This thesis explores three creative works, "The music of Erich Zann" by H.P. Lovecraft; the film "Eraserhead" by David Lynch; and the "Self-Portrait (blue)" by Vincent Van Gogh, as examples of different forms of mad rhetorics as a way in which to demonstrate the application of the theory of "mad rhetorics" and the role "radical creativity" plays in the construction of mad rhetorics by "mad rhetors" play in society.

The aim of this field study is to investigate the relationship between creative thinking abilities and an Industrial Design course. The report contains an analysis of the background to current teaching methods in Industrial Arts within the Australian Capital Territory. A link between design education and creativity is investigated, as well as the nature of creativity and its relationship to the learning process and teaching strategies employed in design education. The Torrance Test of Creative Thinking was used in this study and the subjects were grade nine students in selected high schools in the Australian Capital Territory.

The purposes of this study were to ascertain the relationship between the treatment and creativity post-test gains with independent variables of sex, grade, group, and Comprehensive Tests of Basic Skills total battery scores. Major conclusions include the following. 1. Girls appear to benefit more than boys from the Multiple Talent Approach to Teaching. 2. Fifth grade students appear to benefit more than third grade students from the Multiple Talent Approach to Teaching. 3. The creativity test score gains favoring the experimental students seem to justify the conclusion that it is potentially possible to enhance creative thinking through a teaching process.

No description available.

Die doel van die navorsing was om die doeltreffendheid van 'n opleidingskursus in kreatiewe vaardighede te evalueer. Die navorsingsprosedure is volgens die Solomonviergroepontwerp beplan, maar kon nie deurgevoer word nie weens 'n tekort aan proefpersone. Die navorsingsontwerp het bestaan uit 'n eksperimentele groep wat die opleidingskursus deurloop en 'n voor- en natoets afgete het, 'n kontrolegroep wat die opleidingskursus deurloop en 'n natoets afgete het, en 'n tweede kontrolegroep wat slegs getoets is. Die nieverbale toets van die Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking is gebruik om die uitwerking van die opleiding te bepaal. Die interbeoordelaarsbetroubaarheid van die meetinstrument is bewys. Die resultate dui aan dat die doeltreffendheid van die opleidingskursus nie deur die geslag of kwalifikasies van die proefpersone beinvloed is nie. Verder is bevind dat proefpersone wat voor opleiding lae tellings vir kreatiwiteit behaal het, meer gebaat het by kreatiwiteitsopleiding as persone wat hoe tellings behaal het. Die navorsingshipotese, naamlik dat die oplei~ingskursus sal lei tot 'n verbetering in die kreatiewe vaardighede van die proefpersone, is bevestig / The aim of the study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a training course in creative abilities. The research was structured according to the Solomon four-group design. It failed, because the sample size was inadequate. The research design consisted of an experimental group that had completed the training course and was pretested and posttested, a control group that had completed a course and was posttested, and another control group that was tested once. The nonverbal test of the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking was used to determine the training results. The inter-rater reliability of the test was confirmed. The results of this study suggested that the sex and qualifications of the subjects were nonsignificant. However, subjects who rated poorly before training benefited most by training. The research hypothesis which stated that training in creative ability will lead to improvement of creative ability, was confirmed / Psychology / M.A. (Sielkunde)

Afrikaans text / Curriculum and Instructional Studies / M. Ed. (Didaktiek)

Although flow theory (Csikszentmihalyi, 1975; being 'in the zone') arose from early observations of artists, experimental research of creative flow is lacking, particularly in the visual arts. Assumptions are made about the universality of flow in all domains; however creativity is a uniquely complex domain which may have different antecedents, experiences, and consequences related to flow. This thesis focuses on potential mechanisms and effects of feedback/goal ambiguity and the sense of control that are thought essential to flow but which have unclear relationships to creativity. Using an experimental simulation of the visual creative process, the creative mental synthesis task (Finke & Slayton, 1988), four experiments were conducted. The role of perceptual feedback (sketching) to potentially disambiguate limited mental imagery feedback, or to offload cognitive load, was explored. Also inspected were the impacts of expectation-outcome incongruence, perceived task difficulty, and access to conscious choice vs. constraint. Results show sketching significantly increased flow by decreasing perceived task difficulty, though this effect was independent of cognitive load. Factors potentially influencing perceived difficulty were explored in relation to feedback ambiguity variables such as expectation-outcome discrepancies and mental imagery vividness. Choice did not significantly affect flow, but did decrease expectation-outcome discrepancy, suggesting total autonomy and control are not essential for flow development, but choice may affect how creative ideas are selected. These experimental results were compared with fine artist and commercial designer interviews, suggesting flow in visual creativity may require adaptability, tolerance of uncertainty, and interaction with perceptual feedback to resolve ambiguity. Flow was, as theorised, strongly related to affect improvement and self-rated creativity; however no direct links to higher externally-rated or objective creativity measures were found. Although flow does not directly enhance creativity, it and factors related to it (e.g., sketching, affect) may have an indirect motivating influence which could enhance mastery over time.

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Science in Information Technology in Education

While the visual arts and technology development map oppositionally in our culture, there are similarities in work. Visual artists and technology developers imagine, conceptualize, design, and build artifacts and then release them into the world. As part of this work, many artists and technologists develop high levels of conceptualization, technical, and fabrication skill. While artists have always worked with industrial technologies such as paint and pigment chemistry, metalworking equipment, heavy machinery, and kilns, for example, many postindustrial artists are using high technology both as medium and highly-charged cultural material. These artists work with similar materials as technology developers: electronics, computation, robotics, bioengineering materials, and smart materials, for example. Their work often bleeds into technological development as they create new technologies and new interactions with technologies in the course of their projects. This dissertation traces the evolution of the ideas of art and technology from foundations in ancient Greece through the present. There are tensions between technological art, or art that uses high technologies as a medium, and the contemporary art world, as well as between technological art and engineering practice. This dissertation locates technological art along a spectrum between traditional fine art and engineering practice, in a third space of both artistic production and technological R&D. Through examples from my work and the work of others, I surface the dynamics of practice in this third space and how these practices can lead to emergent art and technology.

M.A. (Counselling Psychology) / Please refer to full text to view abstract