Transcendent Devices: An Exploration of the Mechanics of Creative Decision Making

This research investigates the initiations, limitations and outcomes of the creative process with particular focus upon sonic art forms. Where does the artist begin and at what point is it determined that the creative artefact is complete? The work will discuss the conditions, characteristics and constraints of creative work; whether the work in question is an original musical composition or the favourable individualistic arrangement of given sonic material. Are there benefits in considering constraints to steer the stylistic trajectory and maintain consistency or could this be regarded as expressively inhibiting? Could structural consideration at the outset provide a creatively liberating framework ensuring authenticity and coherence through analogous models? or could this engender feelings of inhibition curtailing imaginative excursions? The result of this structural approach may be regarded as a lack of progressiveness that for some may prove to be an initial, however illusory, motivational feature. Both authors will offer perspectives from distinctive but related creative disciplines from geographically displaced UK universities. This current study builds upon a portfolio of developing insights into creativity to discuss approaches and attitudes to the creative process within commercial musical composition and recording studio post-production processes, to address the two fundamental concerns of: how to begin a creative process, project-manage and when to determine that the process is complete.