GAPS2 - Global Arts and Psychology Seminar "Creativity in music and the arts"

Event details

Theme

Creativity is a complex phenomenon that permeates various aspects of our lives. Creative behaviors drive progress in academic research, business, education, and science but - perhaps more than in other fields - creativity is celebrated in a rich variety of artistic pursuits. These can include music, dance, the visual arts as well as theater, cinema, and the development of creative technologies. Here creativity is often seen taking the form of new and functional ideas which artists can then transform into performance or observable artifacts. But whereas this wide spectrum of activity creates a fascinating landscape in which researchers can examine the creative process across a variety of artistic forms, the very concept of creativity may lose coherence. Can we examine the different creative processes in the arts without approaching the notion of creativity in excessively vague terms? Or is it precisely this conceptual ambiguity that can help us shed new light on the psychology of creativity and its relationship with artistic creation? The aim of GAPS2 is to foster collaborations in a range of different domains to address these questions. 

Conference topics may include, but are not limited to:

• Empirical and theoretical approaches to understand artistic creativity
• Continuities and differences between artistic and domain-general creativity
• The use of technologies for creative practice in the arts
• The links between artistic creativity and cultural diversity
• Philosophy of creativity
• Creativity in response to crises or limitations
• Subjective evaluation of artistic novelty and value
• Motion and the motivation of creativity
• Subconscious creative processes
• Artistic creativity as a social act

Format

GAPS2 is held at 4 locations simultaneously: York (UK), Graz (Austria), La Plata (Argentina), and Melbourne (Australia). Participants whose submission has been accepted can participate in person in one of these hubs, or participate entirely remotely (e.g., from their home computer). We invite all participants to go to the nearest hub, possibly trying to avoid flying (for environmental reasons). The conference will be live streamed across the 4 hubs (and remotely) and all talks will be recorded and made available to all attendees for the weeks following the event. 

About GAPS

Before the days of COVID-19, the first GAPS conference paved the way for a new format that would later revolutionise academic conferences. The goal was to offer a green and inclusive format that combined high scientific standards with lower emissions associated with flying. To achieve such a goal, the first GAPS conference was held in April 2017 at five different locations: Boston (USA), Graz (Austria), La Plata (Argentina), Sheffield (UK), and Sydney (Australia). The program ran day and night for 24 hours to accommodate time zone differences. All presentations were therefore streamed online and could be viewed in real time at one or more other global locations. 

Funding

GAPS2 is partly funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF): project number P 32460. Because topics and aims of this project strongly overlap with those of GAPS2, the latter serves as the project's final conference.