Creativity technique

Creativity techniques are methods that encourage creative actions, whether in the arts or sciences. They focus on a variety of aspects of creativity, including techniques for idea generation and divergent thinking, methods of re-framing problems, changes in the affective environment and so on. They can be used as part of problem solving, artistic expression, or therapy.

Some techniques require groups of two or more people while other techniques can be accomplished alone. These methods include word games, written exercises and different types of improvisation, or algorithms for approaching problems. Aleatory techniques exploiting randomness are also common.

Aleatoricism is the incorporation of chance (random elements) into the process of creation, especially the creation of art or media. Aleatoricism is commonly found in music, art, and literature, particularly in poetry. In film, Andy Voda made a movie in 1979 called "Chance Chants", which he produced by a flip of a coin or roll of a die. In music, John Cage, an avant-garde musician, composed music by superimposing star maps on blank sheet music, by rolling dice and preparing open ended scores that depended on the spontaneous decisions of the performers. (1) Other ways of practicing randomness include coin tossing, picking something out of a hat, or selecting random words from a dictionary.

In short, aleatoricism is a way to introduce new thoughts or ideas into a creative process.

Improvisation is a creative process which can be spoken, written, or composed without prior preparation. Improvisation, also called extemporization, can lead to the discovery of new ways to act, new patterns of thought and practices, or new structures. Improvisation is used in the creation of music, theater, and other various forms. Many artists also use improvisational techniques to help their creative flow.

The following are two significant domains that use improvisation:

In problem-solving contexts, the random-word creativity technique is perhaps the simplest method. A person confronted with a problem is presented with a randomly generated word, in the hopes of a solution arising from any associations between the word and the problem. This technique is based on associative thinking, the process of retrieving information from our knowledge and automatically find patterns across elements. While standard associative thinking generates associations between concepts that are strongly related and not very original, the unpredictability of a random word will lead to explore new associations that would not emerge automatically, and hopefully trigger novel solutions. A random image, sound, or article can be used instead of a random word as a kind of creativity goad or .

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