Writing for New Forms and Media
The contemporary age is one of tremendous upheaval and uncertainty for the literary arts. New technologies challenge established business practices. Nascent and rapidly emerging markets pose new questions about processes and products. Conflicted conversations about rights and the uses of creative commodity dominate an increasingly fractured landscape. Within this turbulent tumble lies the writer as artist: pressured by the exigencies of commerce, burdened by the minutiae of intellectual property law, increasingly hobbled by anxiety and disorientation.
The writer now feels at the whim of indifferent and unpredictable forces. The buffers which once protected professional writers from the messiness and incipient momentum of the market are now, for the most part, dismantled or disintegrating. Creative and professional paths that once were secure are now fraught with new obstacles. The sacred space of creative inquiry seems under threat. The artifacts of that inquiry have lost much of their meaning. The casual blog has vanquished the thoughtful book.
At least, this is how it seems to many writers working today: dark times, enemies at the gate.
But this is how all the great stories begin. Turbulence — emotional, cultural, political — is the source and fuel of creativity. The current age is thus a great gift. Artists and writers are now free, in the philosophical (and perhaps spiritual) sense, free to pursue the clamour and craft of their work, in a manner that we have not encountered before. Not since the audacious invention of writing itself.
Interdisciplinary Expressive Arts (IDEA) 1240 invites writers to discover — or rediscover — the unrivaled adventure of creative work in the world today. The path forward is not labyrinthine but requires, rather — like most daunting tasks — that a small number of simplicities reveal themselves behind the swirl of turbulence. Course participants will learn about various technologies of creativity — this, of course, is a pertinent and pressing matter — but the course is not, primarily, another introduction to blogging, social networking, web content, and viral marketing. These are only the outer appearance — the carapace, the shell — of what amounts to a re-imagining of what it means to be a creative person in the world today.
IDEA 1240 is a course about reclaiming the fundamental right of creative endeavour and choosing the paths that lead forward.
Freedom, adventure, opportunity: these are the watchwords of the contemporary creative professional. Every age calls its inhabitants to action. How do we know this? Writers tell us. How do they tell us? By facing their own crises of confidence, by wrestling with the emerging norms and practices of their time, by seizing the word as their instrument and their stand. Why should we expect our age to be any different? Why would we want it to be?
This course is offered at Kwantlen Polytechnic University. For registration details, please visit the Interdisciplinary Expressive Arts page.