Tom Evans – 29th September 2011
Joining the School of Communication Arts last week, we were encouraged that getting out of the studio and beyond advertising to seek inspiration elsewhere and wherever it might be found, is absolutely what we should be doing as creative people.
Last night I went to see the renowned Spanish chef Ferran Adria talk at Viniopolis about his new book, about closing his restaurant, his plans for the future and, most importantly, about creativity itself.
Since starting we’ve spent a great deal of time exploring the very nature of what creativity is and what it can achieve when harnessed to specific ends and uncannily enough this was exactly Ferran’s topic. I drew many parallels between the creative world I’d dipped into for inspiration and the main course I’ve been eating at SCA for the previous 7 days study.
Immediately similarities are apparent between the lives of young creative people starting out in both arenas. Both must pass a rites of passage before attaining their first job role; they’re expected to work long hours for little more than experience and no guarantee that there will ever be any success; and progress itself is determined on merit in both cases.
I read about Ferran’s apprentices at El Bulli over the summer and many of them made huge sacrifices (like SCA students) just to be there, in the hope of eventually securing jobs in some of the world’s finest kitchens. The book being launched now, ‘The Family Meal’ is about the food he fed the staff as he believes a collective meal is important for team bonding, a practice that some agencies also implement.
The first thing Ferran said last night is that he has always told eager young apprentices to be humble at the beginning in order to learn.
Last week Abi Ellis, the creative director of LBI, described SCA as an experience that turns the student into a ‘machine’ and Ferran uses the same analogy when his stageries at El Bulli begun to work in unison during service.
I don’t think this comparison is necessarily far fetched as lot of the last intake went on to start placements in the calibre of agencies comparable to working amongst the brightest in their field and we like the stageries are following a ‘learning by doing’ experience.
Both creative disciplines have other points of comparison in that as professions they draw people from a diversity of different backgrounds and walks of life, and what’s more, no one cares about anything other than evidence of what you can do. Most importantly, when creativity as a subject is distilled it becomes discipline neutral and, surprisingly, Ferran touched on a lot of similar territory to that being discussed at SCA right now with creativity being the vital ingredient.
Ferran picked up a pear and used it as a starting point to engage the audience. Our dean did exactly likewise on our first day, and we explored how branding this pear differently effects our perception of the same item. Adria explored how our perception of the pear would be affected in eating it, by the manner in which it was cooked. It could have been the same pear. Both problems require lateral thinking to explore the range of options, which Ferran went on to talk about. He asked who conceived of the first omelette in the history of mankind, saying that the discovery would have been entirely original having no precursor. Indeed it added value, Marc Lewis our Dean’s definition of creativity at our school: An original idea that adds value.
Unexpectedly Ferran asked the audience who invented the miniskirt? Mary Quant was predictably offered up and he refuted this: the mini skirt was actually around in Greek and Roman times he reminded us, Quant only conceptualised the mini skirt and therein lays the creativity.
Ferran has closed his restaurant to contribute new ideas to the world of cuisine by continuing to innovate as always, but to serve not diners but the wider world with an ideas foundation. SCA intends to be to some extent also a kind of ideas foundation itself. It wants to set the standard for a new model of education in creativity. Ferran made the point that El Bulli has always been about sharing information and now with new technology they intend to publish all they discover in a transparent and rapidly accessible fashion online. Coincidentally enough, The School Of Communication Arts also this model publishing its Wiki curriculum on the net for any advertising student or lecturer potentially worldwide to view. A curriculum that has been devised in part by mentors consisting of the finest minds in marketing communications.
To conclude by stepping outside of the field I am now immersed in, it allowed me to put advertising into a wider context, and to draw unexpected yet poignant comparisons to molecular gastronomy.
Last night Ferran closed with one a core thought, “To cook well, you must first think well.”
Objectively we are learning how to think well at SCA
