The theory of meaningful engagement with creative activities has been developed by Steve Dillon and Andrew Brown and has underscored the development of the jam2jam software and of the network jamming research more broadly.

This matrix is a framework for describing creative experiences and evaluating creative resources, plans or activities. For example, assessing a community or educational workshop, reviewing the comprehensiveness of an arts curriculum or lesson plan, evaluating the affordances of a software application for creating media content. In particular this matrix was developed for musical activities but can be applied to other creative pursuits.

We are engaged with the creative arts when we attend to creative work or participate in making it. Artistic experiences become meaningful when they resonate with us and are satisfying. The meaningful engagement matrix has been developed to help serve as a framework for thinking about our creative activities and relationships. A full creative life, we contend, involves experiences in each cell of the matrix. Therefore, this framework can be useful when considering the range of experiences afforded by any particular activity, program or resource, or across a set/series of these.

Modes of Creative Engagement

    •Attend – paying careful attention to creative works and analysing their representations

    •Evaluate – judging aesthetic value and cultural appropriateness

    •Direct – leading creative making activities

    •Explore – searching through artistic possibilities

    •Embody – being engrossed in fluent creative expression

Contexts of Creative Meaning

    •Personal – intrinsically enjoying the activity

    •Social – developing relationships with others

    •Cultural – feeling that actions are valued by the community