Creativity techniques

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 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 dice. In music, John Cage, an avant-garde musician, composed music by using the I Ching to determine the position of musical notes, 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. The aleatory approach is also demonstrated in the case of the process called provocation, which was initially introduced by Edward de Bono as an aid to research. This method, which Richard Restak said was also employed by Anthony Burgess, aims to achieve novel ideas in writing by directing a plot with creative connections through random words picked from a reference book. Restak explained that the two hundred billion interconnected neural cells in the brain are capable of an abundance of possibilities for long-range connections and creative interactions using random and unrelated words.