Samira Bourgeois-Bougrine
StoryTANK, the European Think Tank dedicated to storytelling for film professionals and screenwriters throughout Europe, carries its exploratory approach into this new season, delving deeper into Le Groupe Ouest and lim’s methodology, designed to accelerate creativity and developed hand in hand with the applied research team of LA FABRIQUE DES MONDES (France 2030).
We interviewed 5 international researchers from complementary fields — cognitive neuroscience, cognitive ergonomics, the psychology of serendipity, social sciences, and anthropology — inviting their expertise to shed light on what they observed unfolding within this methodology, and on what is really at stake in its experimental setups.
Samira Bourgeois-Bougrine is a lecturer in psychology and cognitive ergonomy at the University of Paris Cité. Her early research focused on analyzing and controlling the risk of errors and accidents related to reduced vigilance, increased fatigue, and workload in high-risk areas. Since 2010, she has been exploring the approaches that humans naturally adopt to solve problems, manage constraints, and make decisions in various fields, ranging from high-risk situations to writing fiction scripts.
STAYING OPEN TO CHANGE
“Once you’ve written something down, you get attached to it and you become resistant to change.”
Once you’ve written something down, you get attached to it and you become resistant to change. If we’re at an oral stage, we’re telling things, we dialogue, with nothing written down, nothing is stopping us from changing.
LISTENING AND ADAPTING
“And we adapt to what’s being played.”
It reminded me of what Miles Davis said about jazz improvisation: it’s not about playing what you know, but rather playing what you’re hearing, listening to the others in the band, even if you don’t know them. What are they playing? And we adapt to what’s being played. So it’s a form of improvisation on the Plateau which depends on the interactions with the others. We are not alone in our bubble.
THE FREEDOM OF PLAY
“The play evolves in a dynamic way depending on the actions and interactions with others.”
Several studies show that when in a situation of play, characterized by two aspects, spontaneity and unpredictability, meaning there is chaos, we are very free, we have freedom to choose our path, and also reciprocity. That is, when it’s social play. The play evolves in a dynamic way depending on the actions and interactions with others.
WIDENING THE BEAM
“Imagine a much wider beam which sheds light on much broader concepts, which are totally unrelated to each other.”
Exploration opens up the perceptual visual field. So we’re very, very open. And at the risk of repeating myself, it also opens up the sphere of concepts which are stored in our memory. Imagine a much wider beam which sheds light on much broader concepts, which are totally unrelated to each other. Inevitably, suddenly we say: oh yeah, right, I hadn’t thought of that. And if you stay focused on one thing you’re a bit stuck.
THINKING THROUGH THE BODY
“All our mental processes are anchored in our body, in our actions and in our interaction with the environment.”
Thoughts, emotions, our reasoning, our creativity, everything that happens, all our mental processes are anchored in our body, in our actions and in our interaction with the environment. So to give a simple example, it was when the writer hung up the bumblebees, and there were a lot of them, in this small space, he couldn’t move. He was constrained, physically constrained. He had to make himself smaller to pass through them. It was his body and his interaction with the environment, with the bees and everything else hanging up there. That’s where the idea of the man and what was going to happen was born, and the story that followed.
THE ALPHA OF CREATIVITY
“When a person is involved in an activity where they have to think creatively, they have to find several alternatives, the brain develops a specific electrical activity and that’s the alpha.”
When a person is involved in an activity where they have to think creatively, they have to find several alternatives, the brain develops a specific electrical activity and that’s the alpha, in the frontal area, not the occipital. We can say, for example, that in a frontal area, there is a phenomenon of inhibition that occurs. Meaning that our brain will inhibit the memories interfering with the task.
INHIBITING THE OBVIOUS
“There we observe a burst of alpha or an increase in the synchronization of the alpha, associated with the suppression or inhibition of the most banal associations.”
And then at the right temporal level. That’s why we often connect creativity with the right hemisphere above the ear. There we observe a burst of alpha or an increase in the synchronization of the alpha, associated with the suppression or inhibition of the most banal associations.
