Month: May 2023

One thing that struck me that I really agree with in this comedy Ted Talk, is two things, first, Kermit explaining how creativity is inherent to all of us, and is not only a things artists have and others dont, he explains how days to day activities, how the economy and other important factors of human (and non human) life has been heavily fueled by creativity, which is fully true. The second thing that he said that struck me was the term “ridiculous optimism” which is what i feel whenever I want to create something, wether it be a dance video, finish an assignment or even take on a project. Other than the skillsets needed to acquire a certain goal, I truly believe creativity is key to all of it because if you listen to this creativity it tells u about innovative/more fun ways for you to achieve this goal and u believe that u will succeed and find a way make your thoughts come to life. Overall, as funny as Kermit is, with his jokes, i agree with everything he says about creativity and the creative process one has to go through in order to achieve something creatively, i especially agree with the “ridiculous optimism” term he used as i believe it is really essential to acknowledge it and allow it to drive you further into your creative process. 

There were a lot of ideas swirling around this topic for me. There are 3 concepts that readily jumped out:

1. Space between objects.
2. Outer space
3. space between people (not the physical kind)

I decided to use a picture I took while I was on the S5, on my way to our housing in Berlin, as a base. This was the first time I the concept of ‘space’ came to my mind in Berlin. I am used to cities being crammed, and this was my first realization that Berlin was not such a city. The buildings and architecture were ‘spaced’. There was a lot of space to walk, to run, to ride and to see.

Here is the original picture:

A few years ago, I spent a some days in Sariska, Rajasthan, India. Sariska is a dark site, and as such is a great place to look at the stars. I edited the sky and ground in the image to a picture of a star trial (this is similar to a few pictures I captured, but alas I couldn’t find them in time). While incomplete without the context of creation, I wanted this image to signify space between people. People can live next to each other, even know each other, but at the same time be light years apart. This led us here:

When I was in elementary school, I didn’t care about school at all, all I cared about is making the time in class pass so that recess would feel to me like it was sooner, because of that, I would play a bunch of different games w my classmates that sat around me in class, one of them would be a game nostalgic to all of us in my school : the time traveller, so I decided to share the game with you guys and hopefully show you have to time travel from the comfort of your classes without making the professor realize you left!

The Colors of the Week:

In this synesthetic realm, Monday greets us with a warm embrace of orange, resembling Tuesday but with a touch of subtlety, not as bright and exuberant. Tuesday, shines a bright sunny yellow, reminiscent of the number 22, buzzing bumblebees, and the sweetness of honey. As we venture into Wednesday surrounds us in a refreshing green, evoking the imagery of rainforests and the crisp scent of fresh air. Thursday is navy blue because it just makes sense (though for now, it finds itself in indigo hues which also makes sense). Friday ignites with a passionate red, screaming  untamed energy and wild spirit. Saturday is cyan because Saturday is time spent by the beach and the sound of crashing waves shadowed by the hoots of joy and laughter from children nearby, but we are sticking to the rainbow color spectrum so it steals Thursday’s blue. Finally, Sunday, a day of rejuvenation and new beginnings, acts as a reset button. It radiates clean and new, much like a fresh blank canvas. Though it is white without a doubt, we accept it as violet, which also somehow fits the essence of Sunday if we make it so.

For my creation, I decided to create a rainbow for the year 2022 with each day of the week being a different color (the color it embodies). Here below is the rainbow that is 2022 in colors

Creativity is a very flexible term that can be seen in so many different ways. In this video, I found Charles Bouldevaire’s take on creativity/genius being childhood recaptured at will the most fascinating of these definitions. It really spoke to me and added an extra layer of interest to the whole discussion. Another thing that piqued my interest is Kermit’s advice on collaborating during the creative process. I think this is by far the most important aspect of creating because at the end of the day creativity can be constrained by limited perspectives, even on a subconscious level. As explained by Linda Alcoff (in Race and Epistemology of Ignorance), most of what we know comes from making judgment calls within specific contexts, rather than relying solely on logical deductions or direct observations. That is why every person who has to make such judgment calls brings their own personal experiences into the mix. These experiences are influenced by many things like their social environment, personal identity, what they pay attention to, and their individual interests. This means that everyone sees things differently, even when looking at the same thing. Incorporating these different perspectives adds valuable elements to the creation and allows it to reach a wider audience base.

52.5381726,13.4100656,17 potion
prep time: 1h – 8h
serves one person

fly from munich to berlin specifically. leave your house at 7pm but before the sunset because for the first time your sun is setting at 9pm. [forgot to mention that it must be summer.] for 2min, walk towards the greenest area you can see. gather your first leaves from the ground. come back to get an umbrella. [forgot to mention that it must be drizzling.] walk in the opposite direction of the first time because you must go to a mall. stare at the ground closely as the green become less frequent. be tempted to pick up beautiful flowers but don’t – your ethics code is to only collect the ones that have already fallen down. disrespect yout ethics code once or twice. close your umbrella when you see that you’re the only one in the street holding one. bend over in the middle of the sidewalk to collect your fallen leaves. realize that you’re lost. ask other people for help and find the mall that is already closed anyway. forget that you were collecting plants in the first place. go back home.

Listening to Kermit is a creative process in itself. We’re imagining that an inanimate puppet, moved and voiced by someone whose identity is not the puppet, is an actual ‘person’. This leap of imagination is creativity. A full immersion into the concept of Kermit, so much so, that throughout the talk we do not even doubt his person hood.

I am looking at the talk from the perspective of creativity in the pure sciences, since that is the background I happen to most readily connect the talk to.

There are 2 concepts that resonated with me the most:

1. Having a Beginner’s Mindset / A Child’s mindset: This encapsulates everything Kermit said earlier about the creative process. It all boils down to not caring in the least about how things have been done, and being curious about how they could be. When we first learn something, we often try (and fail) at even the most basic parts of the art; but eventually our unique exploration consolidates into an understanding that is slightly different from the rest of the world. This is often how I try to see math, it’s the process of playing around with the theorems and proofs that ends up creating new information. It is not necessarily useful information, but it adds personal flavor to the picture.
2. Mistakes/Useless stuff today might be innovation tomorrow: Often pure math and physics are chalked off as having no real world value. The concepts are too esoteric. Almost always, the writers of these concepts also have no intention of their work having practical applications, it is a creative (and intriguing) expression for them. Einstein himself said that his work on Nuclear Magnetic resonance had no practical applications. But a little later, his work became the foundation of the MRI machine and went on to save millions of lives.

When thinking about chocolate, I first thought of a hot cup of chocolate. But this was not enough. I needed something else, I needed somethinto spice things up.. and then I remembered. Chocolate was supposed to be spicy, it was a spicy beverage before the colonization of Mexico. Why shouldn’t I try to make some? Do I know how to cook? No. Have I ever tried chocolate with chili pepper? Also no. Was this a good idea? probably not.

I quickly found a store that sells mexican products,where I found my favorite chocolate and bought some chili peppers.

I decided that this was just the inspiration I needed and not the actual creation. See, making chocolate (even the spicy one) was too obvious, and I had been doing something related to chocolate lately, something different. Chocolate is also a game in Mexico. It is just a hand game children play (or played, I am not sure anymore) when they are in kindergarden or primary school. I recently taught a friend how to play it. Combining these ideas, I decided to draw a guide to do/play chocolate the way Mexicans do it.

Here is a video of the drawing process:

I also ended up making spicy chocolate. I personally liked the flavor, but a friend tried it and (politely) ran to get some water and some milk to get rid of the flavor it left behind. I was not planing on including the hot chocolate as part of the assigment, and I didn’t get a good recording of the process, but here is a video of a friend and I playing chocolate.

https://vimeo.com/829639267?share=copy

Disclaimer: This is not the friend that tried the spicy chocolate

Kermit, the one and only, explains some basic concepts of creativity: how it is present in everyday life, how it comes from an unusual perspective and how it is an inherent part of the self. He also talks about how creativity might not feel “present” when one is only trying to survive. For me, I wonder if it is not during hard times that creativity is forced to emerge. The video does talk about necessity and creativity being the “parents”, but for me, creativity is usually the product of necessities. Another highlight for me is the part about knowing the rules. Even if it’s to ignore it, I believe that the process of creating needs a methodology. Even if it is a flexible one, it needs a regulated process. If there is no structure, it is just “doing stuff” for me. In order to create there needs to be something else, which I believe is (partially) rules. 

Shahram Chaudhry

While Kermit defined creativity in several ways from seeing the world through an unusual perspective, to trying to make it through living in a swamp, the idea of creativity as being who you are and the thing that keeps you going resonated the most with me. The belief that you’re either a creative person or a technical person has been ingrained in me through my country’s academic culture and I’ve been made to believe that I’m not creative at all (I never got bored in NYUAD so I’m definitely not ‘not creative.’) I’ve conveniently justified my reluctance to take creative chances by using lack of time as an excuse but this class would be a great opportunity to explore my creative side. Also, I realize the importance of not being afraid of failure because what might seem as a mistake or failure could produce different but entirely useful outcomes. “Sometimes, it’s not important to know the destination when we start the journey,” ( I reassure myself as I’m about to figure out how to reach a lake 1.5 hrs away).