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character of the program. Cope, himself a composer, has based his model on careful
analysis of musical creativity; he stresses concepts such as allusion and analogy,
and his model is based on complex associative networks between musical compo-
nents, similar to that which humans develop through extensive listening. Cohen and
Cope both emphasise process—in Cope's case also in a longer perspective, between
works—but neither explicitly describe their models in spatial terms.
My proposed model is certainly not the first spatial theory of creativity, but it
extends previous theories significantly (most notably Boden's,
2004
) by introduc-
ing the idea of a material space, linked by the dynamic interplay between differ-
ent descriptive levels—the conceptual and material representation of the work. The
model of course relies on many previous results from peers, and various parts of it
are related to previous theories. For example, Pearce and Wiggins (
2002
) provide
a link between psychological research and the question of compositional creative
processes, giving a rather detailed account of the cognitive aspects of musical com-
position. However, they do not dive deeper into the actual processes of composition
itself.
Many previous attempts have focused on a formal approach, with the explicit
generation of new ideas as the primary aim. In contrast, I believe that new ideas
emerge from the process, and primarily from the iterated reconceptualisation and
implementation, allowing for ambiguity, misunderstanding, associations and coin-
cidences to contribute to the generation of new ideas and artistic results. This is a
very rich process, involving all aspects of the artists mind, his cultural context, and
of the material he is working in, with plenty of possibilities for unexpected results,
leading to radically revised and new ideas.
The idea of iterated conceptual representations is related to Liane Gabora's work.
She says:
Creative thought is more a matter of honing in a vague idea through redescribing successive
iterations of it from different real or imagined perspectives; in other words, actualising
potential through exposure to different contexts. (Gabora
2005
)
This also resonates well with Harrison's (
1978
) ideas about creativity being a goal-
less, non-rational process. Understanding of the re-conceptualisation mechanism
could also be informed by a closer study of Karmiloff-Smith's (
1994
) thoughts on
representational re-description in a developing mind, where knowledge gradually is
transformed from simple procedural descriptions into conceptual contraptions of a
higher level.
My model also transcends the distinction between exploratory, combinatorial
and transformational creativity, for several reasons. The search space has been ex-
tended to the whole material space of the chosen medium, which includes all theo-
retical possibilities. A search in such a space equals a generative process, and is
neither simply combinatorial nor transformational. Maybe it could be described
as being based on
processual emergence
. This relates to Wiggins's (
2006
) idea
that the search strategy can be more crucial than the definition of the conceptual
space. He also presents a few theoretical devices for revising it depending on the
results. In my model, the conceptual network is continuously being transformed
