John Haworth PhD Visiting Research Fellow Manchester Metropolitan University

Optimal Experience, Creativity, and the Aesthetics of Everyday Life

Haworth,J.T. (2015) ‘Creativity in Digital Fine Art’ In (ed) A. Scarinzi. Aesthetics and the Embodied Mind: Beyond Art Theory and the Cartesian Mind-Body Dichotomy.’Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag.

www.creativity-embodiedmind.com

Protest. Collagraph

My postgraduate qualifications are in both psychology and fine art.

This interdisciplinary paper draws links between both qualitative and quantitative research in psychology into optimal experience, flow and enjoyment; and practice-led research into creativity and embodied mind.

The links demonstrate the interplay between cognition, emotion and environment.

Comments are made on the aesthetics of everyday life.

Csikszentmihalyi and Csikszentmihalyi (1988) report in-depth

accounts of optimal experience or ‘flow’, as it was termed by dancers, (Csikszentmihalyi 1975).

The main dimensions of enjoyable flow are seen as:

Balance between skill and challenge,

Intense involvement,

Clarity of goals and feedback,

Deep concentration,

Transcendence of self,

Lack of self consciousness,

Loss of a sense of time,

Intrinsically rewarding experience.

Csikszentmihalyi (1991, p 36) notes that in the flow state there is little distinction between self and environment. It is considered that flow can be obtained in almost any activity.

Optimal experience, or flow, has often been measured using the experience sampling method, where participants are signalled on a bleeper (now mobile phone) several times a day for several days and answer questions at each signal on the challenge of the activity they are engaged in, such as high, medium and low, and whether their skills are equal to, greater than, or lower than the challenge. They are also asked questions at each signal on aspects of their subjective wellbeing, such as happiness, interest etc. Optimal experience or ‘flow’ is considered to occur when moderate or high challenge is met with equal skill, and be associated with subjective wellbeing.

Innovative psychological research into daily life using the Experience Sampling Method, where participants were signalled on a mobile phone several times a day for seven days and took a photo of their activity and answered several questions at each signal , including visual interest (Siddiquee, Sixsmith, Lawthom and Haworth 2014) shows a significant association between enjoyment, happiness, interest and visual interest. Enjoyable flow experiences came from a range of activities in both work and leisure, as did high visual interest experiences. The study replicates several earlier studies (Haworth 1997).

Delle Fave and Massimini (2003) note that creative activities in leisure, work and social interaction can give rise to ‘flow’ or ‘optimal’ experiences, and that these experiences foster individual development and an increase in skills in the lifelong cultivation of specific interests and activities.

Practice-led Research in Creativity.

I make traditional prints, such as etchings, lino cuts, screen-prints, and also digital prints

My practice-led research into creativity draws on the writings of the philosopher-psychologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty who gave us a route to follow rather than a finished theory

In ‘Phenomenology of Perception’ he presents knowing and understanding as embodied action. His writings using the critical reflections of artists constitute an embodiment theory of art, which he used to support his embodiment theory of perception.

Towards the Future. Digital

Embodiment Theory of Art

Art is viewed as ‘enriched being’, in its own right, as distinct from an analogue for an external truth or essence, as traditional aesthetic theory claims.

It proposes that this enriched being is not produced primarily by intentional acts, the traditional view, but by the reciprocal influence of consciousness, the body, techniques and materials.

It “gives visible existence to what profane vision believes to be invisible” (Merleau-Ponty, 1964 ‘Eye and Mind’ p166).

Merleau-Ponty also claimed “that modes of thought correspond to technical methods, and that to use Goethe’s phrase ‘what is inside is also outside’ ’’ (‘Sense and Nonsense’ 1964 b, p 59 ).

ProjectA project by the author combining research and practice investigated ‘Creativity and Embodied Mind in Digital Fine Art’. The project was funded under the Innovation Awards Scheme of the Arts and Humanities Research Board in the UK.

The methods of research are interlocking and included creative practice and reflection, literature and gallery research, interviews, workshops, and a website. www.creativity-embodiedmind.com

During the making of the prints, a log is kept of both the technical and thought processes involved. Notes are made on the interaction with the medium, and on the development of the work and emergent meanings, and reflections on the creative process.

The practice based research making many digital art prints, which can be seen in the gallery at www.creativity-embodiedmind.com , shows visual explorations undertaken with the computer can influence what one ‘sees’ in the world, what comes into focus and what demands attention, influencing what is recorded experientially, mentally, and digitally.

In turn, this influences further explorations with the computer.

Artistic vision is constantly reshaping itself in interaction with the world, including technology, geographical place, culture and events.

As cognition and emotion are intertwined, feelings influence seeing, as well as the reverse. Expression is also influenced by the tools and techniques that are available, and with the interaction with materials, with different potentialities and ‘voices’ emerging.

New Protest Digital

Exhibition: Exploring Boundaries

Crushed

The print Crushed, was one of several I exhibited on the theme of Protest, in an Exhibition: Exploring Boundaries. It commenced using an ink pen drawing, made of protests in Tahrir square in the spring of 2013 as shown on TV. After printing and then over-printing with a linocut, the initial drawing was crushed and scanned into the computer, which inadvertently produced an image in the centre of the crushed paper which looked like a giraffe. Earlier it was thought that it could be interesting if the cuttings of the linocut were scanned with the original crushed paper image. They might also hide the giraffe! To enable this, a portion of transparent acetate was cut and glued over the crushed image and lino cuttings. They were crushed again at considerable pressure. The printed scanned image was overprinted with the lino cut. The images and the process can be seen in the power point presentation at Developmemts:Projects at www.creativity-embodiedmind.com The crushed image is facilitated by the interaction with materials and technology, influenced by concepts, feelings and random happenings

The figurative print of ballet dancers ‘Out of lightness into dark’, also shown in the exhibition , commenced as a photo from a newspaper, and is strongly influenced by a linocut I did of the subject. It echoes the idea of ‘Protest’.

New Spring. This print came out of work I had been doing using wax painting to portray protesting figures, and abstract lines creating a work on Dysjunction. These were scanned into the computer. It was done on the first day of spring when daffodils were opening, which were photographed, and downloaded into the computer. The images were transposed using Adobe photoshop, The title ‘New Spring’ just occurred. It dawned on me that it fitted in with Protest, e.g. Arab Spring: Hoped for new beginning.

Together, these and other prints I exhibited, show that cognition and emotion are embodied and interdependent. They illustrate the state of emotion-cognition coherence (appraisal of a situation, an affective tone, and an action plan) in bodily sense making in aesthetic experience.

They can be seen in the CDROM based on the exhibition ‘Creativity: Exploring Boundaries’.

The Aesthetics of Everyday Life

VISUAL INTEREST The study by (Siddiquee, Sixsmith, Lawthom and Haworth, 2014) showed that Optimal Experience ( enjoyable ‘flow’ measured as moderate and high challenge met with equal skill) came from a range of activities in both work and leisure. The study also shows a significant association between enjoyment, happiness, interest and visual interest. High visual interest scores came from paid work, life work and leisure, with the greatest number coming from leisure, and included social activities, playing with children, walking, reading, computer games, and watching TV.

Melchionne (2014) ‘ The Definition of Everyday Aesthetics’ published in Contemporary Aesthetics, argues that the point of everyday aesthetic activity is well-being.

He discusses everyday aesthetics as those aspects of our lives marked by widely shared, daily routines or patterns to which we tend to impart an aesthetic character. These can include, amongst other things, social interaction, and going out into the world to work or on errands, possibly selecting a path we may enjoy, which may have an aesthetic character. The aesthetic satisfactions of everyday life may be modest, but their pervasiveness makes them important. Wellbeing is greatly dependent on everyday aesthetic life.

Orange at Sunset 2015

A photograph marginally manipulated with digital software.

Everyday Aesthetics

In Conclusion. We can thus see in practice the simultaneous felt cognitive –emotional dimensions in interaction with the environment through the aroused lived body.

References

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1975) Beyond boredom and anxiety. San Francisco: Jossey- Bass.Csikszentmihalyi, M.(1991) Flow: The Psychology of Optimal ExperienceNew York. Harper Perennial.Csikszentmihalyi, M.,& Csikszentmihalyi, I.S. (1988) Optimal Experience: Psychological Studies of Flow in Consciousness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Delle Fave. A, and Massimini, F. (2003) Optimal experience in work and leisure among teachers and physicians: individual and bio-cultural implications. Leisure Studies, 22, 4, 323-42‘Exhibition Booklet: Exploring Boundaries’. Exhibition curated by Tim Dolphin, John Haworth and Sandra Bouguerch. Neo Studios. Bolton 2014. Downloadable PDF at www.creativity-embodiedmind.com at Developments:projectsHaworth, J.T. (1997) Work, Leisure and Well-being. London: Routledge.Haworth, J., Dolphin, T., Bouguerch, S. ‘Creativity: Exploring Boundaries’ CDROM ISBN 978-1-900140-00-8 ISSN 1-900140-00-3 Manchester Metropolitan University.Melchionne, K. (2014).The Definition of Everyday Aesthetics. Contemporary Aesthetics. Merleau-Ponty, M. (1964 a) Eye and mind in J.M.Eddie, ed, The primacy of perception Evanston ILL. North Western Univ. Press.Merleau-Ponty, M. (1964 b) Sense and nonsense Evanston ILL. North Western Univ. Press. Siddiquee, A, Sixsmith, J, Lawthom, R., Haworth, J. (2014) Paid work, life-work and leisure: A study of wellbeing in the context of academic lives in Higher Education. Leisure Studies. DOI: 10.1080/02614367.2014.967711