‘I realized that I’d been using this rhythm of reckless creation and careful revision throughout my writing life — I just hadn’t put a name to it.’- Rachel Barr

‘DMN first, ECN second.’

https://bigthinkmedia.substack.com/p/why-your-best-ideas-come-after-your

https://bigthink.com/the-learning-curve/the-onion-founder-strategies-sparking-creativity

I came across this Substack article by Big Think, that reminded me of my blog post called ‘Unstructured Brain’ where I talk about how I’ve realised that I tend to throw things up in the air first before allowing them to take any coherent form.

Un-structured Brain: Research Paper

The main point being made, that I felt vulnerable and annoyed if anyone judged the ‘throw it up in the air’ phase before it had reached its organisation phase.

The article ‘Why Your Best Ideas Come After Your Worst’ by Rachel Barr talks about this phenomena from a neuroscience perspective and sparked by Scott Dikkers (Founder of The Onion) creative theory of The Clown and The Editor.

The Clown and The Editor are essentially these two parts of the brain that I was referring to. The one that jumbles everything up, has fun, throws things in the air, paints with no thought, draws something weird. The editor is the one that makes it legible, understandable and somewhat ‘professional’ looking, even if this is professional in an artistic sense.

Barr, a neuroscientist and writer, then goes on to dig further into this theory, noting that there are two parts of the brain that facilitate these two different ways of being. The DMN- Default Mode Network (also known as The Clown) and EMN- Executive Control Network (also known as the Editor).

What really intrigues me about this concept is not just the fact that I feel like this has been an issue for me in my life, people not understanding my deep need to be in the DMN mode for lengthy periods of time before making any sense of it. But also because it reflects ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ philosophy I was looking into last year. Again, I want to reiterate that these energies are within both of us, and are probably best referred to as ‘Yin’ and ‘Yang’ to avoid either being gendered.

But yet again, polarity and dualities appear along side one another in art and science.

Yesterday I attended the Monday Guest lecture by David Burrows , John Cussans , Dean Kenning and Mary Yacoob (there was definitely enough information for a completely separate blog post) Yacoob spoke about the work of Hilma Klint and her use of these dualities in her works. Light and dark, feminine and masculine, sun and moon.

When I hear of these concepts, both creatively and scientifically, my mind immediately knows they are connected. All of these dualities mirroring one another.