Bare fantasien setter grenser by Fletta

2018

Educating for a future within our sight Intervju med Rita J. King

A wandering mind is an unhappy mind Jonah Lehrer

10 How to build your imagination Tanner Christensen

26 Ensomheten Rollo May

Innhold Are Todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s youth less creative and imaginative? Rechel Rattner

47 The creative adult is the child who has survived Rita J. King

Kreativitetens grenser Rollo May

53 Originality and creativity Shaun Tan

Leder Kaja Josefine Larsen

Verden er full av grenser. Noen er målbare, synlig og bygget av forskjellige materialer. Noen er psykologiske, kulturelle eller kanskje er de uskrevne regler som vi alle følger. I dette magasinet ønsker jeg å utforske de mest abstrakte og utilgjengelige grensene av de alle. Fantasiens egne grenser. Hvor langt kan vi egentlig tenke? Hvordan kan vi utvide disse grensene? Jeg tror grensene til fantasien er ganske gigantiske. Vi vil trolig ikke nå noen av dem i vår livstid. Neppe få en følelsen av at nå er jeg på enden av fantasien min. Men jeg tror det er masse grenser, lenge før vi kommer dit, som både er interessant å snakke om og mye lettere å gjøre noe med. Grensene som vi setter opp for oss selv, eller livene våre gjør for oss. Tankene vi aldri tenker, ikke fordi vi ikke kan, men fordi vi er for opptatt med å tenke på det vi sa igår eller at vi må huske å minne oss selv på den tingen vi skulle gjøre i morgen. Jeg tror at hvis vi utvider tiden vi bruker på å fantasere, vil fantasien vår ta oss til fantastiske nye plasser, som vi aldri drømte om å være. Tør du å drømme sammen med meg? Kanskje du kommer til å tenke noen uvanlige tanker mens du bar igjennom dette magasinet?

ser

fortellingen?

KREATIVITET Kreativitet er skapende evne eller virksomhet, det vil si oppfinnsomhet, idérikdom og det å lage eller finne på noe nytt. Kreativitet er avgjørende for å løse problemer og utfordringer innen alle fag og i alle situasjoner og for å skape forandring og fornyelse.

FANTASI Fantasi, det å forestille seg noe som ikke er foreliggende eller sanselig nærværende. Fantasi er en samlebetegnelse for all forestillingsvirksomhet som synes mer bestemt av personens indre sjeleliv enn av den konkret foreliggende ytre realitet.

FORESTILLINGSEVNE ♦♦ Evnen til å forme et mentalt bilde av noe som ikke er sansbart og som aldri før har eksistert i virkeligheten. ♦♦ Det er en skapende, kreativ evne, som hjelper oss til å konfrontere og løse problemer. ♦♦ Det kjennetegner et aktivt sinn.

NB: I dette magasinet vil disse begrepene bli brukt om hverandre på grunn av redaktørens manglende forståelse for deres forskjell. Du burde tenke at tekstene/bildene som kommer på de neste sidene handler om grensene til noe som har med disse tre begrepene å gjøre.

Hvorfor er fantasien vår viktig? Hvorfor vil jeg at du skal fantasere mer? Vi bruker alle forestillingsevnen vår daglig. Det kommer helt naturlig for oss, men ikke alle er bevist på det. Trenger folk ﬂest en aktiv fantasi? Her er ﬁre av mine egne forslag på hvorfor fantasien vår er viktig.

Vi lever i en brytningstid, mye vil forandre seg snart og mye har forandret seg de siste årene. Vi har begynt å gi kunstig intelligens oppgaven å lage bedre kunstig intelligens. Denne prosessen som vil gi oss veldig bra kunstig intelligens, vil trolig også gå veldig fort. Er vi klar for en fremtid der roboter er bedre enn oss i veldig mye? Hva skal vi gjøre med alle jobbene som roboter tar over? Hva skal vi gjøre når konsekvensene av klimaendringene begynner å påvirke livene våre? Hvis vi skal klare å forberede oss på alt dette, må vi tørre å fantasere om fremtiden og se løsninger for disse nye problemene som vil oppstå. Da burde folk flest være mer kreativ og fantasifulle enn i dag.

Vi er konstant distrahert av mobilen, musikk, PCen, TVen osv. Ofte trenger vi ikke fantasere en gang, fordi vi kan alltids finne svar på noe ved å google det eller vi får alt servert når vi ser på serier, men hva mister vi med dette? Er ikke det å fantasere både gøy og nyttig? Har det ikke en funksjon å se for oss hvor vi ønsker å være, slik at vi kan prøve å komme oss dit? Burde vi ikke drømme om hva fremtiden kan bringe så noen forskere kan lage de tingene vi ønsker oss?

Lykke, helt personlig tror jeg at vi har godt å av fantasere. Når har det å dagdrømme vært en dårlig opplevelse? Drømme seg bort dit man heller vil være. Eller hvor fint er det ikke å sitte og fantasere sammen med venner om hvordan ting kunne vært anderledes eller hvordan vi vil at livene våre skal utvikle seg. Det er avbrekk fra hverdagens bekymringer og stress. Hva om vi aktivt kunne skapt disse avbrekkene for oss selv med god samvittighet?

Ideer. Hvor hadde vi vært hvis ikke folk hadde kommet opp med alle mulige ideer som gjør verden bedre. Når vi først har fått en god ide, ønsker vi å gjøre den til virkelighet. Men kreativiteten drives av fantasien. Så vi burde dyrke den for alt den er verdt. Jeg tror det er viktig å fokusere på hva mennesker kan gjøre bedre enn roboter, og her tror jeg ideutvikling og kreativitet er helt vesentlig. Hvordan skal en robot klare å skille ut en god ide fra millioner av kombinasjoner?

How to bu ild you r im agin ation Tanner Christensen

A crucial aspect of creative thinking is the capacity to imagine. As author and educational advisor Sir Ken Robinson once said: “Imagination is the source of every form of human achievement.” Or perhaps a more inspirational quote would be this one from Albert Einstein: “Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.” Without imagination, our ability to blend ideas, to see things not as they are but as they might be, is greatly hindered. If we cannot imagine new possibilities, our ability to think creatively is limited. How can we think of ways that generate novel and worthwhile ideas if we keep coming back to existing and proven ideas? To improve our imagination we must look to the source of our perceptions: our knowledge. What fuels imagination is everything we already know. Our minds always come back around to what we already know. It’s in our nature to compare new experiences

to ones we’ve already had, without that comparison we cannot begin to understand new ideas. For example: try imagining a color that doesn’t exist. The harder you try to do so, the more likely you are to keep envisioning colors that readily come to mind: blue, red, yellow, green, white, black, and so on. If you try really hard you might blend colors together, forming off-shades of violet, teal, etc. Where our knowledge fail our imaginations, our perspectives can encourage them. We can easily turn our knowledge on its head in order to come up with more imaginative answers to the question at-hand: What if we were to imagine sounds as colors? Not literally, of course, but metaphorically. Who’s to say the ping of a door closing or the hum of a flapping wing cannot be types of colors? Or what about textures, or tastes, or entire experiences? Suddenly unimaginable colors are imaginable…but again: only in the context of what we already know.

HOW TO INCREASE YOUR IMAGINATION To build a bridge between what we know and what’s possible, we must do two things. First, we must build knowledge and gain new understandings of the world. If our minds can only imagine possibilities within the context of what we already know, then it’s clear we must increase that knowledge if we want to increase what we can imagine. Thankfully, knowledge is easily gained if you dedicate even a small amount of time to it. Reading, not merely books or blogs you are drawn to, but the ones you initially disagree with or find boring as well, is one way to build knowledge. Travel can open your mind to new cultures, often ones that will do things in surprising or backwards ways than you’re used to, as a way of spurring knowledge and ideas. Trying out new things, like a new type of food or a new store in your neighborhood, helps to build knowledge as well. Conversations with acquaintances can be a surprisingly powerful source of new knowledge too. The second thing we must do to increase our imaginations, once we have begun to build our knowledge, is to remain powerfully curious about that knowledge, even humorously so. We can do this by asking questions constantly, not only about new things we experience, but about everything old and true as well.

IMAGINING THE IMPROBABLE Back to the question of imagining new types of colors: of course a sound is not a color, and we are wise to not think of the two as one in the same most of the time, but to use our imaginations is to ask: what if sounds were types of colors? How would that influence our ability to imagine new ones? What if, when someone asked us for our favorite color, we shared a favorite memory instead? How can the concept of “color” become enhanced by merely changing what we mean when we say the word? For those who live with synesthesia, this concept of combining typically unrelated themes is more than just a hypothetical situation. The mental phenomenon of synesthesia is a cognitive experience where stimulation in the brain connects to unusual neural networks. That is to say: those who experience synesthesia might taste different colors or see smells, in very real and concrete ways. When looking at words on a page, for example, a synesthete (as they’re called) might see each individual letter as having a distinct color. Rather than merely reading paragraphs, the synesthete would be – quite literally – reading a rainbow. Researchers Peter Grossenbacheremail of Naropa University and Christopher Lovelace of the Wake Forest University School of Medicine write in their 2001 report titled Mechanisms of synesthesia: cognitive and physiological constraints: “Synesthesia probably obeys the same rule as other conscious experience: conscious experience of concurrent phenomena depends on neural activity in appropriate sensory cortical areas.” That is to say: the brain perceives stimulation from the senses and tries to recall information related to that perception, but

somewhere along the lines other tidbits of information (say: a color or sound) gets crossed along the way. For those of us who don’t experience synesthesia, we must imagine criss-crossing cognitive signals in order to see the world any other way than what it really is. To do that: constantly ask questions and play dumb. Why is the sun yellow? Why is a rock called a “rock”? What happens when a bucket of water is poured out from 5,000 ft in the air? What would the color of your favorite memory look like? These are possibly improbable questions, but if we are not asking them, we are not imagining. THE IMPORTANCE OF COGNITIVE CONFLICT. It seems as though our imagination is best drawn-out when we are faced with improbabilities and cognitive conflicts. In his book Imagine: How Creativity Works, neuro-researcher and author Jonah Lehrer writes: “The imagination is not meek – it doesn’t wilt in the face of conflict. Instead, it is drawn out, pulled from its usual hiding place.” The reason these types of improbable and arguably silly questions provoke imagination goes back to the origin statement of this article: our minds are drawn to what we already know, without doing so the world is a strange and unfathomable place. To ask new questions, to experience new things, our imagination grows because our very nature is to understand that which we do not understand.

TO IMPROVE YOUR IMAGINATION, build your knowledge and stay remarkably curious. Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s all there is to it.

Hvordan ser fantasien ut? Hvordan ser grensene ut?

t de

? er ei dv in bl

Er det vegger?

Er det svarte hull?

r? lpe sto det Er

Er det mellomrom?

Er det stjerner?

Fysiske gre n s e r Forestillingsevnen baserer seg på erfaringer, den kombinerer ting på nye måter, men baserer seg alltid på ting vi har opplevd, lært, hørt, sett. Det er umulig å forstille seg noe man aldri har tenkt på, sett eller hørt.

Antall “tanker” som hjernen kan lage er 1070 000 000 000 000

Vi kan ikke forestille oss flere dimensjoner, fordi vi bare har opplevd tre dimensjoner, og er begrenset av vår egen persepsjon.

Vi kan ikke forestille oss for mange ting samtidig.

"Because the number of ways of combining concepts is practically unbounded, imagination can seem infinite. But a natural exploration of the imagination will follow familiar paths and will rarely stray outside a tiny island of typical inner experience." – Paul King

Psykiske gre n s e r Frykt for å dumme oss ut, føle oss dårlig eller ta feil. Den sistnevnte gjelder også forestillinger vi har om oss selv. Disse fryktene gjør at vi glemmer muligheter vi har fordi de ville ha involvert en av disse tre tingene vi er redd for å oppleve. Vi bruker masse energi på å unngå å føle smerte.

Vi ser verden igjennom vår kultur, geografi, språk, samfunnsnormer og oppvekst.

Vaner og rutiner, mangel på nye impulser som gir andre tanker, men også mangel på nysgjerrighet, som kan få oss til å se ting i nytt lys. Vi tar for mye for gitt.

Ekkokammer-effekten.

Stress, perfeksjonisme og distraksjoner.

Det er slitsomt å tenke for hardt.

Educating for a future within our sight Interview with Rita J. King “Pluralism is always practical,” famously declared Nabokov. By that measure, Rita J. King, journalist, nuclear expert, virtual worlds scholar, VP of business development at Science Houseand IBM Innovator-inResidence — is a bastion of postmodern pragmatism. Her latest project, a collaboration with Joshua Fouts, is the product of more than two years of research, exploring the future of education and work through a concept King calls the IMAGINATION AGE — a fleeting period between the industrial era crumbling behind us and the technological hyper-reality glimmering ahead of us, in which we have the rare chance to reimagine our culture, our economy, our world and our place in it. IMAGINATION: Creating the Future of Education and Work explores how we can harness the unique opportunities of this new age and reshape the education system. The project offers a portal of resources for educators spanning a wide range of media, disciplines and potential applications. Maria Popova sat down with King to talk about the scope of the work, the role of imagination in academia and the cross-pollination of disciplines as a key enabler of creativity.

Maria Popova: At the core of this project is a sociocultural era you call The Imagination Age. Could you elaborate on it and what observations first led to its conception? Rita J. King: The Imagination Age is a fleeting period between two longer eras: the fading industrial era rusting behind us and the hybrid reality that hasn’t yet fully taken shape, but will. It was catalyzed by a child’s comment that she was afraid that her imagination would die when she became an adult. The project begins with a quote from Ursula Le Guin, “The creative adult is the child who has survived.” Machines aren’t yet smarter than humans, so we have this time to imagine the implications of what will happen when they are, and how we can redesign the cultural and economic systems that govern our shared lives on this tiny blue planet.

Imagination leads to collaboration, rapid prototyping, a deeper understanding of failure as part of the process and the ability to think in the long-term despite the accelerated pace of transformation. Imagination is the most effective path to balance between each individual and the global culture and economy. Popova: The cross-pollination of ideas across disciplinary boundaries is essential to creativity and innovation. Based on your research, how do current educational models and curricula hinder this and what are the most viable potential changes you’ve identified to foster rather than inhibit such cross-disciplinary education? King: Current educational models prepare students for a fading industrial era, but making substantive changes is difficult. It’s hard to know where to begin and how. This project focuses on shifts educators can instantly make at no cost. For example, chapter 17, “Focus on STEM,” includes a video of the founding director of the National Institute of Aerospace, Robert Lindberg, explaining the difference between the Scientific method and the Engineering Design Process. A scientist and an engineer, Lindberg points out that students aren’t educated about the critical difference between the two.

The skills required for success in the Imagination Age (particularly in science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics) require a collaborative approach. Students in the American public education system are still bound by solitary test-taking and individualistic achievement and failure models. This runs counter to the reality of the emerging global labor market. Popova: How has your research on virtual worlds enriched and informed this exploration of the future of education and work? King: Geographically dispersed learners, or even those who are in the same room in the physical world, can create environments that inspire a sense of discovery and a team-based approach. Many educators fear the loss of control in such environments because they haven’t been trained to teach in them, but a billion human beings currently participate in some form of virtual environment, and half of them are under the age of 16. Virtual environments are ideal for gaining proficiency, if not mastery, of core subject areas. How many people remember the difference between an equilateral, isosceles or scalene triangle? In a virtual environment, students can manipulate a triangle or any other object to change the shape. They can actually become a white blood cell, moving through a digital bloodstream and learning about the processes that occur invisibly on a much smaller scale. In this way, learning becomes far more vibrant.

Popova: In a meta kind of way, the project is also a case study in the future of research itself and the practical applications of its findings. Why did you choose not to publish it as a book or white paper, and what role do you think design will play in the future of how we present, process and act on such information? King: Publishing in this format is a demonstration of how modern tools can be utilized to reflect the spirit of the subject matter: imagination. Traditional book publishing remains a lengthy process, with a long time between manuscript completion and publication. Why not publish a book in pieces, with each short and interactive piece embedded with relevant multimedia? The information in the IMAGINATION project is current, so we wanted to get it out there and let it have a life of its own so we could get back into the field. Since our subject matter is imagination and the culture shift required to put it into practice, we wanted the most useful and interactive format possible. We can design better systems and create better lives for ourselves and others. Aesthetic beauty and functionality should exist in equal parts in every design. This principle is one of the core tenets of the Imagination Age.

Popova: What has been the most surprising finding throughout the course of this project? King: The most surprising findings were beyond the scope of the focus of IMAGINATION and were therefore not explored on the site. For example, the trend toward pharmaceutical intervention for boredom at school is a major issue. We were also surprised to learn that some districts, such as Pennsylvaniaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Lower Merion, have used laptop webcams to monitor students at home. These issues require further examination in the appropriate forum. Many educators are enthusiastic about exploring technology but others perceive it as dehumanizing. A few years ago I saw an article of a graduating class throwing caps into the air while one girl texted. The caption indicated how sad this was. But maybe she was connecting with someone important to her who couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be there due to illness, cost or timing. Technology enables deeper connections. The potential of the young to maximize this level of creative connectivity should be fostered.

Ensomheten Rollo May Utdrag fra boken “Mot til å skape”, 1975

Min teori går ut på at denne vekslingen mellom travel markedsplass og øde fjellandskap i våre dager forutsetter evnen til å utnytte ensomheten konstruktivt. Det forutsetter at vi er i stand til å trekke oss tilbake fra en verden som vi bærer ”altfor mye med oss”, at vi klarer å være stille, at vi lar ensomheten arbeide for oss og i oss. Det er et karakteristisk trekk ved vår tid at mange mennesker er redde for ensomhet. Å være alene er et tegn på at man er en sosial fiasko, for ingen ville være alene hvis man kunne unngå det. Det har ofte slått meg at i vår tid, da mennesker lever i en moderne, hektisk sivilisasjon med kontant larm fra radio og fjernsyn og utsetter seg for alskens former for stimuli, enten det er av den

passive sorten fra fjernsynet eller den mer aktive i form av samtaler, arbeid og andre aktiviteter, så vil folk som kontinuerlig er opptatt av slike ting, oppleve det som ekstremt vanskelig å la glimt av innsikt få bryte igjennom fra de ubevisste dypene. Når en person er redd for det irrasjonelle (det vil si for opplevelsens ubevisste dimensjoner), vil vedkommende naturligvis forsøke å være mest mulig travelt opptatt, å holde mest mulig ”bråk” i gang rundt seg. Det å unngå ensomhetsangsten ved hjelp av stadige, opphissede adspredelser, var hva Kierkegaard i et fint bilde sammenlignet med nybyggerne i pionertidens Amerika, som pleide å slå på kasseroller og panner om natten for å lage så mye støy at ulvene holdt seg borte.

«Hvis vi skal kunne oppleve glimt av innsikt fra det ubevisste, må vi naturligvis være i stand til å gi oss hen til ensomheten.»

A wandering mind is an unhappy mind Jonah Lehrer

Last year, in an appearance on the Conan O’Brien show, the comedian Louis C.K. riffed on smartphones and the burden of human consciousness: «That's what the phones are taking away, is the ability to just sit there. That's being a person...Because underneath everything in your life there is that thing, that empty—forever empty. That knowledge that it's all for nothing and you're alone. It's down there. And sometimes when things clear away, you're not watching anything, you're in your car, and you start going, "Oh no, here it comes. That I'm alone." It's starts to visit on you. Just this sadness. Life is tremendously sad, just by being in it...

That's why we text and drive. I look around, pretty much 100 percent of the people driving are texting. And they're killing, everybody's murdering each other with their cars. But people are willing to risk taking a life and ruining their own because they don't want to be alone for a second because it's so hard.» The punchline stings because it’s mostly true. People really hate just sitting there. We need distractions to distract us from ourselves. That, at least, is the conclusion of a new paper published in Science by the psychologist Timothy Wilson and colleagues. The study consists of 11 distinct experiments, all of which revolved around the same theme: forcing subjects to be alone with themselves for up to 15 minutes. Not alone with a phone. Alone with themselves.

The point of these experiments was to study the experience of mind-wandering, which is what we do when we have nothing to do at all. When the subjects were surveyed after their session of enforced boredom – they were shorn of all gadgets, reading materials and writing implements - they reported feelings of intense unpleasantness. One of Wilson’s experimental conditions consisted of giving subjects access to a nine-volt battery capable of administering an unpleasant shock. To Wilson’s surprise, 12 out of 18 male subjects (and 6 out of 24 female subjects) chose to shock themselves repeatedly. “What is striking,” Wilson et. al write, “is that simply being alone with their own thoughts for 15 minutes was apparently so aversive that it drove many participants to self-administer an electrical shock that they had earlier said they would pay to avoid…Most people seem to prefer doing something rather than nothing, even if that something is negative.” These lab results build on a 2010 experience-sampling study by Mathew Killingsworth and Daniel Gilbert that contacted 2250 adults at random intervals via their iPhones. The subjects were asked

about their current level of happiness, their current activity and whether or not they were thinking about their current activity. On average, subjects reported that their minds were wandering – thinking about something besides what they were doing – in 46.9 percent of the samples. (Sex was the only activity during which people did not report high levels of mind-wandering.) Here’s where things get disturbing: all this mind-wandering made people unhappy, even when they were daydreaming about happy things. “In conclusion,” write Killingsworth and Gilbert, “a human mind is a wandering mind, and a wandering mind is an unhappy mind.” Although we typically use mind-wandering to reflect on the past and plan for the future, these useful thoughts deny us our best shot at happiness, which is losing ourselves in the present moment. As Killingsworth and Gilbert put it: “The ability to think about what is not happening is a cognitive achievement that comes at an emotional cost.” Given these dismal results, it’s easy to understand the appeal of the digital world, with its constant froth of new information. To carry a smartphone is to never be alone;

a swipe of the fingers turns on a screen that keeps us mindlessly entertained, the brain lost in the glowing screen. It’s important to note, however, that Wilson et. al. didn’t find any correlation between time spent on smartphones and the ability to enjoy mind-wandering. Contrary to what Louis C.K. argued, there’s little to reason to think that our gadgets are the cause of our inability to be alone. They distract us from ourselves, but we’ve always sought distractions, whether it’s television, novels or a comic on a stage. We seek these distractions because, as Wilson et. al. write, “it is hard to steer our thoughts in pleasant directions and keep them there.” And so our daydreams often end up in dark places, as we ruminate on our errors and regrets. (It shouldn’t be too surprising, then, that there’s a consistent relationship between mind-wandering and dysphoria.) Here's Louis C.K. once again: “The thing is, because we don’t want that first bit of sad, we push it away with a little phone or a jack-off or the food...You never feel completely sad or completely happy, you just feel kinda satisfied with your product, and then you die. So that’s why I don’t want to get a phone for my kids.”

One last point. It’s interesting to think of this new research in light of religious traditions that emphasize both the struggle of existence and the importance of living in the moment. According to the Buddha, the first noble truth of the world is dukkha, which roughly translates as “suffering.” This pain can’t be escaped - everyone dies - but it can be assuaged, at least if we learn to think properly. (The Buddhist term for such thinking, sati, is often translated as mindfulness, or “attentiveness to the present.”) Instead of letting the mind disengage, Buddhism emphasizes the importance of using meditative practice to stay tethered to this here now. Because once you admit the big picture sadness, once you accept the inevitability of sorrow and despair, then a wandering mind keeps wandering back to that brutal truth. The only escape is embrace what’s actually happening, even if it means sitting in a bare room, noticing the waves of boredom and sadness that wash over the mind. “Let the sadness hit you like a truck,” Louis C.K. says, sounding a little bit like a foul-mouthed Buddha. “You’re lucky to live sad moments.”

Hva skjer hvis vi slipper fantasien løs? Kaja Josefine Larsen I dag var dagen jeg skulle prøve å gå ned i mitt eget sinn. Kjenne på det å være der lenge. Ikke gjøre noe annet i flere timer. Jeg må innrømme at jeg gruet meg. Redd for hva som ventet, siden jeg aldri har brukt så mye tid inni mitt eget hode med lukkede øyne. Jeg var også redd for å miste fotfeste, begynne å tenke for negativt eller mislike det jeg fant der inne. I tillegg var jeg redd for at det kom til å bli slitsomt, at jeg måtte konsentrere meg hardt for å fortsette og ikke slippe taket.

op p l e v e l se n Det var uvant først. Hvor skulle jeg starte? Hvis du kan gå hvor som helst, hvor skal man velge å gå? Jeg begynte med tankene rundt fremtidens utopi, mange tusen år frem i tid, når arten vår hadde forandret seg inn i noe annet. Jeg tenkte at vi var en del av en felles intelligens, og at man hadde forskjellige rom/byen som hadde ansvar for forskjellige deler av livet og dagen. Vi kunne hoppe fra den ene delen til den andre etter hva vi trengte. Denne felles intelligensen var delt inn i forskjellige deler, så en gruppe hadde en stor intelligens på deling. Vi var spinkle. Huden var perlemorsfarget, og hodene våre var større. Vi bar smykker og fikk tatoveringer når vi tenkte vakre tanker. De tankene som skiller seg ut og gir oss eureka-opplevelser. I dette samfunnet var vi mye mer sammen. Vi samarbeidet om alt og ingen skulle være ensomme. Vi hadde byer for å meditasjon, kunst, følelser, kjærlighet og egne byer for å komme opp med

nye tanker og videreutvikle sivilisasjonen. Hvis fellesskapet fungerte, hadde man det bra og man jobbet på lag med naturen, ikke mot den. Vi levde lengre, men fikk ikke noen flere barn enn det som er vanlig nå. Vi kunne kommunisere med dyrene, og hadde egne råd så alle dyrene også ble hørt og fant løsninger sammen som fungerte for alle. For at man ikke skulle ta dette vakre livet for gitt, hadde man også deler på planten som var laget for smerte og de negative følelsene. Store betongbyer, der ingen natur slapp til, og alle måtte tilbringe noen timer her hver dag å gjøre kjedelige jobber for så å kunne sette pris på herlighetene i resten av verden. Man hadde utdanning som dreide seg om å finne ut hva man burde bli, om det var kunstner, kokk, gartner eller husbygger. I denne verden hadde man funnet opp mange nye tekstiler og byggematerialer, som var vakre og lette, varme og beskyttende. Man hadde byer for søvn, som var full av gigantiske, myke madrasser og puter som man kunne dale ned i, akkurat passe, for alle. Man hadde sluttet med å utvinne materialer og jobbet med ren energi, som man hentet ut fra havet, vinden, himmel, naturen og solen. Og man brukte tankekraft til å manifestere det vi trengte, så det kom flyvende fra alle verdens deler og skapte kunstverket eller bygningen man trengte. Så gikk jeg videre, prøvde å se hva som var utenfor universet, men det var vanskelig. Jeg lagde organismer som var like store som planeter, og etter det skapte jeg organismer som var satt sammen av flere

stjerner, de hang ikke sammen, men var samme individ likevel. Og dette individet fløy rundt i universet. Utenfor universet fantes det ikke tyngdekraft. Partiklene hadde enda ikke funnet sammen, og fløy bare rundt som et hav av aske. Det var ikke noe liv her enda. Men asken var ikke omgitt av mørke slik som i vårt univers, den var omgitt av lys. Tilbake i vårt univers, prøvde jeg å se hvordan det var på andre planter. Jeg så verdener med hav av blod og blå planter med noe som lignet flyvende ulver. Jeg kom også over organismer som fikk næring fra bakken men som likevel kunne gå og løpe. De var sølvfargede, hadde mange armer og på slutten av hver arm var det munner og små fingre som kunne hektet seg fast eller slippe tanket ettersom vesenet skulle spise eller gå. Men ingenting av dette var vanskelig eller slitsomt å tenke på. Og jeg følte meg verken ensom eller fortapt, jeg gikk bare videre. Jeg kjente også tydeligere hva kroppen trengte. Etter hvert begynte jeg å se på hvordan transport burde vært under vann. Jeg tenkte på dette med lufttrykk og hvordan man kunne flytte på vann for å komme seg fremover. At man hadde store ubåter med hull igjennom seg som trakk til seg vann og slapp det ut på andre siden for å gå fremover, samtidig som båtene gjorde dette, klarte de å trekke oksygen ut av vannet så folk kunne være lenger under vann. Så begynte jeg å se for meg hvordan forskjellige følelser ser ut. De ble til landskaper. Smerte er en by av skarpe metallkanter og spisser som man stikker seg på uansett hva man gjør. Kjærligheten så ut som en myk rød tåke, men også her var det pigger, de var bare gjemt i tåken, og man ante aldri om eller når man kom til å stikke seg på en eller hvor kvass den var. Så var det

glede, som var et vakkert, gult landskap. Problemet med glade var at landskapet kunne forsvinne når som helst, og da falt du ned i virkeligheten igjen. Nå hadde jeg vært inni mitt eget hode ganske lenge, og tenkte det var på tide å la tankene lede vei og heller se rundt meg enn å styre hvor vi skulle. Jeg så en lodden ball med hale, som en dråpe, som fløy rundt i full fart. Den surrer rundt i et tomt svart rom i flere minutter. Så begynte jeg å ri. Veien ble til mens jeg ridde. Alt gikk veldig fort nå. Den flyvende ballen fortsatte å hoppe en del til. Deretter kom jeg inn i en labyrint.* Jeg kunne løpe, svømme eller dytte meg frem så langt jeg ville i alle retninger, men veggene eller tunnelgangene var helt ugjennomtrengelige. Jeg krafset meg armene og prøve å rive hull, men de rikket seg ikke. Dette føltes som om dette var tankenes labyrint, og at veggene eller strukturene som holdt det oppe var grensene i hode. De var mangel på informasjon eller inntrykk som jeg manglet for å trå igjennom. Jeg løp rundt i denne labyrinten lenge. Det var ingen ende, men jeg følte meg fanget på en måte likevel. Det var jo ingenting her, bare ganger og veier som ikke førte noe sted.

Verken fugl eller ďŹ sk Kaja Josefine Larsen

Hva tenker den pĂĽ?

Hva gjĂ¸r den for ĂĽ stresse ned?

Hvordan musikk hĂ¸rer den pĂĽ?

Hva gjĂ¸r den glad?

Kreativitetens grenser Rollo May Utdrag fra boken “Mot til å skape”, 1975

I disse betraktningene vil jeg granske hypotesen om at grenser ikke bare er uunngåelige i menneskets liv, men at de også er verdifulle. Dessuten vil jeg ta opp det fenomenet som går ut på at kreativiteten selv forlanger grenser, for den kreative akt springer nemlig ut av menneskers kamp med og mot det som setter grenser for dem. Det finnes åpenbare, nevrologiske grenser. Hvis blodet opphører å strømme til hjernen i bare et par minutter, får vi et slag eller en annen form for alvorlig skade. Selv om vi til en viss grad kan bedre intelligensen, er og blir den radikalt begrenset av de fysiske og følelsesmessige omgivelsene våre. Dessuten finnes det metafysiske begrensninger, og de er enda mer interessante. Hver og en av oss ble født inn i en bestemt familie i et bestemt land i et bestemt historisk øyeblikk, alt sammen uten at vi hadde den ringeste mulighet til å velge. Hvis vi forsøker å benekte disse faktiske forholdene, som Jay Gatsby i Fitzgeralds Den store Gatsby, gjør vi oss blinde for virkeligheten og

kommer galt av sted. Vi kan riktignok i noen grad overskride de grensene familiebakgrunnen og den historiske situasjonen setter; men slike overskridelser er bare mulige for dem som alt i utgangspunktet aksepterer det faktum at begrensningene finnes (...) Kreativitet oppstår av spenningen mellom spontanitet og begrensninger, slik at begrensningene tvinger spontaniteten inn i de forskjellige formene som er avgjørende for kunstverket eller diktet (...) Fantasien er sinnet som strekker seg ut. Den er individets evne til å godta bombarderingen av det bevisste sinn med tanker, impulser, bilder og alle andre former for psykiske fenomener som flommer opp fra det førbevisste. Den er evnen til å ”drømme drømmer og se visjoner”, til å vurdere forskjellige muligheter og til å holde ut den spenningen som skal til for å holde disse mulighetene fast i oppmerksomheten. Fantasien er å kaste loss og ta sjansen på at det vil finnes nye fortøyningsmuligheter i uendeligheten forut.

«Spørsmålet er: Hvor langt kan vi slippe fantasien løs? Kan vi gi den frie tøyler? Våge å tenke det utenkelige? Våge å unnfange og bevege oss blant nye visjoner?»

Tips for å ut v ide fa nta sien SKUR AV ALT SOM DISTRAHERER DEG Eks: Mobil, pcen, sosiale medier, musikk, radio, serier, støy fra andre mennesker. SKRIVEØVELSE Skriv så fort du kan i 30min, og fokusere kun på å skive så fort du klarer og i samme tempo, glem rettskriving, kvalitet eller innhold. Du vil bli overrasket over hvor du ender opp.

«IDEER SKAPER NYE IDEER» PAUSE Tenk intenst på noe (gjerne et problem) og så ta en pause å gjør noe helt annet. Underbevisstheten vil forsette å jobbe og vil sende opp gode forslag når den har prosessert ferdig. Skriv ned løsning. SLÅ SAMMEN UVANLIGE KOMBINASJONER Har du en problemstilling, trykk på ”Random article” på Wikipedia. Prøv deretter å komme opp med ideer som blander artikkelen og problemet ditt.

Random article

SØVN Tenk på en problemstilling og all informasjonen du har om den før du sovner på kvelden. Ikke prøv å løse den, da før du ikke sove. Skriv ned hva du drømte dagen etter, det vi ha noe med problemet å gjøre og kanskje en løsning. THOMAS EDISON brukte å slappe av på sofaen i laboratoriet sitt med en kobberball i hånden. I det han sovnet falt ballen ut av hånden og vekket han. Deretter skrev han ned hva han tenkte rett før han sovnet. Også en måte å komme i kontakt med underbevisstheten.

45 FORBEDRE TILFELDIGHET: Mennesker er dårlig på tilfeldighet. Vi trenger nye kombinasjoner for å finne innovative løsninger. Neste gang du pusser tennene prøv å komme på ord som har mist mulig med hverandre å gjøre og heller ikke noe du har tenkt på de siste dagene. Dette vil over tid gjøre at vi blir flinkere på tilfeldighet, slik at vi kan komme opp med uvanlige løsninger. MEDITASJON gir hjernen ny energi. Dette er nyttig hvis du vil utvide fantasien/forestillingsevnen fordi da får man mer overskudd til å tenke rett og slett. Det gjør også at andre tanker, som distraherer deg fra å tenke på det du vil, blir borte. VI ELSKER Å HA RETT Det gjelder også tanker om oss selv. Tanker som skader vår kreativitet er: Jeg er ikke kreativ Jeg er ikke original Jeg kommer ikke til å få dette til Jeg kommer til å dumme meg ut Tenker vi slik, blir det selvoppfyllende profetier, så prøv å lavere.

MASH·UP

B MAGI!

OPPLEV NYE TING Siden fantasien er bygget på våre erfaringer, vil nye opplevelser utvide den. Så prøv å gå en omvei, lag en ny matrett, hør på en ny musikksjanger og eller les en bok du vanligvis ikke ville lest. Det handler om å komme ut av mønstrene vi har for å begynne å tenke nye tanker. UTFORDRE VÅRE EGNE GRENSER Hjernen vår jobber hardt for unngå at vi gjør ting som får oss til å se dum ut, føler oss dårlig eller tar feil. Vi har masse påstander om hvem vi skal være, og hjernen vår jobber hardt for at dette skal bli sant. Det er flaut å skifte mening, men vi går glipp av masse muligheter hvis vi ikke utfordrer disse grensene.

Are To day’s youth le ss cre ative and imaginative? Rachael Rettner

It sounds like the complaint of a jaded adult: Kids these days are narrow-minded and just not as creative as they used to be. But researchers say they are finding exactly that. In a 2010 study of about 300,000 creativity tests going back to the 1970s, Kyung Hee Kim, a creativity researcher at the College of William and Mary, found creativity has decreased among American children in recent years. Since 1990, children have become less able to produce unique and unusual ideas. They are also less humorous, less imaginative and less able to elaborate on ideas, Kim said. Has modern society really extinguished the creative spark among our youth? Experts say creativity is innate, so it can’t really be lost. But it needs to be nurtured.

“It’s not that creativity can necessarily disappear,” said Ron Beghetto, an education psychologist at the University of Oregon. “But it can be suppressed in particular contexts.” The current focus on testing in schools, and the idea that there is only one right answer to a question, may be hampering development of creativity among kids, Beghetto said. “There’s not much room for unexpected, novel, divergent thought,” he said. But the situation is not hopeless, Beghetto said. In fact, there’s evidence to suggest that, worldwide, youngsters are very creative, particularly with their use of digital media, Beghetto said. And a recent study found that, at least in their playtime, kids are becoming more imaginative. Experts agree changes can be made in the classroom to cultivate creativity.

NO CHILD GETS AHEAD In her study, Kim analyzed results from the Torrance test, an exam that measures an aspect of creativity called divergent thinking. In this test, kids might be shown two circles and asked to draw something out of these shapes. Interestingly, scores on the Torrance test have been decreasing while SAT scores are increasing. However, better test scores do not necessarly translate to improved creativity, Kim said. You can do well on a test by studying a lot, but it won’t encourage original thinking. Kim said No Child Left Behind, an act of Congress passed in 2001 that requires schools to administer annual standardized tests as a way to assess whether they are meeting state education standards, may be partly responsible for the drop in creativity scores. “I believe No Child Left Behind … really hurt creativity,” Kim said. “If we just focus on just No Child Left Behind – testing, testing, testing – then how can creative students survive?” Kim said. Other culprits may be the rise in TV watching, a passive activity that doesn’t require interactions with others, Kim said. Kim’s work has also shown creativity declines in adulthood as we become more aware of the notions of right and wrong answers, she said.

But just because we are doomed to become less imaginative as adults does not mean society shouldn’t work to salvage creativity in children. After all, ideas in childhood may lead to future career pursuits. “If this trend continues then students who look different, nonconformists, will suffer, because they are not accepted,” Kim said. Research shows that if creative personalities don’t adjust to the school system, they can become underachievers and drop out of school, she said. TIME TO PLAY Kids also nurture their creativity abilities when they “pretend,” said Sandra Russ, a psychologist at Case Western University in Cleveland, Ohio, who was not involved in Kim’s study. Elements of insight, fantasy and emotional expression all go into this type of story-making, Russ said. Nowadays, with kids’ overbooked schedules, there is less time for pretend play, Russ said. Russ looked back at studies she has conducted on pretend play since 1985. In all, the studies involved close to 900 children ages 6 to 9, who were asked to make up a story using two puppets. Stories were rated based on how many ideas the kids came up with, the novelty of the ideas, and the emotions expressed within the tales.

Russ found that, over time, imagination in the stories increased, with the stories in 1985 showing significantly less imagination than stories (created by different groups of kids) in 2008. “Given the changes in [our] culture, we were surprised, and I would say encouraged,” Russ said. The results suggest kids are resilient, and may be finding ways to develop these abilities through other means besides strict playtime. For instance, some video games call for creative problem-solving strategies, Russ said. The results do not necessarily contradict Kim’s findings. The researchers can’t be sure whether kids will actually apply their playtime imagination to the real world, Russ said.

“If you can do that, you can be ‘successful’ in school,” Beghetto said. Teachers don’t spend a lot of time exploring unexpected ideas because they might not be sure where it will lead, Beghetto said. As a result, “out-of-the-box” thinking gets discouraged. Beghetto is not blaming teachers, who may even feel as though they cannot teach creativity. But teaching to prepare for tests and teaching to develop creativity are not mutually exclusive, Beghetto said. Teachers should recognize that unexpected answers may still lead to meaningful conversation and learning in a classroom, he said. And schools may be able to implement tests that assess students broadly and allow for more creativity.

HIDE AND SEEK So how can we make sure not to squelch kids’ creativity once they step inside a classroom? Beghetto said the interaction between students and teachers has become one of “intellectual hide and seek.” The students try to match what they think the teacher wants to hear.

“I think there should be a variety of ways to assess what students know and how they know it,” Beghetto said.

Husker du?

Originality and creativity Shaun Tan

Original thought is like original sin: both happened before you were born to people you could not possibly have met. - Fran Liebowitz Books! Bottled chatter! Things that some other simian has formerly said. - Clarence Day. Paul Klee once described an artist as being like a tree, drawing the minerals of experience from its roots - things observed, read, told and felt - and slowly processing them into new leaves. The palaeontologist Stephen Jay Gould notes that the greatest discoveries are to be found not in a freshly hewn cliff of shale, but in old museum collections, by rethinking the relationships between the objects that have already been archived in our knowledge. The principle that ‘originality’ is more about a kind of transformation of existing ideas than the invention of entirely new ones is one that I can relate to as an artist and author. I’m wary of using words like

‘inspiration’ or ‘creativity’ without at least trying to demystify them first. They can easily convey a false impression that ideas or feelings appear spontaneously and of their own accord; “creation” in particular is a term that originally entered our language with divine connotations. My own experience is that inspiration is has more to do with careful research and looking for a challenge; and that creativity is about playing with what I find, testing one proposition against another and seeing how things combine and react. My picture books have in the past been recognised as ‘highly imaginative’, ‘strikingly original’ and even ‘magical’. There is, however, certainly nothing mysterious about the way they are produced. Each work contains many thousands of ingredients, experiments, discoveries and transforming decisions executed over several months, compressed into a very small space, 32 pages of words and pictures. Everything can be explained in terms of

“A truly original idea would probably be so unfamiliar as to be unreadable, an impenetrably alien artefact.”

process, influences, developmental elaboration and reduction. What is original is not the ideas themselves, but the way they are put together. The fact that we recognise anything at all would seem to indicate that this is the case - a truly original idea would probably be so unfamiliar as to be unreadable, an impenetrably alien artefact. Often the most interesting stories are ones which tell us things that we already know but haven’t yet articulated in our minds. Or more precisely, they encourage us to look at familiar things in different ways, as if to remind us of their true meaning; the way we live, the things we encounter, way we think and so on. Looking at my own work as an illustrator, I can discuss how this has a lot to do with combining various ideas from different sources to produce unexpected results, very much like rubbing different stones together for sparks, and gradually working these into flames. The Rabbits is a good example, and perhaps my most widely circulated and discussed book. On one hand it is a story we should all be familiar with as an historical narrative, the European invasion of Australia and subsequent injustices perpetrated against the indigenous population. More universally, it’s the story of colonisation everywhere, about power, ignorance and environmental destruction. It is also an animal fable, a dark and serious one, a storytelling strategy we can also recognise. One might think of Richard Adams’

Watership Down or George Orwell’s Animal Farm as precedents, for instance, but already there is an unexpected combining of elements we haven’t seen before, quite strange and ‘original.’ When I received John Marsden’s text for this book, via my publisher, I experienced a sensation that usually accompanies the beginning of a new project: not knowing what to do! By itself, the half-page fax of text generated no ideas visually - none that were appropriately interesting at least (the image of Beatrix Potter bunnies with redcoats, muskets and British flags was not going to work - that’s one thing I did know). I eventually realised that what I had to do was extend the metaphorical logic of the text even further, and introduce more unexpected ideas to build a parallel story of my own. Not an illustration of the text, but something to react with it symbiotically. The research involved was very broad, an omnivorous study of everything from tree kangaroos at Perth Zoo, which I spent a day sketching, to old Victorian photographs of public works being constructed, colonial drawings in the State gallery, books about antique furniture, industrial architecture, Surrealism. I also reviewed some of my old science fiction drawings languishing in my folio, including a couple which happened to deal with 18th century figures in strange antipodean deserts, and ended up working several ideas from these into The Rabbits.

Stylistically, the book borrows both consciously and unconsciously from many sources: Ancient Egyptian friezes, unusual films such as Brazil and Yellow Submarine, the work of other illustrators such as Ralph Steadman, Milton Glaser, Gerald Scarfe and some Australian landscape painters; Arthur Streeton, Fred Williams and Brett Whiteley. The list goes on; ultimately I am influenced by anything that seems interesting to me, whether it’s a painting in a gallery or the pattern of plumbing on the wall behind my local supermarket. My own personal style of drawing, painting and thinking visually emerges from all of these, not to mention innumerable other experiences. As well as visual sources, many ideas for the illustrations emerged from reading history. Almost every image can, for instance, be footnoted with a reference to Henry Reynold’s “The Other Side of the Frontier”, my most valuable reference book. Accounts of Aboriginal impressions of the arrival of European ships, animals, customs and technologies, the immense cultural rift between visitors and inhabitants, the patterns of escalating violence: all these proved to be indispensable in the creation of an equivalent imagined universe populated by strange animals and machines. I’m often thinking of different things I’ve read, or particular words, while I draw and paint which best express the particular poetry of colour, line and form I am after. A passage from David Malouf’s Remembering Babylon, which I happened to have been reading just before working on The Rabbits, suggested to me one way of illustrating a particular scene as a bright, lyrical landscape; “…alive and dazzling; some of it even in the deepest shade throwing off luminous flares… and all of it

crackling and creaking and swelling and bursting with growth.” The illustration itself is vibrant and yellow, swimming with hidden shapes and organic tensions. I had also finished my arts degree honours dissertation a couple of years beforehand, which was all about the way in which industrial cultures typically view the natural world through some kind of technological apparatus, whether photographs, wildlife documentaries, telecommunications, theme parks or computer imaging. As a result, many of the pictures for the Rabbits tend to be about looking at the world through various artificial framing devices. Lenses, telescopes, maps and paintings feature strongly, all transforming perceptions of an unfamiliar country to meet particular cultural expectations. The inability of the rabbits to see the look beyond their own preconceptions and flawed ideals is a central theme that emerges from these visual cues. The illustration used on the cover for The Rabbits is a particularly good example of developing imagery from reference sources. It is based on a 19th century painting of Cook’s first landing at Botany Bay, a colour reproduction of which I found in an old encyclopaedia. The arrangement of figures striding ashore from left to right is mirrored by the rabbit figures, with similar clothing, flag and gun; two Aborigines on a distant dune in the original painting have been replaced by two marsupial animals. There are similar lighting and atmospheric effects at work, although quite exaggerated, and the use of oils on canvas with thin yellow glazes emulates the technique used in paintings of the period. It could almost be read as a satirical parody, although this is not really my intention.

Whether the source is recognisable is irrelevant: what does matter is the resonance. It borrows rather than alludes, evoking a certain 19th Century European way of framing moments of historical significance, where key figures are actors on the world’s stage, supernaturally well composed, monumental and mythical. Everything about the source painting by E. Phillips Fox contains a familiar ideology, all about progress and destiny, the planting of flags and the arrival of legitimate historical narrative. These are ideas that we are invited to read in a less recognisable and more challenging form in my own illustration. The ship leaps forth like a skyscraper or knife, echoed by scalpel-like shadows and pointed feet, collars and guns, the lighting is more theatrical than ever. I wanted to introduce a surreal dreamlike quality, ambiguous in terms of mixed awe and dread, exaggerated but not caricatured or didactic. Most of all, I wanted to produce an image that was enigmatic and thought-provoking. It’s up to the reader to draw whatever meaning they wish. Like The Rabbits, The Lost Thing is quite a strange book, but its success among readers is due in no small part to a familiar premise, a boy finding a lost animal at his local beach and taking it home. In itself, very unoriginal, except that this is just a point of departure, much as the history of

colonisation is for The Rabbits. The lost animal is, after all, not a stray dog, but a huge tentacled creature evolved from drawings of pebble crabs and old-fashioned cast iron stoves, among other things. Furthermore, the setting of the story owes more to my visual research of industrial architecture, including a local derelict power station in East Perth, and the urban landscapes of artists like Edward Hopper, John Brack and Jeffrey Smart, than your average residential suburb (although it started off as an average residential suburb). Many other elements based on various references are combined; ideas from looking at a 1930’s copy of Popular Mechanics, some of my Dad’s old physics and calculus textbooks which I used as a collage medium in the final illustrations, photographs of cloud formations and Melbourne trams. I also had a reproduction of the medieval artist Hieronymous Bosch’s bizarre painting “The Garden of Earthly Delights” stuck on my kitchen cupboard, next to a photograph of air-intake pipes on a ship by Charles Sheeler, and American modernist painter. All of these elements came together in the production of a visual narrative that is at once very simple and accessible, yet complex and irreducibly enigmatic, even for me - it wouldn’t work if I understood too much about it.

For me, that’s what creativity is - playing with found objects, reconstructing things that already exist, transforming ideas or stories I already know. It’s not about the colonisation of new territory, it’s about exploring inwards, examining your existing presumptions, squinting at the archive of experience from new angles, and hoping for some sort of revelation. What really matters is whether we as readers continue to think about the things we have read and seen long after the final page is turned.

Fullste ndig e ngasje r t Kaja Josefine Larsen

En sjelden gang trer jeg inn i en helt spesiell sinnstilstand. Man kan kalle det å bli ekstremt inspirert eller fullstendig engasjert. Nye dører i hode mitt åpner seg, og et nytt univers blir synlig. Det føles som å være uovervinnelig. All tvil og usikkerhet forsvinner i noen timer, og engasjementet holder på å bruse over i meg. Det er som å våkne, se rundt seg og plutselig se alt i et nytt lys. Alt blir klart, tiden står stille og alt jeg vil er å skape. Det kan ligne eureka-opplevelser men for meg var det ikke en klar ide som plutselig kom, men mer som en bryter som blir skudd på ide jeg får en ny innsikt. Innser at dette har jeg aldri tenkt på før, og blir revet ut av hverdagen og rutinene i det du forstår

at du enda kan bli overrasket. At det enda finnes ting som vil forandre livsoppfatningen din litt. Det er som om tankene dine ikke kan resonere fort nok for å prøve å begripe hva dette betyr for deg. Det er alltid forskjellige ting som vekker denne inspirasjonen, og jeg tror det ligger noe i at det er nettopp denne sjokkfaktoren som utløser det. Men i denne tilstanden er jeg helt og fult i livet, og for meg kan flere måneder med opp og nedturer, slit og frustrasjon være verdt det for bare noen timer i denne magiske tilstanden. Jeg leter alltid etter hvordan jeg kan føle det slik igjen. Kanskje fantasien kan åpne den neste døren?

hva

ser

når

lukker

øynene?

The Creative Adult is the Child Who Has Survived Rita J. King

I made a promise on the spot, and for seven years, I have kept it. I will keep it for the rest of my life. The child carved our names in the sand so we could wait, together, for the waves to come and erase them. We were on a beach, alone, during a hot pink and molten gold sunset. It was then that she told me that I was the only adult who made her feel like her imagination didn’t have to die when she became an adult. I can’t describe now how I felt when I heard this. What I can tell you is that I made a promise in return that I would dedicate my life to making sure she survived her own childhood. Many sleepless nights followed, during which I wondered what had possessed me to make such an outlandish promise with no idea where or how to start. I have spent every moment of my life since then, working with collaborators, clients and friends all over the world, to fulfill it. Imagination is not a “soft skill.” It is the workspace of your brain, the place where connections are made between ideas to create something new. I started to think of my quest in honor of this child’s survival as a bridge, a connection between two eras: the fading Industrial era, which isn’t yet gone, and the approaching Intelligence era, which isn’t yet here. I started to think of the kids and their imaginations as a precious

resource, not just because imagination is fun, but because it is absolutely critical in order for us to survive, much less thrive, as a species. The only thing stronger than your imagination is your imagination connected to the billions of other imaginations all over the world, connected to smart machines that continue to get smarter, faster. In the Imagination Age, understanding the relationship between human imagination and technology is critical as we move forward. Imagination is the key to finding new angles on problems. The ability to solve problems is the number one focus of the entire business world as we move into the intelligence era, which is a combination of technology and imagination. Over time, with the support of many different people and organizations, the Imagination Age crystallized. My practice is now headquartered in Manhattan, at Science House. I’m currently writing a book about the arc of this journey, which continues to grow by the day. I am telling you all this because tomorrow is the little girl’s birthday. She will be eighteen. An adult. I can’t believe it. Brianne, I hope that you carry your imagination forward forever into a world that values it more and more each day. I hope that this vision continues to grow, and includes more and more children. I promise you now, again, as I did seven years ago,

that my life’s mission will remain now, and always, working on the Imagination Age so that we can all learn, together, what it means to solve problems, envision the future and have fun doing it so we can create a new global culture and economy. I hope that eventually, people who aren’t yet born, and those who are, can together envision smarter systems, build them, and occupy them. This is not only possible. It is necessary. Humanity is in a state of conscious evolution, and this requires the discipline to harness the full power of our unique, thrilling gift: imagination. And thanks to all of the organizations who have supported this work and continue to do so. Every project has given me a new dimension in thinking, and every collaborator has changed me in ways that I can’t begin to describe here tonight. For now, I just want to express my deep gratitude and commitment to the future. The title of this post is a quote from Ursula K. LeGuin.

Referanser How to build your imagination – https://creativesomething.net/ post/116251427305/how-to-build-yourimagination (April 12, 2015) Educating for a future within our sight – https://designobserver.com/feature/educating-for-a-future-within-our-sight/26618 (April 28, 2011) Ensomheten – Rollo May, utdrag fra “Mot til å skape” 1975, Oversatt av Kjell Olaf Jensen og Tone Arneberg s.73 A wandering mind is an unhappy mind – http://www.jonahlehrer.com/?offset=1411053649392, July 08, 2014 Kreativitetens grenser – Rollo May, utdrag fra “Mot til å skape” 1975, Oversatt av Kjell Olaf Jensen og Tone Arneberg, s.128 Are Today's youth less creative and imaginative? – https://www.livescience. com/15535-children-creative.html (August 12, 2011) Originality and creaticity http://www.shauntan.net/essay2.html The creative adult is the child who has survived – https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20140108051400-21564708-the-creative-adult-is-the-child-who-has-survived (January 8,2014)

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