collective creativity

Raph Koster's 2014 GDC Next talk on what science says about creativity, with practical steps game designers and developers can use to be more creative. It frames creativity as applying existing patterns in new contexts.

Sir Ken Robinson argues, with humor and stories such as that of choreographer Gillian Lynne, that education systems undermine creativity and should be changed. It is one of the most viewed TED talks.

Kirby Ferguson's video essay series arguing that creativity is built on copying, transforming and combining existing work. It covers music, film and technology, then turns to copyright and patents.

A Jordan Peterson university lecture on the Big Five trait openness to experience, covering creativity and intelligence. It explains how IQ is measured, how well it predicts life success, and the Pareto distribution of creative output.

A short Supernova 2007 provocation in which Clay Shirky uses a 1300-year-old Japanese shrine, rebuilt periodically, as a metaphor for how networks change business and collective creativity.

Kirby Ferguson's updated four-part video essay arguing that creativity is built on copying, transforming and combining existing work. It covers examples from film, music and technology and touches on generative AI.

Michael Levin presents his lab's work on how cellular collectives use bioelectric networks to make anatomical decisions. Topics include pattern memories, regeneration and synthetic living organisms.

Larry Lessig's TED talk argues that copyright law chokes creativity, drawing on John Philip Sousa, celestial copyrights and the ASCAP cartel to make the case for reviving remix culture.

A Huberman Lab episode on setting up a workspace for productivity, focus and creativity, covering light, posture, movement and sound. It touches on ideas like ceiling height and the effect of screens on the brain.

Adam Grant's TED talk on the habits of original thinkers, including procrastination and embracing failure. He argues the greatest originals fail the most because they try the most.

An RSA Animate drawn from a Sir Ken Robinson talk arguing that current education systems are modeled on the industrial age. It discusses divergent thinking, standardization, and how schools disengage kids.

The full 1971 Dutch television debate between Noam Chomsky and Michel Foucault on human nature, with subtitles. They discuss creativity, knowledge, power and politics.

OK Go's music video for This Too Shall Pass, featuring a huge Rube Goldberg machine built in a warehouse in Los Angeles with Syyn Labs. The band interacts with the contraption in one continuous take.

Skateboarding pioneer Rodney Mullen talks about how the open skate community and its environments drive the invention of new tricks out of pure passion. He draws parallels to collaboration and open source.

Sandy Pentland of MIT presents his book on social physics, which uses big-data studies of how people interact to explain how ideas spread. He describes findings on collective intelligence and social influence.

Part 3 of Kirby Ferguson's Everything is a Remix series, using Apple and the iPhone to show how invention builds on copying and combining prior ideas. It argues that creativity and innovation are inseparable from copying.

Kirby Ferguson's film argues that creativity is built from copying, transforming and combining existing works, examining music, film and technology. It makes the case that everything is a remix.

Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love, reflects on the pressure placed on artists to be geniuses. She proposes the older idea that creative people have a genius that visits them rather than being one.

A ten-minute explainer from Hypermind on the wisdom of crowds, covering Galton's discovery and the diversity theorem. It argues that collective intelligence comes from diversity, independence and aggregation.

The Futur's guide to pricing design and creative work, arguing against hourly rates and for value-based pricing. It features Blair Enns and says to price the client, not the job.

Joseph Henrich's Talks at Google presentation of his book. He argues that human success comes from collective brains and cultural learning across generations rather than individual intelligence.

A two-minute animated minute meme by Nina Paley, photographed at the Metropolitan Museum, showing how all creative work builds on what came before. It is set to music from the Sita Sings the Blues soundtrack.

Harvard professor Arthur Brooks explains why boredom is useful rather than something to avoid. He describes how a wandering mind engages the brain's default mode network, which supports creativity and curiosity, and suggests it may protect against depression.

A Talks at Google visit by Douglas Engelbart, inventor of the mouse. He presents his lifelong aim of augmenting collective human intelligence, followed by a Q&A.

Ed Catmull of Pixar speaks at Stanford's 2007 Entrepreneurship Conference on running a creative company. He argues for surfacing small problems early and building good teams, with stories like the Toy Story 2 crunch.

A five-minute clip of Ira Glass on the gap between good taste and early creative work. He says beginners know their work falls short and must keep producing to close the gap.

K Lars Lohn's PyCon 2016 keynote weaves together music theory, programming, biking road trips and fractals. It is a personal, wide-ranging talk rather than a Python how-to.

A two-minute video of Ira Glass on the creative process, describing the gap between taste and skill when starting out and urging you to keep producing until your work matches your taste.

Conan O'Brien interviews Jack White in a Serious Jibber-Jabber episode shot on 35mm film. They discuss White's creative process, his use of constraints and his approach to music and art.

Louis CK speaks at a 2010 NYPL tribute to George Carlin about how Carlin's habit of discarding material and writing a new hour each year changed his own career. He becomes emotional describing it.

Brandon Sanderson's keynote on AI-generated art, arguing that the artistic process and the journey matter more than the finished product. He explains why he rebels against generative AI in creative work.

UCLA professor Dario Nardi presents brain-imaging research suggesting that different Myers-Briggs personality types use their brains in different ways. He discusses how each type can reach a state of creative flow. It is aimed at a general audience.

Steven Johnson's TED talk argues that good ideas come from connected, slow-building hunches and liquid networks, from London coffee houses to Darwin to the modern web, rather than lone Eureka moments.

RMC tests running a classic 68k Mac environment through emulation on an accelerated Amiga and compares it to real Mac hardware. It explores whether an Amiga can be the fastest classic Mac.

Nate Harrison's 2004 video history of the Amen Break, a six-second drum sample from a 1969 b-side that became the basis of hip-hop sampling, jungle and drum and bass. It is also a meditation on cultural ownership and creativity.

Alan Kay's Stanford Startup School lecture covers his career at Xerox PARC and how to think about inventing the future. He goes through what came out of PARC and why companies fail to capitalize on such ideas.

Part two of Alan Kay's Stanford Startup School lecture on inventing the future. He draws on his time at Xerox PARC and elsewhere to discuss how to think about new technology and what makes ideas useful.

A fast, absurdist 19-minute animated run through the history of the whole world, narrated and scored by Bill Wurtz in his distinctive style. It compresses millennia of events into jokes, songs and quick visuals.

Developmental and synthetic biologist Michael Levin speaks at a Harvard Extension student event on bioelectricity, body intelligence and regenerative medicine. He discusses how cell electrical networks guide growth and form.

Nina Paley's TEDxMaastricht talk arguing against copyright and for copyleft and free culture. She argues that restricting ideas harms creativity and that culture belongs to everyone.