Corzo Center

Art is created through an internal dialogue we have with ourselves and results in a form that expresses who we are or want to be. It results in intrinsic values – the value of the thing itself without concern for the value or usefulness the external world places on it.

Innovation is fueled by a compulsion to change the world – for profit or to achieve a social impact.   It is the dialogue the maker/creator/inventor has with the external world. Innovators need an audience and start working with an audience in mind. Artists are happy to find an audience but that’s not the primary reason they create.

This is part four of seven of the Corzo Center's Black Book. Read more at corzocenter.uarts.edu/blog.

How To Find Opportunities

Think of yourself as a problem solver, someone with lots of tools at hand – visual, verbal, performance-based, digital etc.  You’ll use these tools after you’ve figured out the problem. Once you start to solve the problem, you’ll find there’s time enough to be “creative.”

Observe. Observation is the beginning of innovation.  One thing that all innovative thinkers have in common is a priceless ability to pay attention to the world around them.  They see what others see daily but may not pay attention too. Most of us are too easily distracted while also being constantly engaged.  Our heads are down in our iPhones. We walk the same old streets out of habit and see nothing.   

The ability to look up, look around and look more deeply and inquisitively at the world around us, separates everyday people from innovative people.  Your ability to pay attention to the mundane (i.e., walking to class) to the specific (things you learn in class) to the creative (your art) can make the difference between creating a general idea and an innovative one.   

Look at a problem from multiple points of view. As you observe, remember that your point of view is different from someone else’s.  And that’s a good thing: Learning how to observe and switch point of view is a first step towards innovation since it provides you new perspectives and allows you to see situations and problems in surprising ways.

Know your audience. Different audiences see situations differently and the solutions we design for them must also be different, even if ultimately there is an overlap.  In any case, the problem – and the opportunity – will depend upon the audience.  

Don’t be misled by the notion that what you’re making will work for “everyone.”   You should be able to describe your audience with specificity: a) Who they are – age, education, gender, and occupation and b) what they need and why.  What they are attracted to and anxious about.  In short, what’s their emotional profile?

Takeaways on Finding Opportunities

• Identifying a problem requires that we look and listen – pay attention – to the world about us.

• Every situation should be considered from at least two (or better, more) points of view.   The more point of views you use, the more opportunities you will discover.  

The meaning of a problem is determined by the audience with the problem. 

Part five will continue with how to build solutions.

Art is created through an internal dialogue we have with ourselves and results in a form that expresses who we are or want to be. It results in intrinsic values – the value of the thing itself without concern for the value or usefulness the external world places on it.

Innovation is fueled by a compulsion to change the world – for profit or to achieve a social impact.   It is the dialogue the maker/creator/inventor has with the external world. Innovators need an audience and start working with an audience in mind. Artists are happy to find an audience but that’s not the primary reason they create.

This is part three of seven of the Corzo Center's Black Book. Read more at corzocenter.uarts.edu/blog.

Strategic Approaches of Innovation

Folks who take a strategic approach are looking at the “big, big picture.” They are looking at the big trends that are reshaping the world, both short and long term. Such a view allows them to take advantage of external forces without requiring them to “invent” new things.

Disruptive Innovation.  In the last 40 years, we have been overwhelmed by waves of transforming media and technology – from the personal computer to the cell phone, from floppy disc to DVD, from ATM to online banking, from broadcast TV to cable to online streaming, etc.   Each of them and others has spawned a host of new businesses – day-to-day, minute-to-minute. The characteristic of each: improved access and reduced cost.

Think about the impact of previous disruptive innovations—printing, telegraph, airplanes, automobile, television, or the personal computer.   Imagine the potential of new disruptive innovations – robots, drones, nanotechnology, universal information sources, virtual and immersive reality, 3D printing, DNA technology, or artificial intelligence.

Incremental Innovation.   One need not take advantage of the most recent disruptive technology to innovate.   New technology provides a way of adding improvements to already existing products and services.  The incremental sharpens a brand identify while limiting the risk of being ahead of the marketplace. And there’s the added virtue: inventing and testing is work already done by someone else.

Examples. Uber is little more than a business model that combines a mobile app with the process of calling a “cab.”  While Uber’s use of technology is not disruptive, its business model is: eliminating the middleman, it directly connects user with service provider.   And then follows Lyft. Starting after Uber, it learned from Uber, what it did and how the model could be improved. Uber was doing the work and the testing that Lyft relied upon.

Regressive Innovation.   There is a simple model that requires no invention.  It only requires that one understand how an old product or service (a disregarded technology) can be used by a new audience or market for a new purpose.  

Take the bicycle: in the US, for most of the 20th Century, the automobile was the primary tool used for personal travel. The bicycle was for children.   But in the last two decade the bicycle has been rediscovered by adults. It is now the machine used by urban Millennials and makes possible enterprises like Bike Share to service them.  

Or consider the windmill:  Nearly 2000 years old, used in agriculture and in pumping water, it is now at the center of a new economy designed to provide cheap and non-polluting energy.

Part four will continue with how to find opportunities.

Art is created through an internal dialogue we have with ourselves and results in a form that expresses who we are or want to be. It results in intrinsic values – the value of the thing itself without concern for the value or usefulness the external world places on it.

Innovation is fueled by a compulsion to change the world – for profit or to achieve a social impact.   It is the dialogue the maker/creator/inventor has with the external world. Innovators need an audience and start working with an audience in mind. Artists are happy to find an audience but that’s not the primary reason they create.

This is part two of seven of the Corzo Center's Black Book. Read more at corzocenter.uarts.edu/blog.

Principles of Innovation

We are told that there’s a virtue in making things “transparent.”   The problem with that is we see through transparent things and don’t know they exist. Transparency is no help to an innovator.

David Foster Wallace got it right in a speech to a Kenyon College graduating class.  His story:

There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, ‘Morning, boys, how’s the water?’  And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, “What the hell is water?”

The water is transparent to those fish.  They don’t know it exists in the same way they don’t know they’re wet.  Our mantra needs to be – Make the world “opaque” so we can see it and then reshape it.  

How do innovators handle the problem?  They learn to squint.

Change the process.   If you are right handed and start to write with your left hand, you’ll begin to rethink the skill of writing. You won’t take it for granted but more importantly you’ll begin to see how handwriting works. Most of the time we do what we do on automatic pilot – drive, eat, walk down a street.   That means we don’t see what’s about us nor how the world and the people in it are behaving.

Think Absurd. Sometimes this is called imagining the impossible, the inconceivable, or, simply, speaking nonsense.   

As you can imagine, it’s not easy to think absurd.  You need to construct an upside down world in which every “sane” rule or accepted principle is reversed.   Einstein imagining the 4th Dimension.  Copernicus drawing a heliocentric universe.  Lewis Carroll writing about Wonderland. The idea of selling bottled water in plastic containers when it’s free and good at public fountains.   An online news and social media network (Twitter) in which users are restricted to 140 characters. What do you think people thought when they first heard those ideas?   Absurd!

Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? This is a classic series of questions that allows us to peel back the layers of what we think we know or believe.   “Why do you do that?” We answer. And then we’re asked, “So why do you do that?” And again, and again, and again. Avoid looking for the symptom of the problem, but look, instead, for the root cause, that the underlying cause of the problem.  The deeper you go, the more insight you’ll have about a possible solution.

Making Theater of a Situation. “The play’s the thing.”   To see the water, not merely swim in it, to make action and events opaque, innovators treat situations as moments of theatre.  It is as though we are witnessing a scripted play, a performance in which those in it are characters; the actions are pre-defined; the environment itself a set.

To achieve this distance, innovators will sometimes photograph or videotape the space they are working in, draw and map it, or write a narrative story as though they were writing a script.  Designers will recognize here the techniques of “design thinking” in which situations are observed and then mapped. Those in theater will recognize Bertolt Brecht’s principle of “the alienation effect,” in which the “familiar is made strange.”  In both, the distance provides observer (audience or designer) distance which provides a way to understand the rules at play, change them, redirect elements and redefine the values.

This approach helps us see things differently because we are outside of them, looking in. As a result, we can analyze, rewrite, redirect and replay the moment:  everything is tangible; everything is malleable; everything is apparent and conscious.

Part three will continue with strategic approaches to innovation.

We promised to share updates on the students who were awarded Corzo Fine Arts grants and we are excited to keep that promise. Meet Jessica Zawadowicz, a 2019 Fine Arts graduate, who received one of the three Fine Arts grants awarded. Jessica explains how she came to apply for this grant, what it’s allowing her to do, and her next steps.

What made you apply for the Fine Arts Grant?

I have a lot of ideas, and I have a lot of ideas that I am passionate about and want to pursue. Often I am trying to find pathways where I can facilitate and manifest my excitement. I applied for the Fine Arts Grant because it was an opportunity that offered support and to expand the beginnings of ourselves as artists and our creative careers.

How did you go about writing your proposal? Any tips?

I do my best to answer any questions as honestly and truthfully to myself as I can. Stream of consciousness is a method I use to get my intentions in writing as fluidly as possible, and then I then go back to clarify my ideas and wording.

I would suggest to be clear with yourself on your ideas and intentions, what you want your proposal to lead to and possible future images, and to full out trust yourself and be excited about your ideas.

What did this grant allow you to do?

This grant has allowed me to attend the Common Field Convening Conference in Philadelphia this past month. As stated on the conference website, this conference is an “itinerant gathering that bringing together 400+ organizers nationwide to share resources, knowledge and methods for artist-led, run, and centered projects, spaces and practices.”

During the conference, I attended various lectures, talks, and workshops hosted by different art organizers from Philly and throughout the Country (and Canada.) I was able to have insight into the current world for each art organization and their goals, intentions, issues they’ve faced, and images of how they would like their program to look going forward. It was an event to connect, learn, listen, and hear from one another coming from a common field of interest. (Pun Intended.)

Can you explain how it will affect your work as an artist?

I received funding to attend this conference as I originally proposed the creation of a larger artist collective/platform/online network that can move beyond a locked in physical location- one that can travel and reach people globally and internationally and help connections and garner awareness of the other that would be otherwise not be possible. I am interested in using creativity to establish a fabric of interweaving connections among people, in order to create new social systems that uplift and consciously support the individual and the collective. This is a larger project than the 3 months that this grant’s timeline allowed for, but attending this conference as given me new understandings of the various conversations people are having within the art collective network as well as how a conference of bringing people together was organized.

Did your goal evolve from what you originally proposed?

I believe that my originally proposed goal is a naturally ever-changing and fluid phenomenon that will take form with the new locations and people’s that I encounter throughout my life. It feels that my ideas are already beginning to change and possibly lead me in new directions to create this idea of a large artistic collective.

To stay updated on Jessica and her work, follow her on Instagram at @jdowicz_artwork