Creativity and Health A Deleuzian Tautology? Nick Fox University of Sheffield Paper presented to the BSA Medical Sociology Conference, Durham 2010

Introduction What is Creativity? Sociological Approaches to Creativity Is Creativity Good for Our Health? A Deleuzian Perspective on Creativity and Health Creativity and the Body without Organs

What is Creativity? I looked for an answer to this within: Psychology: a personality trait independent of cognition Psychoanalysis: a sublimation of unconscious desire, usually sexual Marxism: a representation of class interests Evolutionary theory: successful adaptation

Mark Rothko at work

Sociology and Creativity 1 Sociology tends to focus on the contexts of creative production ‘... aesthetic and scientific practices connect even in their most intimate moments of genesis with concrete social and institutional conditions ‘ (De Fillippi et al 2007)

Sociology and Creativity 2 Creativity is a social process: ‘... anything that people can examine and judge, including communicated ideas and processes judged independently of the outcomes they produce.... a subjective judgment made by members of the field about the novelty and value of a product (Ford 1996)

Exhibits at the Royal Academy summer exhibition

What have we learnt? Not a lot All the theories skirt around the question of the creative process The missing body: need for an embodied approach to creativity Can the relationship between creativity and health help?

Is Creativity Good for Us? Liberal humanist view that high art is good for the soul, morality and social order Popular view that the arts contribute to the quality of life Art and music therapy Arts and health movements (e.g. writers, artists in residence): under-theorised

Assumptions of the Arts and Health Movement Creativity can be therapeutic Creative products can ‘humanise’ modern institutions such as hospitals and schools Creative products improve the health of those in their vicinity BUT...

Is this True? Thomas Chatterton Vincent Van Gogh Amadeo Modigliani Edvard Munch: ‘The Scream’

Wallis: ‘The Death of Chatterton’, 1856

A Deleuzian Perspective Gilles Deleuze: influenced by Nietzschean concept of ‘the will to power’ Embodied conception of positive desire that motivates organisms The ‘body-without-organs’ describes what a body can do and what it can become: its relations and affects

Relations and Affects The sum of psychological, emotional and physical connections that a body has: with family and friends, with colleagues, with objects or activities, or with abstract ideas and social constructs. These establish the limits of the Body- Without-Organs

Deleuze and Creativity From this perspective: Creativity is the positive desire of the organism: the capacity to engage ‘productively’ Creative products (artistic, crafts, science, writing, cookery, sexuality etc) are the ‘becoming-other’ of the body Creativity reflects the relations and affects of the producer

Jackson Pollock: Untitled no. 3

Deleuze and ‘Health’ From this perspective: Health is also a reflection of what a body can do: its capacity to become other The sum of the BwO’s relations and affects define its health

Implications It would not be surprising to find a relation between creativity and health The two concepts are both aspects of the capacity of a body to become other The arts and health movement may assess how creative processes may contribute to well-being: of producers or recipients

Conclusions The Deleuzian perspective offers a theoretical underpinning for those working on creativity and health There is a need for empirical studies using these theoretical tools, to learn more about creativity production and reception and health and sickness