Expanded ideas on pretty much any visit or powerpoint presentation.

We could’ve gone on branding Bell or Osaka; trash-talked Richard Florida or quoted him in every paragraph; we could’ve proposed a new vision for the world like Charles-Mathieu Brunelle did; or given a thought to the digitization of cultural contents. We could’ve spoken of City Halls and circuses, of high voltage or unlimited free energy. We truly could’ve… but we didn’t.

We didn’t because our minds were, and are still completely boggled by questions for which few words have yet made it through the glass ceiling of our conscience. Everybody knows by now that there is something particular about this creativity story, something to be said and told, crystallized and diffused, but although that is slowly making its way up there, we have yet to give it meaning, shared meaning, collective meaning.

Because something incredibly evanescent, localized and ephemeral, is what makes creativity something so exclusive, so difficult to grasp, to describe and, ultimately, to manage. The spark of creation comes, and then the fire burns. But are sparks something we can even hope observe, really ?

Maybe. Maybe they cannot be observed but can be generated. Individuals can be put in contexts where the intensity is such that they start making new, purposeful things on their own. But the recipe for success is not simple. There is no silver bullet. Only small, diverse bullets that go in all directions. Like an ecology of bullets, hunting for ideas; some striking their aim, others completely missing it. Creation is a dangerous occupation.

Summer schools are always intense. You get there with a specific goal in mind, and so your teachers try to help you evolve towards that very goal. You study, you move ahead, and you complete the course. In this regard, the Summer school on Management of Creativity in an Innovation Society is no different. You work hard, you play hard, you get the job done and you move on.

But it doesn’t end there.

The first week is ending today, and already some have started to behave erratically. I mean that in a positive way. It’s like brain overload. Like eating too much caviar. Demasiado creatividad.

Beautiful and inspiring things, ten hours a day, beautiful and inspiring people, for the remainder. We haven’t slept a lot, but who needs sleep when you got no more than these short fourteen days to explore everything from circus arts to electrical technologies, from branding, to video games, to fashion, to architecture… Actually, there are only 8 days left. It sometimes even feels like its ending, slowly.

But don’t worry, the best is yet to come.

Because Barcelona is a fantastic place, for one.

And also because we’ve reached this point of exhaustion where people truly start exploring the depths of their ideas, of their personalities, of their creativity.

We think about creativity through creativity. We produce beats and plays, blogs and projects, omelettes and films and photos… We produce words to ask questions, and yet more words to answer them.

We jump from a place to another – perhaps sleep on the bus – and then view things that, although we might’ve seen them before, appear under an entirely new light. Like our eyes keep opening. A window of truth in this vast world of complex interrelations. Shedding light on the black boxes and we try to think out of.

Look up. Look at the ceiling of this room. Look at the walls, look and your wrists and fingers. Look at your hands and wonder where these assemblages come from, how they were created, why. Everything that we are, everything that surrounds us, has once been created somehow. From the monkey to the business man, a creative process has invested our existences and allowed us to be. To ask these questions. And so it can, and must be questioned, investigated. It is our duty, because that is what we do. We go to the essence of things. And redefine them. Remix them. Create them.