Dante's Divine Comedy and Inferno

My research into Dante's Divine Comedy and Inferno has been very interesting and I am definitely being 'inspired' by this for my work.

Creating a creative object as a creative response.

Our first assessment piece for this unit is for the internal students a creative collaboration, but as I am external my creative piece will not be worked on collaboratively.  I really need to start thinking about the direction I want my creative piece to take.

My piece should be influenced by the readings and lectures of the philosophers Plato, Nietzsche, Dante and Kant.  It may take the form of a sculpture, painting, drawing, installation, music, architecture design, text as art, or a combination of those, so in other words I pretty much have free rein on what I would like to create.

So I suppose my first decision needs to be which philosopher and theme to base my creative piece on.  The major themes to look at are Plato - "Art as functional object", Nietzsche "The Superman", Dante "The Inferno" or Kant "The Sublime".  I am really leaning towards Dante's Inferno right now, but it does concern me a little that the lectures on this don't occur until week 5 and the assessment is due at the end of week 6!
So if I do go with Dante then it will be purely on my own research alone until then.

What is Creativity?

Week 1, and I am delving into Plato and thinking about 'what is creativity?'.

I found a quote online about creativity -

"Creativity is the act of turning new and imaginative ideas into reality. Creativity involves two processes: thinking, then producing. Innovation is the production or implementation of an idea. If you have ideas, but don’t act on them, you are imaginative but not creative.” — Linda Naiman

I like this quote and I think it is a true definition of what creativity is.  I have always thought of being creative as not only being able to think of great ideas and use your imagination but being able to bring those thoughts to life in the end.  It's not really helpful to always be an 'idea's man/woman' if those ideas ideas are never put into practice.

The very well known and Ancient Greek philosopher Plato believed that art is something which imitates reality.  He believed that in reality, the world is just a copy, and an imperfect one at that, of the true ideal and therefore art is then a further imperfect imitation of the original imitation.

The time of Plato, 427-347 BC, was a time when there were a great deal of changes that were occuring in terms of language and understanding and how knowledge was perceived and used.
It was a time that was evolving toward literacy and writing from a time where poetry and art was the way of life.  There were generally no books or written material and it is plausible then to see Plato as one who hated art and poets because they were standing in the way of knowledge and learning.  He suggested that real knowledge could be seen in the objects created for specific needs but that it was only philosophy that would lead to real knowledge about our own souls.

Intro to Creative Practice CAI102

One of my units this semester is Creative Practice CAI102.  It is a practical unit focusing on interactive practice in the creative industries with key themes of text, image and sound.

Unfortunately I am taking this unit externally which I hope doesn't put me at too much of a disadvantage, although I am feeling like that is definitely the case right now!  I am feeling a little overwhelmed and wondering how to keep myself motivated without face-to-face interactions and being able to sound out ideas easily with others and the lecturer.

We do have the discussion board which we are meant to communicate with often but I have found it to be less than helpful so far, with little discussion going on as yet so I hope that it gets easier soon.