Multi-disciplinary Creativity and Collaboration: Utilizing Crowd-Accelerated Innovation and the Internet

The growth of the creative industries has been a national trend in the UK over the last 5 to 10 years, despite global trends of economic downturn, and has been mirrored on the international stage. A distinguishing feature of the creative sector is its make-up of practitioners from a broad spectrum of disciplines. In addition, creative processes often benefit from the collaboration of partners. Established models and challenges of creativity are assessed and contextualized against the contemporaneous creative industries, which feature multi-disciplinary teams, supported by current technology. Crowd-accelerated developments and creative collaboration via social media are having a transformative effect on the creation, distribution, and exhibition of creative works. They are also having an impact on traditional art and design processes. Multi-user interaction enables location-based art works to be transformed into new kinds of interactive and dynamic experiences for global viewers. Current opportunities, issues and challenges that arise are discussed, and a number of questions are identified for further discussion.