Abstract

In the framework of a thesis in cultural anthropology, the aim of the project is to examine the way contemporary artists enact and give meaning to the concepts of "creativity" (or "creation") and "imagination", and see how these meanings can be further re-interpreted in the light of a model of consciousness developed by a Zen master, Albert Low. The project examines this question from the angle of "Consciousness Studies" and more specifically the anthropology of consciousness. The project is based on a fieldwork that is two fold: (1) an immersion in a graduate program in Fine Arts in Montreal over a period of one year; (2) a survey through interviews of professional artists. Creativity will be examined as a Western concept, but relations will be established with non-Western world views, mostly Eastern (mainly Zen Buddhism). The central issue of this project is to give meaning to the "urge to create", as it is experienced by professional creators. The rebound effect of this questioning is to bring forward two other issues. The first one is the re-location of the "new" into experience. The project might then manifest itself as a critique of past views of creativity in aesthetics and anthropology, views that have presented the "new" only in term of social appraisal. The second issue is the meaning of trying to put the inexpressible into words, or the tension between discursive and non-discursive cognition, which is also the tension between intuitive and analytical modes of knowledge.