The Creative Machine

This is the first class assignment we had to do in NM2208. We were asked to design a creative machine that can multiply our creativity by 100 times. Intrigued by the idea, I wondered if there is any chance that creativity can be multiplied at all. The notion of creativity is as intangible as air but just like air, it is evidently essential to our living. So is this entity (for ease of discourse) innate and waiting to be uncovered by countless mental exercises or dynamic and ever changing? Is it an internal process or an external trigger? And where is the balance between the two of them? How much is a piece of work "original" and not a product of a  long chain of influence owing to our environment? How much do we built on others and not give them credit? Of course, a creative machine can't mitigate all this questions, it only prompts for more.

So the creative machine proper...

I'd like to give credits to a gruesome film I watched when I was ten. It was called, i think, "Fly" where you have a crazy scientist attempting to combine human genome with the fly. Apparently, even a fly has more admirable qualities than a lowly human. In any case, I had a good laugh because the scientist became a fly himself, more accurately, a maggot. So much for advancing the evoluationary chain.

I wanted the creative machine to be able to infuse certain qualities or ideas into so that we can own the idea as part of us and recreate a new product. I guess the whole idea of being able to own anything is just as common as retail therapy. However it is biological here. I've imagine the creative process inevitably forces us to explore new directions and changes us. So imagine someone telling you that piece of cell in your frontal lobe used to be his/hers and he/she feel (since your frontal lobe contains your emotions) the same way as you. Hmmm.

Another inspiration comes from star trek. Transportation from one star board to another is by atomization, that is, diffusing your body to atoms and then transporting the minute You to another space deck. There was an accident in one of the episodes when the main power system was shut down momentarily and a few beings "in transmission" was "lost". So speaking about shutting down.

I combined both ideas together. First, the subject has to step into the Human Shredder. Crudely name after the same process it performs, the Shredder reduces the subject into small atoms. As opposed to a constructive process, the creative process necessaily forces us to decontruct and carefully rethink. The Transport Pipe will send these "parts" to the Creative Tube(which has "x100" and "CREATIVE" in red) to be assembled with new infusion of materials. There are triangle side pockets by the side of the Creative Tube that allows inputs of various materials to flow into the Creative Tube. These inputs are labelled according to the function of items being thrown inside i.e. Pink for Imagination, Blue for Aspiration, Green for Ingenuity and Orange for Balance. Imagination contains tonnes of imges and anything that inspires. Aspiration contains goals orientated items like paper qualification, worldwide recognition through compeitions, higher pay etc. Ingenuity for endless permutations and combinations through specific elements thrown in the Imagination and Aspiration pockets. Last but not least, Balance contains all the random stuff that keeps us grounded. Like an blanket we are so used to, granny's perfume on a good day, those things that brings us some sense of familarity in an increasingly challenging world.

I did not draw the end product of the creative process because I cannot decide what will be the outcome. I'll leave it to the work of chaos theorists to figure out. For now, I'll believe that creativity has leaped 100 times by the creative machine. O What mountains we have to scale for the improbable.