Applied Imagination

Creative Aging Field Loses One of Its Key Leaders: In Memory of Gene D. Cohen, M.D., Ph.D.

2009-11-10T18:28:00.001-05:00

[10 November 2009 - National Center for Creative Aging] Last Saturday night, we lost one of our key leaders in the field of creative aging – more so our very dear friend. NCCA was blessed to have been closely associated with Dr. Cohen not only as one of the founding members of the Board of Directors but as our faculty host at George Washington University, where both NCCA and his Center on Aging, Health and Humanities are housed within the Health Sciences Department. NCCA came into this partnership to bring Dr. Cohen’s and other outstanding researchers work into practice. It has been a great honor to work closely with Dr. Cohen and his brilliant work. On the behalf of the National Center for Creative Aging, we look forward to building upon Dr. Cohen’s legacy with you to move the paradigm of aging from problem to potential. In association with the Gerontological Society of America, where Dr. Cohen served as President in1997, NCCA will announce next week the formation of the Gene D. Cohen Research Award in Creative Aging at the GSA Annual conference in Atlanta . We will be releasing further details as plans progress and ask for your support in continuing Dr. Cohen’s research through promoting this award opportunity and other tributes that will be developing within our field in honor of him. We have included the family’s obituary and a photograph for your further information and distribution. Gene touched so many lives and leaves us with such a rich legacy on which to continue his work to improve the quality of life for older people. Our thoughts and prayers are with Dr. Cohen’s family. We are also working with George Washington University as caretakers for the Center for Aging, Health and Humanities which will continue in a robust form to advance Dr. Cohen’s scholarship. With sympathy, Gay Hanna, Executive Director, National Center for Creative Aging - More

Making of Me: Creativity is vital in shaping our futures ... families are fundamental in developing it

2009-11-10T14:58:00.001-05:00

[2 November 2009 - DEMOS (UK) - By Jen Lexmond and Shelagh Wright] Creativity and cultural engagement are essential ingredients in making our individual and collective lives rich. They are both key to developing and dependent on the social capital that is so vital in mobility and life chances. The terms creativity and culture are acknowledged as tricky to define, but the domains they describe, however disputed, are widely recognized as crucial to our futures. The Oxford English Dictionary defines creativity as ‘involving the use of the imagination or original ideas in order to create something’ and culture as ‘one, the arts and other manifestations of human intellectual achievement regarded collectively. Two, a refined understanding or appreciation of this. Three, the customs, institutions and achievements of a particular nation, people or group’. Many commentators and researchers have argued that creativity and culture make more prosperous and cohesive societies.They provide accounts of how talent flows and grows. What we have been less good at is understanding how to nurture that talent and potential in the first place. The role of families is fundamental. This paper looks at how families could be better supported and how we might get more from our existing investments in this area. We ask questions about what should be done as a stimulant for the kinds of ideas we need. More

DREAMS: JUST BRAIN EXERCISE

2009-11-10T14:44:00.001-05:00

[10 November 2009 - Discovery Channel] ... Psychologists like Freud and Jung have long cashed in on the potency of dreams and how they may reflect our inner emotional lives. But new research suggests dreams may simply be the brain, well, taking a jog. Just as a morning run can help tune up the body, dreaming may be the brain's way of tuning up the mind while conscious thoughts aren’t dominating the circuits. More

Art and Its Cultural Contradictions

2009-11-02T16:25:00.001-05:00

This essay raises questions about the role of the artist/creative engaging in neighborhoods, communities and cities. How do they participate and involve? How much time in the community "counts"? How can artists/creatives have the most meaningful impact?

[Autumn/Winter 2009 - "Art and Its Cultural Contradictions" in Afterall] PREAMBLE: A FLOOD OF QUESTIONS: What is at stake when artists, architects, curators, organisers and other cultural producers facilitate bricks-and-mortar change, on the ground in cities, with citizens, communities and institutions? How do we test the interrelationships between the practices of artists and urban policy makers? What is the metric that we might utilise to determine effectiveness? And what do we mean by effectiveness? Critical effect? (Or, for that matter, critical affect?) The putatively emancipatory outcome generated by some kind of new situational knowledge? Or, is it a question of generating ambiguity, per se, as a means of problematising hegemonic political, economic and cultural formations?

Is it conceivable to imagine that the cultural and intellectual capital of artistic labour can generate sustained, and sustainable, responsiveness to urban crises that would offer palpable functionality (or applicability) for people's lives - contra to the useful uselessness of the aesthetic condition that is supposedly ennobling of mind and spirit, or generative of disinterestedness as a prerequisite for absorption and contemplation? Have we taken into consideration that as art critics, art historians, curators and art theorists we might be misapplying criteria of aesthetic evaluation in relation to the evaluation of art projects that arise from sometimes uncomfortable, difficult circumstances? Is it perhaps just a question of re-calibrating our criteria of evaluation or, at the very least, how we communicate to others our experience of a specific work within a particular situation, so that criteria remain sufficiently fluid and tactical? What does it mean to encounter a work of art in the midst of economic and social ruination?

This essay seeks to raise such questions on the occasion of and in relation to a new biennial (Prospect.1) and a new cultural initiative (Transforma Projects), both of which emerged in New Orleans after the Hurricane Katrina disaster that in 2005 flooded 80 per cent of the city, and killed nearly 2,000 people, as efforts claiming to engage in the regeneration, rebuilding and revitalisation of various aspects of that city's cultural, economic and social life. Prospect.1 and Transforma Projects are distinct from each other in terms of ideological and organisational strategies and infrastructures: the former presenting itself as the first international biennial in New Orleans (i.e. event-oriented), with official support from local and state government and major art world benefactors, and a more conventional 'top-down' hierarchical curatorial/exhibition process; the latter operating as a small cultural initiative on an emphatically grass roots level, involving 'bottom-up' socially participatory processes (i.e. rethinking normative institutional hierarchies) to generate and utilise art projects as a means of facilitating social rebuilding within economically and socially disenfranchised communities in the city, yet also supported by major art foundations.

Authentic education is always experimental

2009-11-02T08:34:00.001-05:00

An old blog post from "The Speed of Creativity" blog, but an important one worth revisiting. What examples of authentic education and learning are you leading? Participating in? Creating?

[8 April 2006 - The Speed of Creativity] In the educational, classroom environment, authentic education is always experimental. This is because teaching is an art, not a science. Many, many people sadly mistake the purpose of the educational enterprise as mere content transmission. Much of the curriculum standards which dominate the educational landscape today [...] are based on this faulty assumption. Like E.D. Hirsh, I agree there are some common things with which people should be acquainted in order to be “culturally literate.” I do not agree, however, that schools should take those “laundry lists” of names and events and seek to make kids memorize and regurgitate those facts on multiple choice examinations. I do not think an understanding of the need for “cultural literacy” should lead to a shallowing of the curriculum, which remains a mile wide and an inch deep. To the contrary, authentic teaching and learning should be ALL ABOUT learning in depth through engaging conversations and activities. To create this type of teaching and learning environment, it is implicit that teachers must experiment. Authentic teaching and learning are experimental activities because the environment of the classroom is inherently dynamical and chaotic, like global weather patterns. More

Is the U.S. Killing Its Innovation Machine?

2009-10-29T15:17:00.001-04:00

What does innovation require ... in your company? in your community? in your state? in your country? Are you seeing evidence of decisions and behaviors to support sustainable, ethical innovation?

Is "innovation machine" the right metaphor, the right frame, for helping us innovate better?

[November 2009 - Harvard Business Review - Adi Ignatius, Editor in Chief] Can the U.S. continue to thrive as a center of innovation if it can’t manufacture the products it invents? In "Restoring American Competitiveness," a recent article in the Harvard Business Review, Gary P. Pisano and Willy C. Shih, contend that that answer is no and warn that outsourcing has undermined the country’s high tech sector. Is high tech in trouble? Does it matter if R&D and manufacturing capabilities have migrated to Asia? What should business and government leaders do to ensure that the U.S. retains its competitive edge? As the U.S. tries to remake its auto companies, become a player in emerging industries, and revive its ailing economy, few issues are more important. For the next several weeks, an impressive roster of experts will discuss these questions in the HBR online symposium: “Is the U.S. Killing Its Innovation Machine?” I encourage you to read what they have to say and to offer your own ideas.

Tai Chi exercise reduces knee osteoarthritis pain in the elderly, research shows

2009-10-29T10:17:00.001-04:00

[29 October 2009 - EurekAlert!/Arthritis Care & Research] Regular sessions improve physical function, depression and overall health. ... Researchers from Tufts University School of Medicine have determined that patients over 65 years of age with knee osteoarthritis (OA) who engage in regular Tai Chi exercise improve physical function and experience less pain. Tai Chi (Chuan) is a traditional style of Chinese martial arts that features slow, rhythmic movements to induce mental relaxation and enhance balance, strength, flexibility, and self-efficacy. Full findings of the study are published in the November issue of Arthritis Care & Research, a journal of the American College of Rheumatology. More

Creating Cognitive Dissonance in the Classroom

2009-10-27T19:25:00.001-04:00

In Ben Johnson's blog at Edutopia, he writes (17 September 2009): "Cognitive dissonance is created by a dedicated teacher who challenges the students' beliefs about their own capacity to learn." In the Creative Community Building program at the University of Connecticut, we seek to create such experiences in the undergraduate classroom (face-to-face and online). Consider signing up for any of three Spring 2010 courses to be offered in Storrs and Hartford, Connecticut, as well as online:

Creativity + Social Change - Tuesdays in Hartford, Connecticut
Community Organizing and Social Movements - Mondays in Storrs, Connecticut
Introduction to the Co-Operative Movement: History, Philosophy and Prospects for the Future - Online

Creative Workers as "The New Untouchables"

2009-10-27T11:20:00.001-04:00

What examples do you see in your community's schools, where creative thinking is being encouraged, taught and applied? Where are your kids most creative -- in school or out of school? What opportunities for being creative do you provide to your kids at home?

Before we can teach for more creativity in school -- which we absolutely should be doing -- we need to help teachers, administrators and parents rediscover their own creativity so that they can recognize and encourage it in others.

[20 October 2009 - New York Times - By Tom Friedman] That is the key to understanding our full education challenge today. Those who are waiting for this recession to end so someone can again hand them work could have a long wait. Those with the imagination to make themselves untouchables — to invent smarter ways to do old jobs, energy-saving ways to provide new services, new ways to attract old customers or new ways to combine existing technologies — will thrive. Therefore, we not only need a higher percentage of our kids graduating from high school and college — more education — but we need more of them with the right education. As the Harvard University labor expert Lawrence Katz explains it: “If you think about the labor market today, the top half of the college market, those with the high-end analytical and problem-solving skills who can compete on the world market or game the financial system or deal with new government regulations, have done great. But the bottom half of the top, those engineers and programmers working on more routine tasks and not actively engaged in developing new ideas or recombining existing technologies or thinking about what new customers want, have done poorly. They’ve been much more exposed to global competitors that make them easily substitutable.” ... So our schools have a doubly hard task now — not just improving reading, writing and arithmetic but entrepreneurship, innovation and creativity. More | Public Responses to This Column: "To Promote Creativity, Let’s Start in the Schools"

Public Space ... For Ads or Art?

2009-10-27T08:37:00.001-04:00

Who controls public space? Should it be filled with ads? Or art? Or both? What examples exist in your community where commercial signs and messages have been banned?

[25 October 2009 - New York Times] A Battle, on Billboards, of Ads vs. Art ... It was a bizarre cat-and-mouse game, played on Sunday across scores of makeshift billboards in New York. One group of artists and activists spread across Lower Manhattan, transforming innumerous wheat-pasted posters — the ones that readily sprout over scaffolding -- into their own canvas. They would whitewash the posters and then create their own work, or allow anti-advertising advocates to spread their own messages. But just as quickly as they whitewashed and put up art, workers arrived to put up new posters where the artists had obscured the old ones. More

Neuroscience 2009 highlights new research on exercise, music and the brain

2009-10-19T14:20:00.001-04:00

[19 October 2009 - EurekAlert! / Society for Neuroscience] Research presented today at Neuroscience 2009, the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience and the world's largest source of emerging news about brain science and health, provides a better understanding of the brain, nervous system, and related disorders. Specific research released today shows:

The benefits of exercise on both the brain and body, and, more specifically, underscores the positive influence of regular physical activity on Parkinson's disease, depression, premenstrual syndrome, and memory.
New tools are enabling researchers to identify neural similarities and differences between species. The findings may help to explain faculties, like language, and diseases, like Parkinson's, that are unique to humans.
New insights into male behavior support the idea that many gender differences lie in the brain and are influenced by both genes and environment.
Scientists are developing novel ways to bypass the blood-brain barrier, a network of blood vessels that prevents more than 95 percent of all chemicals from entering the brain from the bloodstream. Researchers describe new methods for transporting drugs across the BBB as well as ways to enhance the brain's own immune response, which is separated from the body's immune system by the BBB.

New Center At Yale Will Explore What Makes The Human Brain Unique

2009-10-15T14:58:00.001-04:00

[15 October 2009 - Medical News Today] Leveraging more than $25 million in grants from the National Institutes of Health, the Yale School of Medicine has created a new research center to study how our brain evolved uniquely human traits. Its founders hope that the center will identify new treatment options for many forms of mental illness, including schizophrenia, autism and bipolar disease. More

Be happy and extend your lifespan

2009-10-06T09:02:00.001-04:00

[5 October 2009 - Telegraph - UK] Scientists have proved that being happy can help you to lower the risk of disease and live longer. And the good news for pessimists is that you can learn to think positively. ... The good news for those not of a Pollyanna disposition is that happiness can be learnt. "There are wonderful programmes around to teach positive attitudes and resilience," says Prof Felicia Huppert, director of Cambridge University's Well-being Institute. "As early as the Seventies, scientists developed a programme called Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction (MBSR), which has so far been applied to many thousands of patients and found to have significant effects on medical conditions. "Wellbeing is being promoted in schools and at work, where enlightened employers are carrying out wellbeing audits to make sure people are feeling appreciated and fulfilled." More

The Learning Revolution - Enhancing Informal Adult Learning for Older People in Care Settings

2009-09-30T08:57:00.001-04:00

[28 September 2009 - The Learning Revolution - UK] As part of the discussion on enhancing informal adult learning for older people in care settings, an online discussion area within the "learning revolution" collaborative site has been set up by Becta. You are now invited to join this group, which will host debate, ideas and issues around this topic. More ... Plus, check out the main Learning Revolution site, designed to gather views from interested people and to share progress to develop a culture of learning for all adults.

NYT: South African Children Push for Better Schools

2009-09-30T08:37:00.001-04:00

[24 September 2009 - New York Times] Children are taking into their own hands responsibility for trying to reform the education system. ... Thousands of children marched to City Hall this week in sensible black shoes, a stream of boys and girls from township schools across this seaside city that extended for blocks, passing in a blur of pleated skirts, blazers and rep ties. Their polite demand: Give us libraries and librarians. “We want more information and knowledge,” said a ninth grader, Abongile Ndesi. In the 15 years since white supremacist rule ended in South Africa, the governing party, the African National Congress, has put in place numerous policies to transform schools into engines of opportunity. But many of its leaders, including President Jacob Zuma, now acknowledge that those efforts have too often failed. More

Artists can be prophets

2009-09-30T08:14:00.001-04:00

[28 September 2009 - Lincoln Star Journal - Nebraska] For two decades, Enrique Martinez Celaya has been thinking and writing about his life and work as an artist, examining his practice through philosophy, literature and science. What he has discovered is a provocative, sure-to-be-controversial view that stands in opposition to the way artists have been seen in the world since the dawn of modernism more than 100 years ago. Put simply, Martinez Celaya proposes that artists can function as prophets. "The Prophet" is the title of the lecture Martinez Celaya, the University of Nebraska Visiting Presidential Professor, will deliver at Omaha's Joslyn Art Museum on Friday. "To be a prophet an artist doesn't need God but clarity of purpose, character and attention," Martinez Celaya writes in the lecture. Later, he states, "Joseph Beuys, Herman Melville, Marcel Broodthaers, Ayn Rand and Albert Pinkham Ryder were prophets not because they sat around theorizing but because they showed us something of the future and of ourselves."... "Is this too much to expect from artists?" he asks in the lecture. "Probably. It is likely we will all break our backs trying to be artists-prophets, but this is a better fate than letting our backs calcify from lack of action or hunch over in shame. Artists are not needed for anything else. Most artists will not be great prophets, but even very minor ones will make a difference. Maybe a difference in the art world, but certainly, and more importantly, in themselves and in the world." More

$25,000 PRIZE FOR ART AND SOCIAL CHANGE - To be awarded Oct. 23

2009-09-30T08:09:00.001-04:00

[29 September 2009 - Creative Time] Creative Time is pleased to announce the inception of a new, annual, $25,000 award: The Leonore Annenberg Prize for Art and Social Change, presented by Creative Time to an artist who has committed her/his life’s work to social change in powerful and productive ways. The first recipient of the prize is The Yes Men, and it will be bestowed during the opening ceremony for The Creative Time Summit: Revolutions in Public Practice, on October 23 from 6 to 8pm in the historic Stephen A. Schwarzman building of the New York Public Library. The ceremony will feature an introduction by Amy Goodman, the host of the award-winning program Democracy Now!. The award is generously supported by The Annenberg Foundation. More

The 2009 MacArthur "Genius" Fellows

2009-09-22T08:20:00.001-04:00

[22 September 2009 The MacArthur Foundation] The MacArthur Foundation today named 24 new MacArthur Fellows who work across a broad spectrum of endeavors. They include an infectious disease physician, an ornithologist, a realist painter, a photojournalist, a bridge engineer, a climate scientist, an economist, a papermaker, a mental health lawyer, and a poet. All were selected for their creativity, originality, and potential to make important contributions in the future. Recipients learned by a phone call out of the blue from the Foundation that they will each receive $500,000 in no-strings-attached support. MacArthur Fellowships come without stipulations and reporting requirements and offer Fellows unprecedented freedom and opportunity to reflect, create, and explore. The unusual level of independence afforded to Fellows underscores the spirit of freedom intrinsic to creative endeavors. "For nearly three decades, the MacArthur Fellows Program has highlighted the importance of creativity and risk-taking in addressing pressing needs and challenges around the globe," said MacArthur President Robert Gallucci. "Through these Fellowships, we celebrate and support exceptional men and women of all ages and in all fields who dream, explore, take risks, invent, and build in new and unexpected ways in the interest of shaping a better future for us all." More

Healthy Brain Aging: Why We Need to Retool "Use It Or Lose It"

2009-09-08T11:35:00.001-04:00

[July/August 2009 - The Journal of Active Aging] By now you have probably heard about brain plasticity, the lifelong capacity of the brain to change and rewire itself in response to the stimulation of learning and experience. The latest scientific research shows that specific lifestyles and actions can improve the health and level of functioning of our brains, no matter our age. Of particular importance to maintaining cognitive functioning through life are the hippocampus (deep inside the brain, part of what is called the limbic system), which plays a role in learning and memory; and the frontal lobes (behind your forehead), which are key to maintaining decision-making and autonomy. Is there a way to physically protect these parts of the aging brain? Yes. But the right answer is far from "do one more crossword puzzle" or "do more X" (whatever X is). The key is to add significantly different activities to ensure a flow of novelty, variety and challenge, combining physical and mental exercise while not ignoring factors such as stress management and balanced nutrition. We need, in other words, to retool our
understanding and practice of “Use it or lose it.” We must focus on the importance of getting out of our physical and mental routines and activities to get the
benefits of real exercise -- physical and mental." More

Food and Creative Community

2009-08-15T12:18:00.001-04:00

Micheal Pollan signing books right now at the West Cornwall, Connecticut, farmers' market before his lecture at 1...

Set for TED

2009-08-12T13:20:00.001-04:00

At 4 p.m. this afternoon, the TED conference people will tape four 18-minute presentations at Chautauqua about compassion .. from Karen Armstrong, James Forbes, Robert Thurman and Swami Dayananda. The cameras and lights are set and the count-down clock for 18 minutes each awaits ...

Boston #1 for Innovation

2009-08-04T10:29:00.001-04:00

[August 2009 - 2thinknow] Boston has been rated the best US city for innovation, tying scores with previous winner Vienna in Europe. Boston also edged past Amsterdam, Paris, San Francisco, which rounded out the top five cities in the annual 2thinknow Innovation Cities Index. European cities dominated the top Innovation Cities, with 61% of the top 75 in the European Union. US Cities were mainly from coastal states or the Great Lakes area. London rose unexpectedly, followed by Hamburg, New York, Tokyo and Lyon in France. Toronto in Canada came in 19th, as Melbourne fell from 8th to 20th followed by Sydney in 22nd place. Vancouver placed 48th followed by Montréal. More

Can Do - A Visual Exploration of Benjamin Franklin's Inventions

2009-07-31T16:26:00.000-04:00

[30 July 2009 - New York Times] How Benjamin Franklin turned America into the land of invention. More

Artistic tendencies linked to 'schizophrenia gene'

2009-07-30T16:19:00.001-04:00

[16 July 2009 - New Scientist] We're all familiar with the stereotype of the tortured artist. Salvador Dali's various disorders and Sylvia Plath's depression spring to mind. Now new research seems to show why: a genetic mutation linked to psychosis and schizophrenia also influences creativity. The finding could help to explain why mutations that increase a person's risk of developing mental illnesses such as schizophrenia and bipolar syndrome have been preserved, even preferred, during human evolution, says Szabolcs Kéri, a researcher at Semmelweis University in Budapest, Hungary, who carried out the study. Kéri examined a gene involved in brain development called neuregulin 1, which previous studies have linked to a slightly increased risk of schizophrenia. Moreover, a single DNA letter mutation that affects how much of the neuregulin 1 protein is made in the brain has been linked to psychosis, poor memory and sensitivity to criticism. About 50 per cent of healthy Europeans have one copy of this mutation, while 15 per cent possess two copies. More

People do not 'learn from their mistakes'

2009-07-30T15:36:00.001-04:00

[30 July 2009 - Telegraph (UK)] The old adage that we "learn more from our mistakes" could be wrong, with new research showing our brain only learns from experience when we do something right. ... Using monkeys, scientists gave the animals the task of looking at two alternating images on a computer screen. For one picture, the monkey was rewarded when it shifted its gaze to the right; for another it was similarly rewarded for looking the other way. The researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, found that the monkeys' brain cell neural activity responded more positively to a correct answer. When they failed to get the right image however, there was little or no change in the brain, or any improvement in behaviour. They found that when an action was rewarded or not, neural activity in regions of the brains, the prefronal cortex and basal ganglia, long associated with learning and memory, lasted for several seconds, until the next trial. Response was stronger on a given trial if the previous one had been rewarded and weaker if the previous trial was an error. More