The One-I Model of Creativity: A Commentary on Green et al. (2024)

Creativity manifests in various forms; while we see and experience creativity every day, the process that gives rise to creativity poses a challenge. To meet this challenge, Green et al. first proceed by helping us understand that a product’s creativeness, as gauged in terms of criteria such as usefulness and novelty, should not be used to qualify the process itself. In line with the disciplinary exigencies of cognitive neuroscience, Green et al.’s process model requires a second world, not the world of lived experience and direct perception, but an internally represented world. By casting products aside, Green et al.’s process model aims to characterize dematerialized creativity. Yet objects play an essential role in the enacting of creativity: creativity accrues contingently in making. Prototyping, a well-established practice in many creative domains, involves iterative cycles of production, evaluation, and modification. Creativity is a discovery process in making, not just thinking, involving a dialogue between designers and the objects they create. Such objects have no intentionality but are not devoid of agency: they are actants in the unfolding of creativity. This commentary explores what is gained by adopting Green et al.’s process model, and what is left behind.