The Imagination and Human Behavior

Fig. 1: Slade 2020

Lev Semenovich Vygotsky in the Journal of Russian and East European Psychology distinguishes two basic types of creative behavior among human acts.  The first is called 'reproductive' and "essentially it consists of a person’s reproducing or repeating previously developed and mastered behavioral patterns or resurrecting traces of earlier impressions" (Vygotsky 2004)

Recalling your childhood home, or re-living emotions from a past relationship all would be considered reproductive behavior.  

The second type of behavior goes beyond reproducing the stimuli of your brain's past and moves into the actual creation of new- new images, new scenarios, new possibilities.  This is the 'creative' or 'combinatorial' behavior and it is what separates us as humans from not only being able to progress insomuch as our history is reproduced, but opens the window to both creating a future as well as altering our own present.  

Imagination is not just the creation of what is not true- but is in fact:

"the basis of all creative activity, [and] an important component of absolutely all aspects of cultural life, enabling artistic, scientific, and technical creation alike" (Vygotsky 2004)

Photography is no exception.  Particularly constructed images and those not meant to be a trace of an actual or factual event.  And our 

creative combinatory activity arises in stages from more elementary or simple forms, to more complex ones.

Creation can also be therapeutic.  

In the book, The Revealing Image: Analytical Art Psychotherapy in Theory and Practice, Joy Schaverien distinguishes between three definitions of art therapy: 

1-Analytical Art Psychotherapy focuses on a relationship with a therapists, and images in equal amounts.  

2-Analytical Art Psychotherapy- where the emphasis is more on the therapist and the images are secondary.

3- Art Therapy- the sole emphasis on the creation of art, in a meditative way.  (Schaverien in Justis 2017).

Fig. 2: Slade 2020

HOW this RELATES TO ME: 

Through this process of experimentation in my photography methodology and style I recognize why I need my post processing and digital creation of my photography.  It's my own personal therapist. 

My life has stress.  Nothing unique there, it's a part of mortality.  Kids, husband, job, extended family disfunction- again I can claim no more or less than most.  But life has a way of creating waves over your person until, if left unattended, you drown.  Bleak but all too true.  

How does one stay true to self while emotionally and physically processing the world that speeds around them?  

Mindfullness

Meditation

Self Actualization

Each person has their own journey to find their 'center.'  

I recognize now how often mine comes in the form of 

ART THERAPY, as referred to in Schaverien's third definition.  

When I edit my images I succumb to a meditative state.  Imaginative creations that clear my mind and replenish my core. (I believe my husband has recognized this for some time- even if he wouldn't be able to put it in those exact words.  He recognizes how the creation of photography is fulfilling to me and makes me a better and happier person- resulting in he is very encouraging in that respect).   

SO

As I look toward this final project I hate to reject the art that is so a part of me.  Somehow I would love to explore a collection that journeys from the RAW imagination all the way to the extreme fantasmical edit.  Not sure how that would happen but I feel I will keep exploring AND creating on both sides of the spectrum for now.  

Fig. 3: Slade 2020

Figures 1-3. Bren SLADE. 2020. 

JUSTIS, Hannah T. 4239670221, "Meditative Art: A Diversion from Stress and Anxiety" (2017). Undergraduate Honors Theses. Paper 397. https://dc.etsu.edu/honors/397 [online] Available at: https://dc.etsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1454&context=honors [accessed 10 March 2020].

VYGOTSKY, Lev Semenovich. 2004. 'Imagination and Creativity in Childhood.' Journal of Russian and East European Psychology, 42:1. [online] Available at: http://lchc.ucsd.edu/MCA/Mail/xmcamail.2007_08.dir/att-0149/LSV__1967_2004_._Imagination_and_creativity_in_childhood.pdf [accessed 10 March 2020].