Three Modes of Creativity

Abstract

This article is an ontological investigation of the term creativity, to suggest a model that infuses key philosophical and critical perspectives. This article proposes that creativity has three modes of existence or ways of being in the world: the Visceral (embodiments), the Ideational (mind and conceptual), and the Observational (appreciation, critical, and evaluative). We view creativity synergistically as representing both the individual creative experience and output, in conceptual and embodied ways—and also what externally shapes, enhances, and constrains creative experience. Technologies, as tools to think or create with, often mediate the operation of these three modes. We discuss each mode, instantiating it in an educational exemplar, and also engage with issues of power, discourse, and gatekeeping over what is deemed to be creative in education. Our discussion examines the rhetoric around the term, as well as issues of access to technologies that afford creativity. This tri‐modal model of creativity offers an interdisciplinary framework to complement existing models for understanding creativity.

Creativity in Motion: Examining the Creative Potential System and Enriched Movement Activities as a Way to Ignite It

“…A similar tension must be maintained for risk-permissive cultural norms to lead to creative behaviors. That is, presenting and supporting enough risk to allow individuals’ to explore and embrace the unknown from which they can draw novel ways of thinking and acting, while providing boundaries for one to feel a sense of security ( Creely et al, 2020 ). Finally, reasonable evidence supports the role of playful environments, at all ages, for the development of creative skills (e.g., Davies et al, 2013 ; Stierand et al, 2019 ).…”

“…In synergy with affects and cognitions, the body participates in the emergence of creative actions. Accordingly, a recent framework developed by Creely et al (2020) conceptualized creativity as a way of being, expressing, emerging, and existing. The first mode of their Three Modes of Creativity model considers creativity as a “visceral embodied expression in the physical world or as a set of tangible practices that are physically located in space and time” (p. 2).…”

“…Embodiment is based on the premise that the brain and body are intrinsically coupled ( Gallagher, 2015 ). When considered as a corporeal connection with others and the material world, embodied creativity often relates to domains such as music, painting, sculpture, and performing arts where senses, feelings, and the totality of the environment of things are engaged through the body ( Creely et al, 2020 ).…”

Collaborative Musical Creativity between Students and Adults: The Sonorous Paella

“…Finally, another element that hinders musical creativity has to do with the availability of and accessibility to Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), and with how ICT are used for music teaching and learning (Hoffmann, Ivcevic, & Brackett, 2016) and as tools to think or create (Creely, Henriksen, & Henderson, 2020). Research shows that ICT are often imposed into musical activities, where there is no room for students' imagination, using them as tools to achieve traditional learning outcomes (e.g., producing scores with music notation software).…”

Exploring professionalism through interdisciplinary group creativity and diversity: A case study

“…Also relevant to this article is Creely et al's. [20] proposition that creativity "has three modes of existence or ways of being in the world". Modality is central to their model as this enables them to explain the experiential and emergent nature of creativity.…”