Reasons to be Cheerful, Part 1.
- UK Creative
- Apr 1
- 4 min read
Graham Fink - Multimedia artists & Creative Director
Tuesday 1st April 2025
Creativity is dead!
At least, that’s what everyone around me keeps saying.
But how ridiculous is that? Creativity can't die. Ever. Like kindness and sexual attraction, it's part of the human condition.
It’s not just the advertising industry complaining, either. The film business is “drowning in sequels and remakes”. And let’s not get started on music and design. It feels like wherever you turn, someone is lamenting the death of originality.
But is it true or is it just a generational thing?
I remember first coming into the business in the ’80s, and my seniors were reminiscing about the ’60s revolution and the great ads of the ’70s.
It feels like the older generations seek to lessen the creativity of newer ones, because they feel threatened.
With good reason. Creativity is the great destroyer.
The first movies were B&W and silent, yet the queues stretched around the block. People loved sitting in the dark, hankies in hand, weeping at the stories on screen. Then the talkies arrived and killed off the silent movie stars. Sob!
Music had hippies, flower power, fingerpicking guitars, and long hair…until the skinheads shaved it all off and put Desmond Dekker on the decks. Then when their hair grew back, the flares came out and glam took over…before Johnny Rotten and Punk and smashed that idea to bits.
Today, in most of our pockets is a smartphone, holding thousands of photos in a digital gallery. Who needs those bulky, dog-eared photo albums anymore? Or a roll of film with just 36 exposures?
Which makes me think, if your latest idea doesn’t destroy something maybe it’s not good enough.
I’m always interested in what’s next. And creativity waits for no man. It doesn’t care who gets left behind.
There’s a lot of talk about AI, and although I think we have created the very thing that will ultimately destroy us, for now I’m loving the opportunities it gives me.
So, can AI play a role in helping to solve the current doldrums? I think it can. We’re just going through a painful process of change. But I believe we are living in one of the most exciting times for creativity in history.
Why? Because technology is enabling us to realise ideas in ways we never thought possible. The tools of creation have been democratised, placed in the hands of anyone with an internet connection and a smartphone. Want to make a movie? You don’t need a studio or a big film crew anymore, you can generate an entire film with a series of prompts. Want to create an original song or sound? AI-powered music tools let you compose without ever picking up an instrument or knowing a note of music theory.
Who needs to learn the rudiments of photography anymore? Now you can see the image in your mind’s eye and can type it, there’s no f-stopping you.
The barriers to entry that once made creativity the domain of a select few have been obliterated. And yet, there is a problem. A huge problem. Because if everyone is creating, then everyone is creating.
So are we heading toward a future where a million feature films will be released every single day? The same for books, novels, autobiographies, short films, and documentaries. We’re already seeing it with photos and short content.
The sheer volume of output will be mind-boggling. But does that mean we’ll be swimming in a sea of brilliant work? No. It means we’ll be drowning in a flood of mediocrity.
Because while technology has made creation easier, it hasn’t made ideas any better. The truth is, creativity was never just about execution, it was about IDEAS. And that hasn’t changed.
If anything, the importance of ideas has increased in an age where everyone can create at the push of a button. The tools have become cheap, but originality remains priceless.
Look at social media. Everyone with a phone is a "creator." And yet, the majority of content is instantly forgettable. The most successful influencers—the ones who truly cut through—aren’t just pointing a camera at themselves, they are storytellers. They have a POV. They start with an idea and think about the best way to put it across.
No builder looks at his tools and thinks, “I’ve got a drill, a hammer and a saw. How can I use them?” He thinks, I want to create this, and these are the tools that I’ll need to do it.
The future will be defined not by those who can create, but by those who can create something worth watching or listening to.
As an agent to three robots—Sophia, Grace, and Ameca—I’m incredibly excited about the future of creativity. I recently commissioned the British AI artist Ai-Da to create some watercolour paintings for me, and the results were phenomenal. Furthermore, tools like Midjourney and Runway have unlocked entirely new ways of creating, allowing me to do things that would have been impossible just a few years ago. So rather than dismissing these advancements, I think we should be embracing them. And if we can put an idea at the centre, then we are entering an era of unparalleled potential.
Because the future of creativity isn’t about who has the best tools. It’s about who has the best thinking. And in an age where everyone is making, only those with true originality will be heard above the noise. Welcome to the golden age of ideas.
Graham Fink - Multimedia artists & Creative Director
Tuesday 1st April 2025
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