Elaine Tsui

Half a year ago, I participated in a few videos with Design Trust in Hong Kong and New York. The videos documented 1 year of our work by Muilo and Design Trust as well as editing. It contained team works from the very beginning of the brainstorming session to concept presentation, New York study trip, detail design stage liaising with the locals to different public consultations. The video that is going up on the SOGO screen, in particular, is promoting Design Trust and hoping to invite more young designers to join. One of the reasons I joined Design Trust was because it provided a lot of opportunities to get feedback on my design from peers, ideas of exchange and be able to work with different other designers. I would say it is very much like working back in school studio, ie student created a piece of work, and present to a group, that are often professionals from other disciplines for feedback.

If you watched all the videos (please click here), there is a line which almost appeared in the video that was “Design Trust accelerates creativity” you might be able to spot. I have been pondering how “creativity” been defined at late, which lead me writing this week blog post. In here, Creativity is a means within that structure to create new ‘products/ vision’ through researching and analysing. As a means towards a practical end, then that use of creativity seems to nurture ‘progress’. When you’re being creative, you can see the hidden patterns, make connections between things that aren’t normally related, and come up with new ideas. Creative ability depends on creative thinking which is hard work but largely creative problem-solving.

When I consider the Hong Kong extradition of bills and five key demands of late, then it seems that creativity is behind the spark in consciousness that seeks to throw off shackles that limit its expression. The use of YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and telegram were creative tools to express dissent and helped to ignite changes in mass consciousness. The gatherings themselves were not just demonstrations against – they were gatherings of people creating something new together. This might be akin to the beginnings of the 18th-century coffee houses in London. 

The context that I find creativity particularly interesting then is looking beyond the individual to what can happen between individuals; as a group, the process to create something new. When individuals voluntarily put aside their differences and focus together on allowing something new to emerge between them, that creativity that springs forth helps to formulate something new in consciousness. This notion of mass creativity is now the driving force of our century, I think it is important that our design/architectural industry is making use of this tool, tools that include Data Science. The movie “ If Brexit: The Uncivil War” showed me anything. Data that was harvested and used to feed algorithms that profiled the electorate became a vital weapon in the EU referendum and US election. And let’s not forget Artificial Intelligence (AI), as AI provides an additional and vastly diverse ‘creative arm’ in many industries, it is challenging the possibilities of creation and giving us more understanding of creativity. However, as its initial conditions are created by human intelligence, AI is still a human endeavour, and although it is starting to develop creative characteristics, its lacks the complex link between imagination, abstract thinking and episodic memory which scientists believe makes up creativity. Yet as human creatives are praised for their originality, many of the most artistry has been influenced – used to drive new movements and trains of thought. In 2019, it marks a new page we should fully utilise the creative tools and bridge between the traditional creative process and technology. This definitely opens up another discussion. I am very happy to discuss this further.

Hong Kong is now undergoing a big challenge and transformation. The videos were meant to go up on SOGO screen three months ago and scheduled to play on Sunday afternoon. However, due to many unforeseen circumstances, SOGO closed a few times, therefore the recorded videos with Design Trust would be re-scheduled to play until further notice.

I don’t think there has been a better time to stand up for what we believe in and creating what matters. I hope and believe Hong Kong is going back on track very soon. I’ll update you all again when the video is up, in the meantime, please enjoy the trial video tested last April.