Episode 9: Exploring Creativity Through the Senses

In this episode of the Creative Work Hour podcast, the crew engage in a lighthearted and imaginative conversation about creativity, using playful questions to explore how the creative process might relate to sensory experiences. They discuss what creativity would smell like, taste like, and how it might change in zero gravity.

Speaker 000:00

Welcome back to day nine of the Creative Workout podcast. We are taking part in national podcast post month, and today is November the ninth, day nine in the weekend. That's why we might switch gears and try something a little bit fun. So I asked AI to come up with some interesting questions about creativity. One of the ones that came up and I like is if creativity had a scent, what would your creative process smell like? So does anyone have a thought on that? If creativity had a scent, what would your creative process smell like? Rather, what was that Michael? Burnt rubber got that burnt rubber. The moving parts friction and yeah, that's it. Anyone else? <laugh> any, anything else on, uh, burnt rubber? Any advances on burnt rubber?

Speaker 100:50

I think mine would Go ahead.

Speaker 200:52

That's much more dramatic than what I was gonna say. I was going to say sandalwood.

Speaker 000:57

Oh, I like sandalwood.

Speaker 200:59

Oh. Only because, uh, for me there's a psychoemotional connection with being in the Middle East and all the triggering experiences that went on for many years when I lived there. So sandalwood kind of has that ping to it.

Speaker 101:16

Not to mention sandalwood is much easier to find at Yankee candle than burnt rubber, which they're always selling out of that one.

Speaker 001:24

Yeah. So if anyone's looking for a niche idea, maybe burnt rubber candles would be a yes. Be a in the future creative work hour brand. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>.

Speaker 101:32

Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. I like it. For me, it would be the smell. I don't know if they even sell 'em anymore, but when I was a kid, you would build your little model airplane or car or whatever it was, and then there would be these little paints, I can't remember the brand, but they're little bitty paint bottles and those would be the paints that you would buy to paint your model, whatever colors it was supposed to be. And I can so vividly remember the smell of those paint. I'm sure they were toxic. This was the seventies. But that's to me, creativity, creating the model and painting it and making it look like the box. That was very creative process. So that sort of evokes a creativity, a creative feeling in me.

Speaker 002:13

When you were talking about the models and I thought at first you were going to say the adhesive that came in them and I was struggling to answer that and I thought that could be my answer. The, the glue. But then that, that could have been just a fumes that they think that way. Anyone else? What would you create process smell like? Adrian, do you have one?

Speaker 302:33

Yeah, I was thinking mine is, um, freshly baked chocolate chip cookies coming out the oven. Oh, <laugh>. Because you know, you get the dough and you get the cookie dough. Well, you know, being young, it's nostalgia. You got it out the pills board, you think it's were cheap and you, and you slice it up and then you put it in. It is kinda like, you know, you're, you're trying to go through the process, but you're kind of like, it's kind of doesn't seem as fun or as fancy. But then once you're done at the end of the process you see what you created and it comes out those freshly baked cookies, just the feeling you get of this like nostalgia, but accomplishment, but happiness that now you can't wait to like dive in and, and taste that cookie I like. So it's like that smell that you just can't wait to anticipate, you know, when it comes out.

Speaker 003:16

I like that. I think roasting coffee would be great as well. That kind of invokes creativity and probably for Michael Croissant I'm imagining, but I'm not sure in which order. Croissants and coffee or coffee on croissant, it doesn't matter. Coffee

Speaker 303:30

Would be great for somebody who has a very creative, like very complex creative process because if you are a coffee snob, it's a, it's a lot of process. <laugh>. I've tried before You actually get your cup of coffee.

Speaker 003:42

I've tried roasting my own. It's a very messy process. The, the unroasted coffee beans, they look like lentils are kind of green in color and they stay in it for a long time. And when you roast them, they crack, they give two cracks. It's like popcorn popping. You have to wait for the second crack. But the chaff, the, the husks, they go everywhere. But some people will use a hot air popcorn popper to roast them in. And it's a whole science to it, but it, it's the best tasting coffee I've ever had, even though I burned it on my first time. Staying with a Saturday theme. If you could taste colors, how would your creative process change? Would it change? Oh, these are some kind of crazy questions. What it is the weekend. So play along

Speaker 204:25

Great. Yes. Great. Could you say that again please?

Speaker 004:28

Yes. How would your creative process change if you could taste colors,

Speaker 204:36

Taste Kohls. Did you

Speaker 004:37

Say colors like the color blue? Well,

Speaker 204:39

Color, if you could taste colors. Yes. Well that's like people who have synesthesia, right? And synesthesia synesthesia where the brain, where the brain pathways cross and so they smell colors or they taste language or all, you know, all of their, their synopsis are very different and so their experiences are different. I live in Mexico and it's very colorful and I have to say that I have noticed that the more colorful a place is, the more slightly dampened my taste is. That's my only comment on that. But because I think our visual cortexes are so stimulated by the color and the flowers and the people and you know, there's so many sensory stimulations happening and I just go out to eat and I think, well, that's nice, but of course this could just totally be my chemistry. I I I get that. But I really know, and I'm very aware of the fact that my visual side of my brain is more triggered than the taste side of my brain in this environment.

Speaker 005:53

And I've not heard of synesthesia. So you heard it here first. Thanks for that Doreen. If you could taste in colors.

Speaker 106:00

Well, here's, here's a take on that and I, I know Alessandra would share that if she was here, but she was at a color conference and she actually got to meet one of the speakers who was the first I at least he cleansed to be the first actual cyborg where he had a radio antenna implanted in his brain. And that sort of curves out forward because he's absolutely completely colorblind. And so this antenna creates a sound for every color and so signals his brain. And I don't remember how the spectrum worked, but high, I I guess high sound, high frequency, low sound, low frequency. But he knows the sound of every color on the spectrum beyond what we could normally see. And so, uh, she gotta to talk to him a bit afterwards. It was absolutely fascinating as well as a little distracting that you're talking to somebody with an antenna sticking outta her head. But it just changed your perspective of how we perceive our environment.

Speaker 206:58

I'm fascinated by this because my, my daughter just got news that she and her husband both have the a chro, chro, phasia, they each have that and that is what that kind of person is born with. There are people who under certain genes and when they're duplicated in a couple, there's one in four chance that you will be born like that person with the antenna and they see everything either in grays or they don't have the same sort of depth per perception perception. And so I am so happy to hear that there's already some sort of measure in place or some sort of ation for that. 'cause that's hard. And young couples are now dealing with these sorts of things because they're, you know, looking at the genetics. Just

Speaker 007:47

Have to watch no one's going past keying a radio or amateur radio or something like green, red, no blue, yellow, pink. Adrian, did you have a thought on that?

Speaker 307:55

Yeah, actually I was thinking about something is like, so I like have depression and so one of the things is like, I think even Jay Shetty said it on his podcast about this research done about eating certain colored foods that will help you with depression and that's eating yellow or orange colored foods. So if I had to change my creative process, I want it to something that would help my depression <laugh> instead of getting, instead of getting me into an episode of my creative process. So I'd probably say it would be that either that yellow or that orange color.

Speaker 008:27

That's interesting.

Speaker 108:29

A hundred percent what Adrian said. Yeah, I mean I think when you said, ask this question Greg, I thought jelly beans and I would just be eating and I still could eat yellow and orange jelly beans. 'cause when you say what does color taste like? All I can go to is jelly beans. So no licorice, no licorice for me, but yellow and orange and eh pink, yes, those would be my go-to color tasting to help my creativity.

Speaker 008:58

That's brilliant. I'd not heard of the, what Adrian was saying about I, I have depression, I have treatment resistant depression. So I've tried a lot of different things over the years. Different medications, um, procedures. But I've not heard of the different color foods. But it makes perfect sense, doesn't it? And you know, mental health, depression, anxiety, creativity, they are all kind of interwoven. Some of the most prolific creators, some of the most genius creators, in fact genius as well. They say there's a fine line between genius and in insanity. You've got to be out there to create. So what about if you could only create while I'm, I'm I'm, I'm getting some doozies here. If you could only create while you're floating in zero gravity, how would creativity change? Zero gravity. That's the only time you can create when you're in zero gravity. And you could have some jelly beans though. <laugh>

Speaker 209:53

Does

Speaker 109:54

Not feel to me what No, no <laugh>.

Speaker 209:58

I, I like to be stuck to the earth. I I quite like the magnetic force that's keeping me on the planet. I don't feel very good when I'm thrown into things like rollercoasters and stuff like that or have ama or have big turbulence on an airplane. Zero gravity for me is just a lack of, I need, I need sensory input. I, I need, I need my senses to be, I need to be recording something. And so, you know, even those chambers when they put you in and they, they lock you inside with there's a light and it's supposed to be so relaxing. No, get me out <laugh>. So that's a very it, you know, we're also, we all have an instrument and each of us is so unique and different that it's fascinating the responses, but mine is just hell no,

Speaker 010:46

<laugh>. What was yours, Stephen?

Speaker 110:48

I just, I can't help but think Jackson Pollock. I think I would've to go to some sort of visual creativity like, 'cause you could get the little dots to hang there and you could almost design then you then you run at them with your canvas charge fly into the, I don't know how you get going on those things. Maybe you have jet propulsion, but it seems like a great opportunity for some sort of visual art to be zero gravity.

Speaker 011:12

Adrian, any thoughts on that?

Speaker 311:13

Well, I'm a, I'm a electrical engineer, so I'm gonna take it to physics. So <laugh> or physics perspective is that gravity is just the force of the earth. That's basically just the force of what's coming up from like the earth down onto you. And then also the grab also the force is pushing up from the ground from the earth's core. So you're constantly getting pressure all the time and you just don't realize it. So if you're in weightless gravity, all that pressure would be gone. So you feel like I would have a lot, I think my anxiety would be better <laugh>. I'd have lower anxiety and I have, I wouldn't have all that weight on my shoulders. I think I'd feel like from the, from the force of gravity against the two forces that are going every, all the time when you're on earth. Right? So if you just had none of that, I feel like I'd be freer to be able to really explore more.

Speaker 012:02

That's great. I, I was thinking how would I answer this question myself and I was listening to that's a great perspective. And on that the, the pressure, the forces, I have chronic pain and when the weather changes, I think it's the, the onic pressure that does it. You know, the old housewives tail, all the weather. I can feel the weather changing in my bones. But I think there is something to that, and I think it's the onic pressure, but I was also thinking about, well if there was no, no gravity would fault creativity be freer to float? Would they be less teed, less? Would they float, freer? Would they kind of rise up? Then I was also thinking, well when Dorian was saying about being kind of teed or having the, would, would they float off into free space? Do you need that gravity to kind of keep them from running away with you?

Speaker 012:49

So that's kind of interesting. Yeah. I just thought I wanted to mix it up a little bit. We've actually done, uh, our 15 minutes. Can you believe that? 15 minutes talking about those three things. Any, any thoughts on, on any of those things or anything else? If not, we will, uh, knock it on the head as they, they do say. Okay. Well thank you for tuning in to the Creative Workout podcast. If you have a question that you'd like the crew to discuss or you'd like to hear some conversation about, send us an email to me@creativeworkout.com and check out the website, come back again tomorrow, we'll be here. Thank you