Personal Angle: Creativity in the age of algorithms – when are our ideas really ours?

Imagine that your ideas, which you considered original, are actually not yours. That they are parts of someone else’s thinking, filtered through algorithms that know you better than you know yourself. In the digital environment that shapes our daily choices, creativity and authenticity are becoming endangered by the traps of other people’s ideas. Are we living in a time when our creative processes are shaped by other people’s patterns, not by personal experience?

We live in an era of rapid Internet development. Every day, we are losing more and more control over the amount of time we spend on networks, and our phones are becoming an extended arm of our thoughts and obsessions that consume us. Maybe this is just my perception, woven into everyday experience, in which I notice that the time spent on the phone has never been longer.

As ying&yang is the term that perhaps best describes my general state of mind, in this situation I managed to navigate this state in which I often felt like I had no control over it, until I got to grips with it more deeply, by not reading portals, not watching TikTok, not watching Reels for years, and trying to adapt the content I consume to what I am really interested in. I spend 90% of my time on my phone discovering new projects, designers and artists, but there are many pitfalls here too.

I often spend the morning putting together a moodboard for a project, falling into a loop of interesting solutions, where the algorithm throws out image after image, option after option, which I am delighted with and which I say is exactly what I needed to see in order to finally put the pieces together in my head as to how something should look in the end. By morning, that 1000-piece puzzle is usually assembled in my head, and after a few hours of sleep, I am ready to articulate and interpret those thoughts, ideas, and visual references in a way that allows the design process of a project to continue. I don’t see anything wrong with referencing as such, I believe that every great thing was created as a reference to something we have already seen, heard, experienced, touched, or felt. Our reinterpretation of that experience through the prism of our creative mind further leads to a deeper development of that idea, and consequently to the design itself that we present as original and unique. But is it?

In today’s world, we are bombarded with visual information. Every image we see on the networks, every liked content, gradually shapes our taste and attitudes. As time goes by, algorithms become our guides, shaping our perception, and we believe that these are our choices. And then the problem arises – we begin to believe that everything that the algorithm throws out is exactly what we like.

That is the beginning of the end of our critical thinking. We fall into a trap, we become slaves to other people’s ideas, unaware that everything we think is ours is actually a product of the collective digital subconscious. Like a drug, this starts to develop spontaneously, step by step, until it completely takes control of us. It’s nice to have the impression that you easily come up with some ideas and solutions, when in fact the truth is that they come to you, and that they are not yours, and that the collage of ideas you have created is nothing more than a collage of someone else’s thinking, and then the question arises whether that other person’s thinking that led to a solution was authentic or did the process look like yours?

Sometimes we feel like we have everything under control, but we soon realize that we are in a vicious circle. And then comes the moment of choice: what do we want to become? In the end, only we have the power to decide which path we want to follow.

I realized that algorithms shape my daily work, my inspiration, my vision. I became unconsciously addicted to everything that was served to me, until I decided to withdraw and devote myself to introspection. I began a process of thinking about what I wanted to achieve and how I wanted to develop – personally and as a leader of design studio. I had two paths before me: to continue to absorb inspiration from the networks, using it as a tool for creative work (apart from traveling, which has always been my primary source of inspiration) or to reconsider whether I was really using my full potential, or wasting it.

The answer was clear, and so was the path that followed. Going to large fairs was replaced by “niche” fairs around Europe and the world. Going to popular places was replaced by visits to small galleries and craftsmen across Europe. Browsing interior design sites was replaced by reading articles by British and American design critics. Instead of modern interiors, I immersed myself in the past century, exploring old eras, movements and designers.

Watching uninspiring series on Netflix was replaced by documentaries about designers and their interviews on YouTube, and all of that together resulted in me thinking to myself that I was much further from what I wanted my team and I to be. That there were entire parts in my head and thinking that were yet to be unlocked, like some next level in a game that could never be reached. I always thought that living in Serbia limited me a lot, but I realized that it wasn’t about the country I live in, but about myself and the choices I make. All of this is a very long process, and the path from this awareness to the complete integration of this thinking is certainly long, but I can already see how much this thinking affects our new projects. I choose authenticity, I choose experimentation, I choose not to follow trends, I choose innovation, I choose to mix the unmixable, I choose to awaken emotions in others. And that all of this is always reflected in our projects, and especially through something new that we are preparing.

Written by: Aleksa Babić