1.3. Aspects of radical creativity

How is can you be creative? What factors enable your radical creativity?

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Radical creativity has a special meaning for each of us, and people respond to the idea differently. The meanings and definitions of radical creativity have generated rich debates and multidisciplinary discussions at Aalto University at elsewhere. That’s one of the purposes of having radical creativity as a cross-cutting theme in Aalto University’s strategy. Radical creativity challenges existing paradigms, thinking, ways of doing and structures. It is our strength.

For example, asking some Aalto members the question, ‘what does “radical” tell us about this form of creativity, “radical creativity”?’, produced interesting answers. Here are some excerpts:

 

‘My answer will be quite broad, but I will take a parallelism,’ says Tapani Vuorinen, Professor at the Department of Bioproducts and Biosystems.

‘When someone is tenured on a professor track, it is required that the person has excellence in research, maybe excellence in teaching and something else, but excellence is required.

Excellence is not anything absolute. So, I think the difference between being creative and being radically creative is the same. People might have different views about what level is radical creativeness.

By expectation, everyone, especially the academic staff here, should be creative. But then, being radically creative means something above what is normal. So, radical creativity is maybe a bit surprising. It’s something that does not always happen. I don’t see it anything absolute but it’s quite different from normal creativity.”

 

Satu Kyösola, University Lecturer at the Department of Film gives a broad definition:

‘For me, creativity is to be open to the world and open to the ideas and not thinking that something is ready.

I think we close so many doors ourselves in our life. It’s not that we are not let in a certain position, it’s just that we don’t dare. Because I would feel very ridiculous with these engineers or with these mathematicians.’

Mikko Dufva, Futures Studies Lecturer at Aalto University, thinks about radical creativity as something that this era calls for.

‘One way to approach it from the lens of future studies is of course that we do live in a time where a lot of the old assumptions don’t hold. So, if I wanted to use the radical creativity frame, I would probably stress the importance of challenging your existing assumptions in order to create room for something entirely new to arise.”

Creativity through philosophical and psychological lenses

Creativity, including radical creativity can be examined through different multidisciplinary frameworks.

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Let’s look at creativity from the philosophical and psychological angles.

One of the central questions tackled by Gaut (2010) is ‘How is creativity possible?’. They argue that such philosophical questions require attention in the psychological literature of creativity, with its different perspectives — cognitive psychology, sociocultural, personality studies or even computational approaches.

For instance, Boden (2004) introduces a computational perspective on creativity, exploring how computers can help us understand human creativity and proposing a framework for thinking about creativity in computational terms. When creativity is examined though this lens, three kinds of human creativity emerge: combinational (familiar ideas are recombined to come up with something new); exploratory (exploring a conceptual space); and transformational (transforming a conceptual space, which enables people to think things that were impossible before).

A conceptual space is the underlying rules, structures or assumptions of a given domain. Transforming a conceptual space, exploring a conceptual space and the unfamiliar combination of familiar ideas can be seen as a spectrum of creativity. Transforming a conceptual space  enables the generation of ideas or thoughts that were previously impossible within that framework. This form of creativity goes beyond merely exploring or recombining existing elements within a set domain; it involves changing the domain itself in such a way that it opens up entirely new possibilities for thought and innovation.

• Combinational creativity (an unfamiliar combination of familiar ideas) is the most immediate form of creativity, where existing ideas, concepts, or elements are combined in novel ways to produce something new This doesn’t require altering the fundamental rules of the domain but simply seeing new connections or relationships between known elements.
• Exploratory creativity (exploring a conceptual space) involves a deeper engagement with the domain, where an individual or a group systematically explores the boundaries and possibilities within an existing framework of rules or concepts. It’s about pushing the limits of what’s known and discovering new insights or innovations that still fit within the established structures.
• Transformational creativity (transforming a conceptual space), involves altering or expanding the existing conceptual space. By changing the rules, assumptions, or fundamental structures of a domain, entirely new types of ideas and innovations become possible. Transformational creativity allows for a re-imagining of what is conceivable, enabling thoughts and creations that could not have existed within the original parameters.

Gaut considers this third type of creativity to be the most radical kind.

It’s possible to learn to be better at all of the three forms of creativity, though we can never totally control creativity. What we can do is create the mental and physical space for creativity to happen. We can tend the fertile soil where we plant the seeds for radical creativity to grow.

What do creative people think themselves?

Let’s look at some of the elements of radical creativity among Aalto staff.

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One effort to better understand radical creativity involved studying it among Aalto’s faculty. The CREATNet-research project launched in 2022 and interviewed 54 faculty members. Tua Bjrörklund,  one of the researchers, says that the interviewees had very diverse views on what radical creativity is, but that these differences can be beneficial:

‘Instead of everyone sharing the same definition about radical creativity, it might be more useful to increase our understanding of the different approaches and what they might add to your work and your field. This could inspire people to see connections and opportunities and to better understand other disciplines.‘

The study found that people conceptualize radical creativity in terms of intrinsically connected aspects: process and outcome; individual and collective; serendipitous and intentional. These aspects help frame the concept of radical creativity and bring it closer to practice. We will go over these six aspects in the next few paragraphs.

A radically creative process was understood as a novel approach for solving a problem or addressing a research question. In research, this might mean borrowing methodologies from different fields and applying them in a new context or even collaborating with researchers from a different field. In education, radical creativity as a process could involve focusing on creating room for exploration through different methods and activities. To use an example from Aalto, the School of Chemical Engineering and the School of Arts, Design and Architecture formed a joint initiative, CHEMARTS, with the aim of inventing new ways to harness wood and cellulose. We’ll dive deeper into this topic in the third chapter of this course, Process.

Radically creative outcomes were typically evaluated in terms of their ability to have a significant impact on society. A radically creative outcome is unexpected and might even seem impossible or not accepted when first introduced. For instance, Galileo Galilei’s astronomical observation of Jupiter’s moons led to ideas that were radical at first but are now considered significant contributions to physics and astronomy.

So, the process aspect looks at how something is made or done in a new way, while the outcome aspect refers to what was done, created or discovered.

Radical creativity at an individual level was considered to entail the personal mindsets and practices that create a foundation for radical creativity. For example, keeping an open mind, wanting to learn from others and actively experimenting can all help create new ways of working and lead to novel outcomes. This can require a bit of courage, as radical creativity often entails being different from the norm. The second chapter of this course, Individual, further looks into personal skills as enablers of radically creative ideas.

As for the collective aspect, radical creativity often relies on combinating multiple perspectives. Collaboration is important, requiring practices for creating and exploring shared meanings across diverse people. At Aalto, creating opportunities for multidisciplinary collaboration is particularly valued. For example, there are a wide range of multidisciplinary courses, such as the Startup Experience, an entrepreneurship course where students solve real-world sustainability-related problems in multidisciplinary teams. This multidisciplinary collaboration in education happens at many different levels: student teamwork, guest lectures, co-teaching, and co-supervising. We will cover the collective aspect further in the fourth chapter, Collective.

Gaut (2010) defined serendipity as ‘the skillful use of chance, not pure luck.’ Radical creativity celebrates the unknown and thus invites serendipitous moments. For example, chatting with people from different fields and backgrounds around the coffee machine can reveal new paths and lead to new ideas. The creation of serendipitous moments was a goal for Steve Jobs in the design of Pixar’s headquarters: he planned the common areas and bathrooms to force people to randomly meet each other in the corridors. We’ll return to that case at the end of this sub-chapter. In Aalto’s Väre building, the location and form of the stairs forces people to walk a bit more, increasing the chances of encountering new people.

Finally, the last aspect refers to intentional activities taken to promote radical creativity. People can choose to actively explore different processes or approaches to encourage radically creative ideas. An example would be looking for colleagues from other departments to discuss ideas and an eagerness to collaborate across disciplines. That can be scary, but being intentional about fostering a radically creative attitude requires a willingness to be uncomfortable. Collaboration isn’t always easy, because experts in different domains often seem to speak a different language — but radical creativity happens when multiple perspectives and professionals work together. Solving the big problems that humanity faces requires an intention and willingness to make that happen.

The six aspects unveiled in the study show one way of turning radical creativity into an active attitude. Think about them as building blocks or ingredients for radical creativity: they are all needed in different proportions to lead to concrete results. For example, radical creativity needs a process that is designed for achieving an outcome; this process is carried out by individuals who work together to build a broader set of skills for solving a problem. In this process, being intentional about collaboration and looking at things from different perspectives is as important as the random and unknown encounters that the process will bring.

 

We presented the six dimensions that form the views of Aalto’s staff on living with a mindset of radical creativity. For this exercise, let’s explore serendipity. The goal is to encourage creative thinking and serendipitous discoveries by paying attention to either your environment or interactions during a day.

Here is a step-by-step guide for this activity:

• Pick an activity for the day of the exercise: It can be your commute to/from work or school or any other activity. During this activity, remind yourself that you will be practicing serendipity: being open to ideas that you would not notice on a normal day.
• Make a small change in your activity: Being open to new ideas means that we should be open to new experiences. So how about experimenting with a different route? Maybe taking your bus at a different stop? Even a small change can be enough to help you get into the mindset of being open to new ideas.
• Do, observe and take notes: While you are going through your activity (e.g. your commute to work), start paying attention to different things around you — maybe a piece of street art, an interesting shop, a beautiful garden, or even a person with a unique style. Take notes about the things you saw that sparked your interest.
• Reflect on that: After you finish your notes, take some time to reflect on the things you saw and what kind of ideas or emotions the experience sparked. For example, how did that piece of art make you feel? Or what did that shop make you think about? The idea isn’t to look for an idea that will transform your life or work but rather to practice being open to new things in your routine and looking at them from a different perspective.Write max 200 words.

References

Björklund, T. ; Eriksson, V. ; Feng, X. ; Klenner, Niko ; Kuukka, A. ; van der Marel, F. (2022). Toward Radical Creativity report Available at: https://designfactory.aalto.fi/creatnet/ 

Boden, M. A. (2004). The creative mind: Myths and mechanisms. Psychology Press.

Gaut, B. (2010). The philosophy of creativity. Philosophy Compass, 5(12), 1034-1046.

Gilson, L. L., & Madjar, N. (2011). Radical and incremental creativity: Antecedents and processes. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 5(1), 21.

Gilson, L. L., Lim, H. S., D’Innocenzo, L., & Moye, N. (2012). One size does not fit all: Managing radical and incremental creativity. The Journal of Creative Behavior, 46(3), 168-191.

Madjar, N., Greenberg, E., & Chen, Z. (2011). Factors for radical creativity, incremental creativity, and routine, noncreative performance. Journal of applied psychology, 96(4), 730.