Is creativity under threat from data? Only to minds that can no longer think creatively
Yesterday we posted a film posing the question: is creativity under threat from the industry's increasing obsession with data? Russell Marsh, global chief data officer at IPG Mediabrands, gives us his view on the debate.
Creativity has always been about structured rules underlying mathematics and behavioural sciences. Ask Mr da Vinci about the human body or Renoir about light and colour theory, Christopher Wren about beauty in architectural maths or Beethoven about chords and melodies.
Maybe not in very obvious ways to most people, but creative art students certainly study the underlying principles around colour theory, perspective, golden section, composition, vocabulary, syntax, grammar, harmonics etc as well as the understanding of human behaviour and psychology.
All of these things have fundamental underlying rules and data systems that provide structure and meaning to any creative piece. The true art is understanding these rules and then not only being able to apply them in different situations, but also knowing when to break them for dramatic effect or a desired response.
I remember my career growing at the start of digital in the mid 90s, when the discussions were all about the fact that web design was not a true creative industry. Now it is pretty much is the biggest, touching almost every medium and channel. At the time we were children playing in a new medium, learning the new rules and how to structure that medium in a new creative way. Not only have we now done that, we’ve done it in incredibly diverse and imaginative ways that have created whole new industries.
Right now we are in the shallows of a tsunami of data that is heading our way – and it’s going to come from everything from web, mobile and social to cars and the internet of things, all looking to stir up a whole new industry and ways of thinking about data information, knowledge and meaning. In other words, we’ve got a whole new set of rules to invent, learn and creatively apply to drive new ways of seeing the world.
Is creativity under threat from marketing’s increased obsession with data? Only to minds that can no longer think creatively.