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There is a lot of talk about ‘distributed creativity’ nowadays, but I can think of very little valuable creative work where more than one or two strong individuals were responsible for major creative decisions. (1)
There are divisions of labour, for sure, between composer and performer, librettist and composer, film director and camera-person, actors, editors, etc, etc. But these constitute different types of work, and are quite clearly delineated. (2)
But the majority of artistic work I’ve seen made by ‘collectives’ is very non-descript. A committee can rarely arrive at the distinctiveness of vision of an individual. The latter can be extraordinary, the former rarely other than ordinary. (3)
John Croft’s essay ‘On Working Alone’, much the most important essay in the very poor volume ‘Distributed Creativity’ asks if a collective could ever produce anything as singular as specific things found in Beethoven or Wagner. They couldn’t. (4)
I am much more interested in artistic work produced by remarkable individuals - so, I believe, are a great many others. They may work with others, but their contributions are unique and irreplaceable. (5/5)
Addendum: much work flaunting its ‘distributed creativity’ looks better in terms of words about it than to listen to, look at, read, etc. The concept comes about when artists cannot convince others to engage with their work through the latter means.
