The document discusses the relationship between creativity, innovation, and play. It argues that play is the deep evolutionary foundation of creativity, as play allows for novelty and role experimentation. However, creativity and innovation are often co-opted to serve corporate interests under capitalism. The document also critiques how the emphasis on creativity can promote precarity. It suggests society should provide more "grounds for play" like education and cultural institutions to foster creativity while addressing other human needs and planetary limits.

1. RADICAL ANIMAL
Constructing the Creative Self
PAT KANE, THEPLAYETHIC.COM

2. Lecture plan
■ The creative/innovative imperative
■ The critique of the creative/innovative imperative
■ Beyond critical theory – towards a politics of human
nature
■ Play as the deep and evolved foundation of creativity
■ The societal "grounds of play"
■ The playground has (planetary) limits
■ We radical animals

3. The Creative/Innovative Imperative

4. The Creative/Innovative Imperative

5. The Creative/Innovative Imperative
18 items. 10 food (3 main course, dessert 2. 5 are snacks - 3 of those are healthy snacks/ Oscar Meyer: “It’s not
snack food. It’s real food to snack on” Skinny Pop Popcorn “We believe in snacking without compromise”. Many of
them associated with countries - Bai is Mandarin for “pure”, there’s Italian ice-creams and main courses, Greek
yoghurts, The rest are animal care, domestic products, medication, cosmetics.

6. The Creative/Innovative Imperative
Odour and aromas is a cross-product anxiety - does your house smell
like cats, does your dogs breath smell, do your clothes smell fresh…
There’s even a wax melt that Romans would recognise it (both wax
and historic design on the jar).
The medication is heartburn (to deal with all the stuff we’ve eaten)…
and anti-allergy (to deal with all the stuff thrown up into the biosphere
to make the stuff we’ve eaten)…
This is a picture of creativity and innovation - in it own way, powerfully
poetic, mythic - products promise “indulgences” and “miracles” One of
the laundry products is called a “gain fling”.
Bai: “Flavor is a promise to not be dull. A commitment to break from
convention. To never conform. To be full of flavor, is to be full of life. It
is the result of all the labor — of every choice, every decision — that
got us to where we are at this exact moment.”

7. The Creative/Innovative Imperative

8. The Creative/Innovative
Imperative
Much anxiety about data-driven “short-term” advertising
campaigns – undercutting more “creative” long-term
campaigns
Creative campaigns (non-creative campaigns) are ones that
win awards from peers – but this report has been showing
that they several times more “efficient” as a budget spend,
because of the amount of sales they generate over a longer
period, often years.
Two features that define a creative campaign
- The “Fame” effect: “campaigns that create buzz around
the brand, encouraging online and offine conversations.
- “These campaigns are, almost without exception,
essentially emotional in nature and therefore tend to
work more powerfully over the long term.”

9. The Creative/Innovative
Imperative
• Creativity (ie originality)
• Co-creation (inviting consumer to
contribute to the campaign)
• Breaking rules and taboos of the category
(often being "naughty")
• Association with a motivating or
provocative social cause that adds a new
dimension to the brand
• Unexpected juxtapositions of idea and
medium (seeing ads in unusual contexts)
• Unexpected use of celebrities (in a way
that is surprising)
• Extreme humour

10. Creativity/innovation yes…
but in service of what, other
than bottom line of a brand?

11. Lecture plan
■ The creative/innovative imperative
■ The critique of the creative/innovative imperative
■ Beyond critical theory – towards a politics of human
nature
■ Play as the deep and evolved foundation of creativity
■ The societal "grounds of play"
■ The playground has (planetary) limits
■ We radical animals

12. The critique of the creative/innovative imperative
Core critique of these books (also sent through Twitter!)
The rise of idea of “creativity” & “innovation” as a guide for
your life and career…
…complements perfectly a life under the current form of
neo-liberal capitalism...
...because neo-liberalism urges us to constantly control,
govern and discipline ourselves, for peak market
performance...
...& creativity/innovation, as an identity, makes us love &
embrace that process deeply – calling it craft, dedication

13. The critique of the creative/innovative imperative
A life of creativity/innovation also comes along with an
embrace of precarity and instability…
...a disdain for the any kind of career path through an
organisation or occupation...
...throwing one’s self into the ”gig economy” – where you
are freer to join and leave ”projects”...
... but have no back-up in terms of sick pay, paid holidays,
employee rights, etc. “What does a union even mean to
me?”

14. The critique of the creative/innovative imperative
Not just ”creatives” who experience precarious
working lives... But they are in the vanguard of
pushing big-picture, systemic responses to
flexible, multi-purpose lives...
Ideas are not necessarily new (Tom Paine?
William Morris? Andre Gorz?)
• Universal basic income or citizen’s income
• Shorter working weeks
• Prioritising zero-marginal cost production
...All being trialled now in Europe, US. Will they
catch on/be successful? There’s the problem...

15. Lecture plan
■ The creative/innovative imperative
■ The critique of the creative/innovative imperative
■ Beyond critical theory – towards a politics of human
nature
■ Play as the deep and evolved foundation of creativity
■ The societal "grounds of play"
■ The playground has (planetary) limits
■ We radical animals

16. Beyond critical theory – towards a politics of
human nature
Can we “critique” and ”demystify” our
way out of this one (we can try…)
Alan Finlayson: not “What Is To Be
Done?” but ”What IS this? What Is
HERE?”
Cognitive-rational address not enough
Need to go directly to emotional level
– risk/security, fear/confidence, care,
anger…

17. Beyond critical theory – towards a politics
of human nature
Post-Brexit, it’s politically important to find a
new popular discourse around
creativity/innovation…
In danger of becoming a very damaging
polarisation between
- Flexible, urban/city, cosmopolitan,
capacious - creative
- Inflexible, suburban/town, monocultural,
recalcitrant – routinized
Need some new accounts of SHARED,
COMMON human nature – that have authority

18. Lecture plan
■ The creative/innovative imperative
■ The critique of the creative/innovative imperative
■ Beyond critical theory – towards a politics of human
nature
■ Play as the deep and evolved foundation of creativity
■ The societal "grounds of play"
■ The playground has (planetary) limits
■ We radical animals

19. Play as the deep and evolved foundation of
creativity: primary emotions
Antonio Damasio (plus Trust/Anticipation, Ekman)
•Adequate nutrition, air, water and shelter from the elements
•Safety and security
•Emotional connection
•Fun, friendship and intimacy
•A sense of belonging to a wider community
•A measure of control and autonomy
•Attention (to give and receive)
•Status in life (which comes from having stretched ourselves
and achieved things)
•Meaning and purpose
The
”Human
Givens”
Model
- see Tyrell
and
Griffin

20. Play as the deep and evolved foundation
of creativity
Jaak Panksepp
- ”Archaeology
of Mind”
- Opiates,
areas
stimulated –
produce
same effects
in the
mammal
brain

21. Play as the deep and evolved foundation
of creativity
Bateson and Martin:
- Play is “fun” – spontaneous and
intrinsically rewarding
- Players are protected from normal
consequences of serious behaviour
- Play generates novelty (role play, new
combinations
- Play looks different to normal behaviour
- Play indicates well-being (only happens
when organism is free from illness or
stress)

22. Play as the deep and evolved foundation
of creativity
Bateson and Martin:
Identify playful play & playfulness as the
mood state that’s most optimum for
creativity (some play can of course slide into
aggression, powergames)
Mood state: cheerful, frisky, frolicsome,
good-natured, joyous, merry, rollicking
spirited, sprightly and vivacious…

23. Play as the deep and evolved foundation
of creativity
Bateson and Martin:
Playful play contributes most to creativity –
creativity defined as the generation of novel
actions and ideas, by recombining elements
in new ways, or apply them to to new
situations.
NOT the same as innovation – which
winnows out new ideas, and takes on the
hard work of successfully implementing and
spreading them, in orgs or society.

24. Play as the deep and evolved foundation of
creativity
PLAY/CREATIVITY/JOY IS
BEGINNING TO FIND ITS
SECURE PLACE IN THE
SOLIDIFYING MAPS OF EVOLVED
HUMAN NATURE AND
BEHAVIOUR (FROM AFFECTIVE
NEUROSCIENCE & OTHER
AREAS)
WE NEED TO PLAY AND CREATE
– OTHERWISE, WE DENY OUR
BASIC EMOTIONAL NEEDS

25. Play as the deep and evolved foundation of
creativity (Nudge is not enough…)
“Think of Mr. Spock of Star Trek fame as
someone whose Reflective System is always in
control … In contrast, Homer Simpson seems
to have forgotten where he put his Reflective
System” (driven by his “instinctive Automatic
System”) [from Nudge, Thaler/Sunstein]
…whereas Lisa – imaginative, idealistic,
enthusiastic, expressive, - engages her
WHOLE system, through play/art/activism

26. Lecture plan
■ The creative/innovative imperative
■ The critique of the creative/innovative imperative
■ Beyond critical theory – towards a politics of human
nature
■ Play as the deep and evolved foundation of creativity
■ The societal "grounds of play"
■ The playground has (planetary) limits
■ We radical animals

27. The societal "grounds of play"
What kind of society does the
findings of affective neuroscience,
or neuroscience-informed
psychotherapy and psychology,
suggest?
One in which primary, evolved
emotions and drives are given their
rich and complex due…
...which is different from them being
manipulated (truth doesn’t come
into it)

28. The societal "grounds of play"
You can’t answer the play-drive in
isolation (with Arts! Free time! Basic
income!)
-- And expect it to redress and fix
maltreatment of the rest of the drives…
Panksepp’s (crude) model of primary
drives is still a symphony– care but also
rage, panic/fear but also seeking/lust..
“Out of the crooked timber of humanity,
no straight thing was ever made” (Kant)

29. The societal "grounds of play"
But if we give all the
other drives their
evolutionary due,
then we must value
play for what it is---
-—Which is a zone of
time and space,
where we can lightly
handle and toy with
the heavy
imperatives of
human existence…
....In order to refine our responses better, or seek out
new niches when current options have closed down.
What are these “play zones”? Or “grounds of play”?

30. The societal "grounds of play"
VALUE THE ONES WE KNOW:
• Education at all levels, 3-to-7 play-
based kindergarten
• An open web supporting mass self-
expression
• Festivals and carnivals – zones and
grounds (like this one!) where
people come together to enjoy
boundaries blurring, challenges
• The arts and cultural sectors and
their subsidies
• Primary science – Andre Geim,
Hawking, etc – and its subsidy

31. The societal "grounds of play"
CREATE NEW PLAYZONES:
• Argue for an open, common,
expressive dimension in every new
tech platform – particularly in AR and
VR
• Playzones alongside Carezones – what
new combinations of security and risk
can we imagine in society? In welfare,
housing, making/enterprise?
• How could our vast archive of creative
techniques be brought to bear on our
broken politics? New forms of
democracy/parties?

32. The playground has (planetary) limits
Can we make better choices with our innate ingenuity, love of novelty,
colour and form, endlessly ramifying appetites, vast systemic capacity…?

33. PLAY-ETHICS IN A WORLD OF ECOLOGICAL CRISIS ARE NOT EASY.... TAKE
STUART BRAND
IN 60'S/70's BRAND EASILY FUSED
DEVELOPMENTAL, HEALTHY,
NATURAL PLAY (MERRY
PRANKSTERS, NEW GAMES
MOVEMENT, COMMUNAL LIVING)...
....WITH TECHNOLOGICAL,
ABSTRACT, UNNATURAL PLAY
(COMPUTERS & NETS,
ARCHITECTURE/URBANISM, ALT.
ENERGY, BUSINESS CONSULTANCY)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTAuLsJDyWI
LSD?
The playground has (planetary) limits

34. STUART BRAND
1968 WHOLE EARTH CATALOG:
“WE ARE AS GODS AND WE
MIGHT AS WELL GET GOOD AT
IT”
(DIY, SMALL-IS-BEAUTIFUL, SOFT
TECHNOLOGY)
2009 WHOLE EARTH
DISCIPLINE: “WE ARE AS
GODS AND WE MUST GET
GOOD AT IT”
(NUCLEAR POWER, GENE-
TECH, TERRA-FORMING)
IS HE NOW RIGHT? WRONG?
BUT RECONCILING NATURAL AND UNNATURAL PLAY OF HUMANITY IS VERY
DIFFICULT...
NATURAL AND UNNATURAL PLAY COME
TOGETHER IN ONE SLOGAN...

35. 'Human activities increasingly dominate 9 crucial planetary systems. Add to the familiar ones---
climate, biodiversity, and chemical pollution---atmospheric aerosols, ocean acidification, excess
nitrogen in agriculture, too much land in agriculture, freshwater scarcity, and ozone depletion. To
have "a safe operating space for humanity" on Earth requires adjusting our behavior to work within
those systems. How we collectively step up to that responsibility will determine whether "the
Anthropocene" (the current geological era shaped by humans) will be a tragedy or humanity's
greatest accomplishment.”
… BUT LYNAS' INNOVATION PLAYGROUND IS SECURED BY PRO-NUKES, PRO-GEO-
ENGINEERING, PRO-”PROSPERITY”-AS-MATERIAL-ACCUMULATION
HEROIC, “RATIONALIST”, INDIVIDUALIST, GREEN-BAITING DISCOURSE
The playground has (planetary) limits

36. BELIEVES THAT WITH OUR WEB AND
“NOOSPHERE” OF INFORMATION-PLUS-
COMMUNITY-PARTICIPATION, WE HAVE
THE POSSIBILITY OF “GIVING GAIA ITS
MOMENT OF META-AWARE SELF-
CONSCIOUSNESS” - OF BEING GAIAS
BRAIN...
BUT FLANNERY IS POST-INDIVIDUALIST –
WE ARE “GREEDY APES”, TOO WEAK TO BE
HUNTER-GATHERERS, NEEDING OUR
SOCIAL CODES (AND DIVISIONS OF
LABOUR) TO GET ANYTHING WORTHWHILE
DONE – JUMPED-UP SUPERORGANISMS
WHO HAVE TO ATTAIN A MODICUM OF
PLANETARY ETHICS...
The playground has (planetary) limits

37. We “radical animals”
Even Harari’s view of all life driven by
algorithms, where machine intelligence
outstrips our own…
...stumbles at the door of consciousness.
“My test for whether something is real: Does
it suffer?”
Yet we are also the animal that can percieive
our own limitations – and then play with
those limits...

38. We “radical animals”
It might be fruitful to explore the
crossover between:
Play – a zone for safely exploring all
possibilities
Mindfulness/non-reactivity – a way
to use consciousness to observe our
evolved mechanisms
Though someone might have gotten
there first…

39. Question:
How does play, creativity and
innovation relate? Where does
spontaneity end, and control
begin?

40. Question:
If we understood the evolutionary
role of play better, how might we
change our societies, economies
and ourselves?

41. Question:
How radical can play be? If play
means ALL possibilities can be
lightly considered, what horrors
as well as delights may ensue?

42. RADICAL ANIMAL
Constructing the Creative Self
PAT KANE, THEPLAYETHIC.COM