Vlad Glăveanu
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.
Vlad Glaveanu is Full Professor of Psychology in the Business School at Dublin City University and Adjunct Professor at the Centre for the Science of Learning and Technology, University of Bergen. His research focuses on creativity, innovation, imagination, wonder, technology, culture, collaboration and possibility related topics. He is founder and director of the DCU Centre for Possibility Studies, founder and president of the Possibility Studies Network, editor of Possibility Studies and Society (Sage) and editor of the Palgrave Encyclopaedia of the Possible.
FROM I TO WE
“It’s not just me, it’s the I that melts into or becomes a we without losing the I.”
When you get this space of complicity and sociability through playfulness, through humour, through letting go together, you create bonds. These become generative because you get the support. It’s not just me, it’s the I that melts into or becomes a we without losing the I.
SEEING THE BACK OF YOUR OWN HEAD
“Sometimes people are mirrors to us, but there are people who see in us and in our ideas, something we do not see.”
You never can see what the other people know. Bakhtin had a beautiful phrasing. He said, you can never see with your own eyes, the back of your head. You can use mirrors. And sometimes people are mirrors to us, but there are people who see in us and in our ideas, something we do not see, and we do that for others. So this complicity and this playfulness makes people see the back of their own heads so much more vividly together.
KEEPING IDEAS IN MOVEMENT
“You come with your own rhythms and have the rhythms of others, and then you co-create this movement and then you carry it with you.”
I really like to think of all of this as a movement that has a rhythm, has a pattern, and that pattern is emerging, and you come with your own rhythms and have the rhythms of others, and then you co-create this movement and then you carry it with you.
BLOCKAGE IS PART OF THE PROCESS
“There is a human experience to being blocked, to being stuck, to not knowing what to do.”
There is a human experience to being blocked, to being stuck, to not knowing what to do. And how do you restart the process. So one of the ways that happened here is through these social connections, this idea of being held and cared for and kind of understanding that this is part of the process. A lot of people would reject in themselves, the blockage.
LETTING GO OF WHAT BLOCKS YOU
“Let yourself be driven by your obsessions or your passions, but kind of look at them differently.”
Another one is to let yourself be driven by your obsessions or your passions, but kind of look at them differently and then give yourself that space. It’s also about the time you have to work with things. And yet another one is literally to immerse yourself in a new experience. So to be able to let go of something that was absolutely blocking you.
LEAVING CERTAINTY BEHIND
“Wonder is a lot about leaving certainty behind.”
For me, wonder is the key that unlocks a lot of this, because the experience of wonder is the experience that the world as I see it, the world as I’m given and familiar with, is more than that. There is more to the world than what I think I know or I’m certain I know. Wonder is a lot about leaving certainty behind. So experience of wonder, which are so kind of intermixed with creativity and curiosity and all, are these moments of realization that there is more than meets the eye. And I’m actually interested to know more, because otherwise we’d be just surprised. But wonder keeps these perceptions and explorations kind of joined. The sense of the possible. Wonder is the sense of the possible.
BUILDING BRIDGES
“Once you jump from a network of associations to another area with their own associations, it’s kind of building bridges.”
Once you jump from a network of associations to another area with their own associations, it’s kind of building bridges. We did mention or I talked about metaphors, or a metaphorical language. Something is like something else. For metaphors to work really well they need to have a level of similarity. That’s how people get that. Oh, it’s kind of like that. But they also need to have difference.
DIRECTED RANDOMNESS
“It’s not complete randomness, but it’s almost like directed, directed by your instincts, your obsessions, your group dynamic.”
It’s not complete randomness, but it’s almost like directed, directed by your instincts, your obsessions, your group dynamic. And then you rebuild the connections. So when you do that, you look at your problem, your associations in view of other associations, and that really enriches and can make you think in radically new ways, because that’s one issue of creativity.
