us that collaboration is a necessary component of creativity. Even those who work in solitude still depend on their outside environment to stimulate their mind and provide the building blocks for new ideas. Gardner mentions that Einstein revered Newton even though he was willing to stand alone with his work. This ability to draw upon others for inspiration relates back to Csikszentmihalyi's three nodes of creativity: the individual talent, the field, and the domain.

Creation isn’t solitary. Not only does creation require us to build upon others’ work, but it also demands that we are capable of building upon ourselves. While Joshua Miels began as a graphic designer for packaging, he wasn’t afraid to let painting cross the line from hobby to career. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the bodies of material already out there, and it’s easy to feel underwhelmed by your own originality. Joshua Miels shows us that it’s even harder to remain uninspired by the world around us. 




Sources:
https://www.instagram.com/joshuamiels/
http://joshuamiels.com/whats-on-the-box
http://www.t-squat.com/josh-miels/
http://www.emptykingdom.com/featured/ek-interview-josh-miels/ 
Gardner, H. Creating Minds: An Anatomy of Creativity Seen through the Lives of Freud, Einstein, Picasso, Stravinsky, Eliot, Graham, and Gandhi. New York: Basic, 2011. Print.