The Landscape of Creative Life Theory (v2, 2023)

Mapping Creative Life Theory with Knowledge Discovery Canvas

In the previous posts, I used the Creative Life Curation framework and others to reflect on my journey of developing Creative Life Theory from 2020 to 2023.

• Part 1: First-wave Development
• Part 2: Second-wave Development
• Part 3: Third-wave Development
• Part 4: Three Themes of a Journey of Theory Building
• Part 5: Creative Dialogue and Mental Moves
• Part 6: Four Perspectives and Creative Identities
• Part 7: The World of Works and Five Possible Books

This article aims to use the Knowledge Discovery Canvas to map the landscape of Creative Life Theor (v2).

1. Landscape

On August 15, 2023, I did the same thing, you can find more details in The Ecological Practice Design Toolkit (V2, 2023).

The diagram is based on the Knowledge Discovery Canvas.

Approaches

• Subjectivist Structuralism (Pink-keung Lui, 2007)
• Curativity Theory (Oliver Ding, 2019)
• The Project Engagement Approach (Oliver Ding, 2021)
• The Anticipatory Activity System Approach (Oliver Ding, 2022)

Concepts

• World of Activity
• World of Works
• Knowledge Center
• Creative Field
• Subjectification
• Objectification
• Meaning Matrix

Perspectives

• The Path of Creative Life
• The “Thematic Space” Perspective
• The “Mental Moves” Perspective
• The “Social Moves” Perspective
• The “Value Circle” Perspective
• The “Theme(Concept)” Perspective

Frameworks

• The “Creative Course” Framework
• The “Knowledge Engagement” Framework
• The “Universal Reference” Framework
• The “Strategic Thematic Exploration” Framework
• The “Ecological Creative Cognition” Framework
• The “Creative Life Curation” Framework
• The “Knowledge Curation” Framework

Methods

• The “Slow Cognition” Method
• The “Creative Dialogue” Method
• The “Situational Note-taking” Method
• The “Diagram Blending” Method
• The “Semiotic System Diagram” Method
• The “Thematic Curation” Method
• The “Theoretical Integration” Method

Heuristics

• The ECHO Way
• The sets of Meta-diagrams
• Knowledge Discovery Canvas

Domains

• Knowledge Engagement

Projects

• Appropriating Activity Theory
• Engaging with Lui’s Theoretical Sociology
• Developing Ecological Practice Approach
• The Knowledge Curation Project

My primary interest is located in the intersection between Knowledge, Creativity, and Adult Development. I use Creative Life to name this focus.

It’s clear that I don’t want to develop a general framework about adult development for everyone. I only consider Knowledge Workers and Creators as my target audience.

The Creative Life Theory is a large knowledge enterprise that includes multiple units of analysis, a series of frameworks, and a set of tools. I also wrote several books about it.

The above landscape of Creative Life Theory (v2) curates ideas about the Creative Life project and ideas about the Knowledge Engagement project together.

2. Primary Concepts

A theoretical approach is formed by a set of concepts under a unified worldview.

I selected Ping-keung Lui’ Subjectivist Structuralism as a meta-theory for Creative Life Theory. In order to study Knowledge Engagement, I made the Creative Course framework and used it as a meta-framework.

The Creative Course framework and the Creative Life Curation framework defined a set of primary concepts. See the diagram below.

C1 to C4 come from the Creative Course Framework.

C5 and C6 come from the Creative Life Framework.

C7 (Meaning Matrix) was inspired by the “World of Activity” concept. You can find more details about in Part 3.

3. Approaches

I adopted the following four theoretical approaches as primary theoretical resources for Creative Life Theory.

• Subjectivist Structuralism (Ping-keung Lui’, 2007)
• Curativity Theory (Oliver Ding, 2019)
• The Project Engagement approach (Oliver Ding, 2021)
• The Anticipatory Activity System (Oliver Ding, 2022)

On Oct 26, 2022, I used Ping-keung Lui’s idea of the “Ontology — Realism — Hermeneutics” schema to curate three approaches for the Creative Life Strategy project.

The outcome was a semiotic system diagram that defined the Creative Life Theory (v1.0). See the diagram below. You can find more details in Slow Cognition: Three Paths of Creative Life and A Semiotic System.

In April 2023, I made the Creative Course framework and its expanded version. These ideas defined the Creative Life Theory (v2.0).

You can find more details in Knowledge Engagement: The Expanded Creative Course Framework.

4. Perspectives

Some ideas are not big enough to be considered Approaches, and not as specific as Frameworks. I place these ideas in the Perspective block.

We can use these Perspectives directly, or use them as resources to develop Frameworks. For example, I directly used “The Path of Creative Life” perspective to guide my journey of developing the Creative Life Theory. I also used the “Mental Moves” perspective to design a project in order to develop the “Ecological Creative Cognition” framework.

The “Thematic Space” perspective refers to the concept of “Thematic Space”.

The “Social Moves” perspective refers to the “Social Moves” project.

The “Value Circle” perspective refers to a project about “the dynamics of networked knowledge centers”.

The “Theme(Concept)” perspective refers to a new idea about themes and concepts.

5. Frameworks

A knowledge framework is a bridge that connects theory and practice. An ideal knowledge framework should contain two types of concepts:

• Theoretical Concepts
• Operational Concepts

Theoretical Concepts are adopted from Meta-theory or Specific Theory. Some frameworks don’t associate with any theories, they only have operational concepts.

For the Creative Life Theory, I selected the following seven frameworks as primary members.

• The Creative Course Framework (link: 1, 2)
• The Knowledge Engagement Framework (link: 1)
• The Universal Reference Framework (link: 1, 2)
• The Strategic Thematic Exploration Framework (link: 1, 2)
• The Ecological Creative Cognition Framework (link: 1)
• The Creative Life Curation Framework (link: 1, 2)
• The Knowledge Curation Framework (link: 1)

In Part 7, I recommended five books (drafts) for Creative Life Theory. Some frameworks come from these books.

The Strategic Thematic Exploration Framework comes from Thematic Exploration: The Early Discovery of Knowledge Engagement.

The Ecological Creative Cognition Framework comes from Mental Moves: The Attachance Approach to Ecological Creative Cognition.

The Creative Life Curation Framework comes from Creative Life Curation: Turning Experiences into Meaningful Achievements.

The Knowledge Curation Framework comes from Knowledge Curation: Turning Pieces into A Meaningful Whole.

6. Methods

In Part 6, I discussed four perspectives and four creative identities:

• Ordinary Perspective> Taking creative actions and working on creative projects
• Professional Perspective > Achieving professional achievements
• Empirical Scientific Perspective > Researching a theme of Creative Life Theory, such as “Knowledge Center”
• Theoretical Scientific Perspective > Curating the semiotic system diagram of Creative Life Theory

It’s clear that different creative identities require different methods. I only list some methods I used in the journey of developing Creative Life Theory and my knowledge projects.

• The “Slow Cognition” Method (link: 1, 2, 3)
• The “Creative Dialogue” Method (link: 1)
• The “Situational Note-taking” Method (link: 1, 2)
• The “Diagram Blending” Method (link: 1, 2)
• The “Semiotic System Diagram” Method (link: 1, 2)
• The “Thematic Curation” Method (link: 1, 2, 3)
• The “Theoretical Integration” Method (link: 1)

7. Heuristics

From 2020 to 2023, I developed a set of heuristic tools for my knowledge projects. I only selected three for the Creative Life Theory.

In Part 5, I use the ECHO Way (v3.0) to discuss Creative Dialogue and Mental Moves within the journey.

I also made several sets of Meta-diagrams. The picture below highlights some meta-diagrams. I often used these meta-diagrams to develop knowledge frameworks.

In 2023, I developed a new meta-diagram called “Dot and Circle”. The “dot and circle” diagram was detached from the “Product Speech” model which is part of the Product Langue project. See the original diagram of the “Product Speech” model.

In June 2023, I used it to make a model about note-taking.

I also used the Knowledge Discovery Canvas for many knowledge projects. For example, I used it to guide the “Product Engagement” project in March 2023.

In August 2023, I used the Knowledge Discovery Canvas to map the landscape of the Ecological Practice Design toolkit.

You can find more details in Knowledge Discovery (Book).

8. Domains

As mentioned above, my primary interest is located in the intersection between Knowledge, Creativity, and Adult Development. I use Creative Life to name this focus.

It’s clear that I don’t want to develop a general framework about adult development for everyone. I only consider Knowledge Workers and Creators as my target audience.

So, the primary domain of Creative Life Theory is “Knowledge Engagement”.

I also consider the “Building A Knowledge Enterprise” activity as a significant activity of “Knowledge Engagement”.

The Creative Life Theory was developed to offer a theoretical explanation for understanding the “Building A Knowledge Enterprise” activity.

9. Projects

From 2020 to 2023, I worked on the following four projects which can be considered as real examples of the “Building A Knowledge Enterprise” activity.

• Appropriating Activity Theory

Activity Theory is a large Knowledge Enterprise. My journey of “Appropriating Activity Theory” is an example of “Visiting Others’ Knowledge Centers” and “Visiting Others’ World of Works”.

• Engaging with Lui’s Theoretical Sociology

On May 15, 2023, I finished a “Creative Life Curation” project which is about my journey of engaging with Ping-keung Lui’s theoretical sociology from April 2022 to April 2023.

The final outcome of the “Creative Life Curation” project is a 65-page thesis with several cast studies about adopting ideas from Lui’s theoretical sociology and using them to develop the Creative Life Theory and other frameworks.

Lui is the founder of the Trojan Society for Theoretical Sociology and I am the founder of Curativity Center. The journey can be seen as a Supportive Collaboration between two knowledge centers.

• Developing Ecological Practice Approach

From Sept 2018 to March 2019, I wrote a book titled Curativity: The Ecological Approach to Curatorial Practice in order to reflect on one of my life themes: Curation. The Ecological Practice Approach was born from the process of writing Curativity.

After March 2019, I continuously worked on revising Curativity and developing the Ecological Practice Approach as a new project.

During the process of developing the Ecological Practice Approach, I wrote three books (drafts).

• Curativity: The Ecological Approach to Curatorial Practice
• After Affordance: The Ecological Approach to Human Action
• Platform for Development: The Ecology of Adult Development in the 21st Century

Each year I write a book and each book establishes an important theoretical concept for the Ecological Practice approach. Curativity introduces the concept of Curativity and develops the toolkit version of the approach. After Affordance introduces the concept of Attachance and develops the germ-cell version of the approach. Platform for Development introduces the concept of Supportance.

This is my own experience of “Building My World of Works”. You can find more details in The Development of Ecological Practice Approach (2021), Ecological Practice Design (Book, 2022), and The Ecological Practice Design Toolkit (V2, 2023).

• The Knowledge Curation Project

In 2020, I decided to apply Curativity Theory to Knowledge Building and I started working on the Knowledge Curation project which led to several books later.

The mission behind the Knowledge Curation project is Connecting Theory and Practice.

The outcome is pretty amazing. I produced various types of knowledge products such as concepts, diagrams, canvases, methods, toolkits, etc.

The project led to a large knowledge enterprise and a network of knowledge centers. See the diagram below. You can find more details in Slow Cognition: Mapping Thematic Landscape (Curativity, 2019–2022).

This is my own experience of “Building My Knowledge Centers”.