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After starting off with a focus on Cities we moved on to session three of TEDxPeachtree 2013 –  Creativity.

Quick aside – the Nexus 7 was an amazing companion device for the day. Portable enough to tuck away in my back pocket…battery to last me through the day…small enough to allow note taking without being distracting…functional enough to allow me to keep up with work back at the office…and affordable enough that it’s a no brainer. Nexus-7-2013

Michelle Malone

Performance

While Michelle actually wrapped up the second session, let’s start off with her so you could play her tunes while reading the rest of the post.

Day 2

Tighten Up The Springs

Rossin

The Art of Living

  • Great quote – “You paint your own self portrait on the canvas of society“
  • Sitting in the fourth row, I still struggled to differentiate the portraits as paintings from a picture
  • It’s important to remember that there are so many perspectives in life, and that each are open to their own interpretation

Rossin’s painting blew the crowd away. The longer you had to experience the painting, the more the emotional state of the portrait subjects jumped out at you. I’d love to ask Rossin how he chooses the specific state for each of his subjects?

This is a painting!?!

rossin

Nathan Sawaya

Life, Art, and a Square Dog Named Boxer

  • Great mix of humor and story in his presentation – well done
  • Teaching kids about history through a medium they relate to (Legos vs. History Books) has proved to be very successful
  • You can extract emotion out of some pretty amazing mediums – in this case Legos
  • “Making art makes you both happier and smarter. And that is a fact!“

Nathan had an amazing mix of both the story he was telling as well as his presentation skills. As someone who’s never been excessively creative, I still felt very inspired. I’d love to ask Nathan if he thinks creativity is something that can be taught, whether it requires lots of practice, or whether it’s something your’e born with.

yellow

Mark Riedl

Unlocking Human Creativity

  • Some creative activities have a high barrier to entry; e.g. Building a video game vs. Uploading a cat video to YouTube
  • Can AI lower the barrier to creative expression?
  • Think about creativity in this light – “What would you create if you stopped worrying about failure?“

Mark impressed not only with his ideas, but also with the work he’s done with his team at Georgia Tech. Like all great creative endeavors they’re starting to find additional applications for the work they’re creating. Something that started as a game moves beyond entertaining to also educating.

And I’ll be back again soon with a wrap up of the third session – Classrooms.