Joanne Ooi: Flat World And Creativity
31Oct10
My friend Joanne Ooi, former Shanghai Tang creative director, gave a passionate talk about creativity in the Internet-era at TEDx Pearl River this weekend. Among the many points she raised was one that had particular resonance to me about creativity.
Thanks to the Internet, creative people have access to so many ideas that they tend to follow trends based on what they have already seen online, rather than produce original work.
Joanne joked about how the companies that copy the latest fashion designers, like Zara, now end up being copied themselves. In other words, creative people are copying the copiers, killing creativity.
Filed under: Design, Fashion | 3 Comments
Tags: Joanne Ooi, TEDx, TEDx Pearl River
Creativity and Copying
Has been an ongoing discussion
Among artists and creative types
Since time immemorial
Copying or Stealing ideas
Seems on the surface
To be rather negative
Since Stealing is wrong
Yet if you look carefully
There is a long tradition
Of using other artist’s ideas
For creative inspiration
The real problem is this
There are no new ideas
It’s all been done before
By all the great artists
What really counts is this
Can you find an expression
That fits the gestalt of the times
Catching the wave of the popular
The irony of it all is this
Once something catches on
It becomes so popular
That everyone copies it
And banality sets in
The Flatness of the world
Speeds up this cycle
Even as recycled newness
Approaches from the darkness
yamabuki
Yamabuki, thanks for your thoughts!
I agree with you on how the flatness of the world speeds up the process of turning something (creatively striking,) into something popular, into something banal.
Isn’t it a little pessimistic to say that all the great ideas have already been done? Do all ideas today have to be an expression of a past great idea?
I am of two minds about this
And think it’s like the
Which came first,
Chicken or Egg
Paradox
When viewed from the top down
A spiral can look like a circle
It’s difficult to find truly new ideas
To my mind it comes down to
Where do the ideas come from
Since I’m working as a poet
I focus on words and ideas
Language defines the limits
But so does culture and audience
Since they are always changing
Old patterns can become new
Even as they are repeated
The answer that I like to give
For both the Chicken or Egg riddle
And the source of creativity is:
‘A circle has no beginning’
Or as I say in my poem
‘Alone With Yourself’
http://yamabuki9.blogspot.com/2010/09/alone-with-yourself.html
‘Where then does this path go
That’s part of the mystery
That makes it so exciting
We don’t really know
Each time is different
Because as they say
You can’t step
In the same river twice”
yamabuki