Constructive constraints: On the role of chance and complexity in artistic creativity

Creativity is sometimes understood as the individual, mental creation of novelty which is then imposed as form onto a material substrate. On this view, constraints would feature only as obstacles in the creative process. In contrast, we support the view that creativity emerges from the interactions between human agents and the material, cultural, and social constraints that comprise a particular situation. In this account, constraints play a key enabling role, scaffolding the space of possibilities in which improvisation and chance give rise to novelty. In this paper, we review experimental work on interpersonal synergies between jazz pianists, which provides a scientific framework from which to approach the complex relationship between chance, constraints, and creativity. We also explore two case studies from the science of complexity and the creative arts in order to substantiate this notion of creative constraints: Anthony Braxton’s musical innovation at the intersection between composition and improvisation, and Marcel Duchamp’s radical interventions in the fields of sculpture and conceptual art.