How limits can boost your creativity
How limits can boost your creativity
This video was made in partnership with The Open University. OU consultant: Dr Volker Patent. Newton came up with the theory of calculus in quarantine. “But out of limitations comes creativity.” Dr Seuss wrote using no more than 50 different words. “Not in a house. Not with a mouse…” Shakespeare wrote King Lear in quarantine. “Necessity is the mother of invention.” COMFORT IS THE ENEMY OF PROGRESS. I love that. WE TEND TO THINK OF CREATIVITY AND FREEDOM AS GOING TOGETHER. BUT CAN LIMITS ACTUALLY BOOST CREATIVITY? PROF CATRINEL TROMP, COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGIST, SPECIALIST IN LIMITATIONS: It's a nice myth to think of creativity as an endless open field of possibilities. But the reality is, when people face such a wonderful open field they might become paralysed. Constraints are the anchors of creativity. BARONESS SUSAN GREENFIELD, NEUROSCIENTIST, SPECIALIST IN CREATIVITY: The growth of the human brain is by growing branches. By growing branches you can make more connections and it's by having connections that you can say "aha". Now there's an interesting issue over whether constraints are actually beneficial or problematic for creativity. And I think the answer to both is yes, both cases happen to be the case. RESEARCH SUGGESTS THERE IS A U-SHAPED CREATIVITY CURVE. WITH NO CONSTRAINTS WE FEEL BORED AND UNDERSTIMULATED. BUT WITH TOO MANY, WE FEEL STRESSED AND OVERWHELMED. THE SWEET SPOT IS IN THE MIDDLE. WHAT DO WE MEAN BY CREATIVITY? PROF CATRINEL TROMP: There's still disagreement, at least in psychology, about what creativity really is. DR VOLKER PATENT: It's people making things that haven't existed before. BARONESS SUSAN GREENFIELD: Everyday elements but putting them together in a way not that is just novel but that actually has a meaning for people, that actually changes the way they see the world. DR VOLKER PATENT: Most people tend to think that creativity is something that happens to people who have a particular talent. This is a misconception. BARONESS SUSAN GREENFIELD: There is no such thing as a single gene for creativity. SO CAN YOU TEACH CREATIVITY? DR VOLKER PATENT: We can distinguish between two different types of constraints the intentional constraints and the unintentional constraints. QUILLA CONSTANCE, ARTIST: These external forces of limitation and they can be political, socio-economic. Being a biracial, black, female artist coming from a working-class background could be seen as a limitation within the art world, which historically has been a very patriarchal, white, middle-class space. BARONESS SUSAN GREENFIELD: Resilience comes when you have problems and challenges and that in turn gives you ideas. QUILLA CONSTANCE, ARTIST: An artist who I very much admire, called Faith Ringgold, wanted to make these huge, huge canvases, in the same way that a lot of men were making huge modernist works of art. But she didn't actually have the space at home to do that. And so she started to make these huge quilts - roll it up and take it to various galleries. She's a great example of how an artist can flourish under limitation. YOU CAN ALSO CHOOSE TO SET YOURSELF LIMITS. HERE ARE SOME PRACTICAL TOOLS FOR CREATIVITY. PROF CATRINEL TROMP: Avoid familiarity and embrace novelty. Be it using different materials or a different method or a different process. If you always write poetry, try prose. DR VOLKER PATENT: Schedule a particular time when you are going to do nothing else but engage in the creative task. And that's one of the ways in which people with very little time can write books - by telling everybody in your family that that's what you're going to be doing, you're actually protecting a space for yourself for something creative to happen. QUILLA CONSTANCE: Start drawing and give yourself five minutes. Do another drawing. Give yourself 10 seconds to do the drawing. When we are given less time to do something, usually the most important information comes across. DR VOLKER PATENT: If you're playing in a band and you're getting really, really stuck, swap instruments. That can create new ideas in your songs as well. PROF CATRINEL TROMP: Or paint a red dot or a blue line in the upper left corner of your blank canvas and then challenge yourself to incorporate those constraints into the composition. And even though you may not end up using those particular constraints in the final product, they can be beneficial for creativity as long as you play around with them willingly. What might happen is that the mere experience with playing around with different limitations stretches your imagination and improves creativity.
