Imagine Creatively Collaborating

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Yesterday evening I went to a Creative Networks event. I’ve been to quite a few over the past couple of years or so. They claim to be “the biggest group of creative professionals in Yorkshire … developed to nurture creative talent and to foster partnerships and collaboration.” A very worthy aim.

I sometimes go to LSxCafe and have been to several of the Leeds Digital Festival meetups. These are where the geeky end of the creative spectrum go to talk megabytes of of stuff I never really get the hang of and collaborate digitally.

I’ve even been involved occasionally with Culture Vultures own cultural conversations, and later today I’ll be posting something on here from Kirsty Ware (@gazpachodragon) about her new collaborative adventure – it should have been posted yesterday, but I’m sure Kirsty will understand when I say I got distracted by beer and @MrPeshwari’s offer of supper.

In the past couple of weeks I’ve seen collaborations between a symphony orchestra and a rap group at Temple Works, been to Live Arts Bistro where they are all about the collaboration, watched some experimental opera that encouraged the audience to chip in some ideas, talked with a theatre company some musicians and a caterer about collaborating on a Light Night project, and, quite literally moments ago when I checked my DM’s, was asked if I cared to collaborate on a show about feminism … erm, me on stage? I think that’ll be a no.

Collaboration, collaboration, collaboration … you can’t leave your front door these days without getting collared by a random thespian and cajoled into conjuring up a couple of lines for his latest absurdist comedy of sexual manners, or badgered by a jazz bassoonist to accompany her on her next Bettakultcha presentation.

I have a couple of quibbles with all this collaborating. Earlier this week I would probably have got all clever and quoted chunks of Jonah Lehrer’s latest book, Imagine; How Creativity Works but after the scandal I’d better not. Anyway, disregarding the cheating, the book is a bit confusing about how creativity works and how best to foster imagination. Sometimes he says it’s by being an outsider and taking yourself off to commune with your inner demon in a log cabin somewhere there are more bears than people; next he says it’s by being in a sardine tin of a city, close packed with other creatives, sharing the collaborative juice. The book doesn’t really help at all.

My first quibble is; does collaborating make stuff better? Or make better stuff? Obviously it must depend on who is in the mix. It worked amazingly with the classical musicians and the rappers, and what they did together was a joy to behold. But when I was asked as part of the audience at the opera preview the other day what I would do to help make the piece work better I was frankly stumped, and I was glad I wasn’t put on the spot else I would have mumbled something like, “erm, the bass line could be a bit more, erm … thumpy?” or “Masks! … the thing needs masks.” And that wouldn’t help, would it?

My second quibble is actually quite profound. What about the introverts? We make up a third of the population, and chronic cases would like to be creative too. We just don’t want to do it with you. Any of you.

In my own case, whenever I’m confronted with more than two people in a room at any one time my mind behaves like a submarine in a World War Two, Battle of the Pacific film. There’s a low, grating shudder, the engines gasp and die, the lights flicker for an agonising second or two and then it’s the darkness, the only sound that baleful bloop … bloop from the bloop-bloop machine (sorry, my understanding of submarinership is scanty on technical details, but I think you’ll get what I mean) Then it’s that sinking feeling and the knowledge that when you hit the rocky bottom there’s no coming up again.

That’s how it feels anyway.

Maybe introverts aren’t much use in the arts these days. Or maybe we should choose appropriate creative outlets such as lyric poetry and … well, just lyric poetry actually, everything else seems to be taken over by teams of smily, cheering, sky-punching extraverts.

Right, it’s eight o’ clock. Happy collaborating to one and all.

16 comments

  1. Just because you don’t like to stand up with a microphone doesn’t mean your opinions are not valid. Perhaps the bass line did need to be more thumpy, and masks in opera are not unheard of. I dare say others in the audience also had ideas but were too shy to speak, so the organisers should recognise that alternative methods of feedback should be available. Given the number of collaborative projects you are attending, I think you’re to be congratulated on overcoming the bloop bloop bloop and going along anyway. The combination of existing but polar opposite cultural/art forms often results in truly original new material, and how better to do this than through collaboration?

    1. My opinions are rarely valid. I don’t want to have opinions about everything.

      I think sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Collaboration isn’t some kind of universal panacea.

      Some things have to be done in solitude and silence, and those things are precious.

      And I like working on my own. Couldn’t bear someone looking over my shoulder.

  2. Chitty’s Rules of Collaboration

    1 = Don’t do it unless you HAVE to
    2 = Choose your collaborations with EXTREME care
    3 = handle power in collaboration with skill
    4 = if you go into a collaboration do not have a specific end in mind – great collaborations produce possibilities that neither party to the collaboration can foresee at the start of the process
    5 = recognise that collaboration is not the same as co-working, partnership working, co-opting, co-creating or any of the other buzz words that fall like confetti from the lips of the purse holders.
    6 = collaborate with unusual suspects – different disciplines, different goals, perhaps even folks that you don’t trust….

    1. oh, there’s rules too … no wonder I was never very good at it, can never remember which rule to apply in which case.

      Hmm, how would you collaborate with someone you don’t trust? Is there a separate, secret set of rules for that occasion?

      1. Indeed there are! Some of the best collaborations happen when trust is low, skill/inspiration is high and the prize is suitably inflated! But it takes a particular skill set and process to be able to pull it off…

  3. I never said collaboration worked every time – far from it – but if no one ever tried, life would be a lot less interesting. Working alone is productive, I agree, but being alone all the time is less likely to lead to creativity, don’t you think?

    1. Working alone and ‘collaborating’ are not the only fruit. There are many ways of ‘working with’ other people without collaborating with them.

      You can gain inspiration from a wide range of relationships with others, collaboration is just one.

      I am a big fan of collaboration. But I think the word has been pretty much demeaned, as has partnership working, co-creation and many other buzz words often used to indicate a broad intent rather than a specific type of working relationship.

    2. I socialise collectively, but work alone.

      I just think that time spent working things out quietly for oneself is becoming increasingly devalued. Collaboration is cosy. But it’s usually the outsiders who create the best work.

  4. I’ve enjoyed collaborating with people I know and trust, and have managed to work just-about-successfully with some I’ve been very glad to see the back of at the end of a project. I much prefer to arrange my collaborations, well…collaboratively, and now shun opportunities (however interesting the brief and tempting the funding) that involve enforced collaboration with someone unknown.

    1. Have you ever thought of inviting into a collaborative project someone who you really admire but perhaps don’t know or may even actively distrust?

      Where the main driver of the desire to collaborate is their unique talent and how it might burn brightly with yours, rather the nature of your relationship?

      Risky but can be great! In a world of often mediocre collaborations we need to embrace the challenge of working with massively different I reckon.

    2. Do you think the collaboration bandwagon is funding led? Those of us who prefer the lonely furrow (that’s two cliches in as many s entences, I never said I didn’t need an editor) are prejudiced against?

  5. Introverts can contribute to collaboration. We’re the ones who fit comfortably into awkward silences, and greet as old friends vague feelings of the wheels coming off as the chariot bowls along. Dumb questions, constant uncertainty, close observation – introverts have a lot to offer the collaborative process.

    1. hmm, maybe. The problem isn’t the quality of the contribution it’s about getting a look in when there’s listening to be done (where’s the editor when you need one? Appalling mixed metaphor there.)

  6. love the submarine comparison. So true. I spend so much of my life avoiding one-on-one or small group situations with anyone that are not close friends or long time colleagues.

    If cornered into speaking it always ends up in me saying randomly interlinked words instead of sentences, a befuddled glance in my direction and then on goes the conversation with backs to my face. At work I’ve mastered being able to project one important point per meeting (usually 15 mins after the topic ended). The problem is I spend so much time rehearsing it in my head I miss out on what everyone is saying.

    In fact several good mates thought I was an aloof, arrogant teapot when they first met me. Also,randomly, I’ve always found it enjoyable presenting/ speaking in front of many.

    ps the orchestra & rap thing stretched the bounds of a collaboration apart from the last 5 minutes. Both great though.

  7. One of the problems I have with collaboration is that it’s called collaboration. Surely there must be a better word I can use that doesn’t make me think I should add ‘but not the kind with Nazis and occupied countries’. Collaborating to mean co-operatively, collectively making something good. No nazis. Just so we’re clear.

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