Browsing by Author "Hongell, Mikaela"
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- Creative constructions - a plunge into the mind of the inspired
School of Arts, Design and Architecture | Bachelor's thesis(2013) Hongell, MikaelaThe thesis explores literature on creativity research through separate dialogues with two artists. It links together theories on creativity with experiences from within a creative profession through the participation of a musician and a painter. The background research consists of scientific publications singled out with potential parallels with participant’s everyday life in mind. The intention is to deepen the understanding of creativity as a phenomenon through the discussions as support for the writer’s future profession of art education. The overview of the literature on creativity is carried out with possible relevance for the dialogues and participants in mind. The dialogue is used as a tool for a deepened understanding of the topics. The participants share their experiences on creative processes and receive information on creativity research. The dialogue as a method is chosen to enable a flow of thoughts that a structured interview might not permit. The quoted dialogues are present within the paper as cut-out side stories with highlighted parts of interesting thoughts. The discussions were carried out in Finnish and English. The thesis consists of seven main chapters. The first chapter introduces the intentions of the thesis, the participants of the dialogues, and makes the distinction between everyday creativity and innovation. The second chapter locates creativity within the domain, the field and the person, and explores the interaction of these. The third chapter traces back interest in a domain through a childhood experience and explores the characteristics of a creative mind. The fourth chapter dives into different ways of problem solving. In the fifth chapter the process from an idea to the final evaluation of a finished work is presented. The sixth chapter illuminates two areas of positive psychology: intrinsic motivation and the flow-experience. The seventh and final chapter summarises the chosen parts of creativity research, reflects upon the relevance of the knowledge for the writer as a teacher and evaluates the dialogue as a method. Several interesting approaches to creativity research have been rejected due to the abstract nature and the inability to tie them to the dialogue. The dialogue has been an effective tool but not without difficulties. Exceptions were made in order to cover all of the desired information. The approach broadened the understanding of the complex topic. It illuminated the creativity research and offered a window into the mind of the participants. The creativity research became approachable and received a position in reality. The deepened knowledge on the subject became a tool for teaching and positioned art education within creativity as a wider phenomenon. - Thin air deconstructed
School of Arts, Design and Architecture | Master's thesis(2019) Hongell, MikaelaThis study set out to investigate the correlations between intuition and embodied knowledge. The intent was to understand the cognitive strategies applied in a process relying on conceptual combination. This was actualized by combining two different approaches in the construction of five sculptures, assembled in metal wire, and in the tradition of croquis drawing. The initial data was gathered through the subjective experience of a creative process, examined as problem solving via definitions provided by cognitive psychology. Expressed and analyzed by means of autoethnography and artistic research, a clear theory or hypothesis was not set in advance. Formulating the research question was a gradual process that emerged through a deeper understanding of the theoretical components. This shifted the focus towards problem finding, thereby accumulating new layers of insight and understanding through emotional recall and introspection. Through recurring correlations in description, the findings in data pointed at similarities and interaction between intuition and embodied knowledge, examined as tools for action, dependent on previous experience. Additionally, an attempt to change the initial, planned course of action resulted in data indicating that intuition may act as a potential hindrance concerning creative strategies. Consequently, this lead to a deeper understanding of the interdisciplinary aspects of creativity, experienced on multiple occasions as insight and a broadening of the cognitive horizon. These findings were achieved by comparing the creative output in the artistic process to the formation of theory-based understanding. The insights emerged through autoethnographic means as part of the writing process itself, proving it to be beneficial concerning the verbalization of intuitive and implicit knowledge. By bringing forth a sensitivity towards intuition and enaction, it supported a new awareness of self, applicable within educational environments and in professional strategies. A final layer of the autoethnographic narration was reached by including an interpretative analysis of the subject matter as an attempt to verbalize the intuition-derived artistic process by targeting the phase preceding the data references. This added to the understanding of the embodied self, resulting in a synthesis of practice, experience, and theory.