Third-generation creativity : unfolding a social-ecological imagination

Creativity is not defined by an essence, but by the way it varies and evolves amongst our situated practices. In his book 'Inventing Our Selves', Nikolas Rose (1998) describes the subjectification and spatialisation of human being as "the target of a multiplicity of types of work, more like a latitude and longitude at which different vectors of different speeds intersect" (p. 37). These dynamic and spatial principles can be transferred to a simple paper object- a möbius strip - mesmerising in its fluidity, concaveness and shadow, by the artist Benbennick (2005). Imagine a vivid green strip of paper which has been twisted and joined. At certain points its curvatures touch a flat, cream-grained surface, at others the green hue of its shadows suggest its arc from the plane. Seelig (20 12) articulates a möbius strip framing of innovation to unlock creativity; an interweaving of attitude, knowledge and imagination (the inside), and culture, resources and habitat (the outside).Throughout this article I argue that a möbius strip symbolizes the multidimensionality of our situated practices, an assemblage of movement, with its denotations of presence and connotations of absence. Presence is the current positioning of our practice, the 'longitude'; absence characterises not only the freedom and choice of our practices (the 'latitude'), but also how the favoring of certain practices precludes others.