An Empirical Study on the Mechanisms of Creativity in Visual Arts

This collaborative research between a visual artist and a cognitive scientist is based on the assumption that the so-called aha moment actually emerges from a number of interacting micro-processes. The empirical study presented here focuses on the creative process involved in connecting two pictures by painting another picture in the middle. This technique was involved in four Infinite Landscape workshops conducted at Art Museums in Japan and Europe over the last five years. Based on the artist’s verbal recollection of the ideas that occurred to him as he drew each of the connecting pictures, we identify the micro-processes and cognitive mechanisms underlying these ideas, and discuss their implications for modeling creativity