MacArthur Foundation Awards Prizes is a program that was founded by Catherine T. and John D. The title of the award is a MacArthur’s Fellowship Program which is also and more known as Genius Grant (John et al, 2008).
Such a title was given because the nominees for these awards are considered genius. These awards require a short-listing of nearly forty candidates who are awarded prizes from the United States of America. However, a potential candidate must possess certain qualities of artistic production in order to feature in the list of nominees for the awards.
Moreover, the piece of art one represents should be original and attract attention. The winners of the awards are those whose age ranges from eighteen years to eighty two years (John et al, 2008). Analytically, an individual nominee needs to possess great developmental capabilities, original creativity of ideas, educational values, objective behavior, and skills for promotion of social relationships apart from being a genius in order to qualify for the awards.
The nominees for awards are not allowed to apply for the awards themselves. This means that the nomination body gives recommendations to a committee of a few people who are in charge of making decisions regarding the list of nominees. After the committee makes a decision, they pass the list to the Board of Directors as well as the President of the Awards. The nominees carefully look at the decision of the committee after receiving a phone call from the foundation.
On the other hand, the criterion used to select the nominees is based on the creativity and originality of their pieces of work. One does not only have to consider the creativity of the piece of work but its originality as well. In other words, creativity is not only about the masterpiece as such, but the information the piece of work delivers to the audience.
A potential nominee needs to exhibit characteristics of great social relationship and objective behavior in the piece of artwork presented in order to stand a chance of winning the award because the information displayed is important to the audience who touch or listen to the work. Therefore, the work should be socially acceptable to the society for its creator to be called a genius (Brockes, 2007). This means that it must present social values.
For example, the movie “Think like a man, act like a woman” may not be considered the best movie but the impact it has on both men and women is tremendous. This makes a person who shoots the film a genius because he or she was able to affect the reasoning of a number of people. In summary, social and behavioral impact in any domain of work can be criteria for obtaining the status of the genius.
The educational value of a person can determine his or her level of creativity. The reason why a person is regarded as a genius due to his/her educational level is because education helps to sharpen individual’s wits (Harris, 2007). For example, the filmmakers win awards but information technology experts would be in a better position to create fiction.
Therefore, an individual is considered a genius in case a person who lacks information and skills in the sphere of computers manages to create new ideas, in other words, the individual that lacked some necessary background information, nonetheless, invented, created or made something new.
On the other hand, a potential candidate for the award can receive awards for the educational value in the domain of work generated; it may me mathematics since it passes knowledge. In summary, a domain of activity can be regarded as criterion for a genius creation depending on the educational level or value of the creator of the piece of artwork.
A potential nominee needs to exhibit developmental capabilities in the artwork in order to be considered a genius in the award because there are works that lack tangibility but have great effects on the emotions of the audience.
For example, a doctor who administers medication from a deadly disease that is known to have no cure can be considered a genius if a patient is healed after the drug administration. It happens so because the doctor invented a cure to the disease which had caused numerous deaths. This means that one should be considered a genius when their piece of work leads to a discovery.
In conclusion, the program the MacArthur Foundation Awards Prizes is used to encourage people to be creative. It is also a good way of appreciating the efforts different individuals have put into their artistic works. A winner of the award is called a genius due to the creativity of the work done.
This means that an individual nominee needs to possess great capabilities, original creativity of ideas, educational values, objective behavior, as well as skills for promotion of social relationships apart from being a genius in order to qualify for the awards.
References
Brockes, E. (2007). It’s art. But is it porn? The Guardian online, 3 (7), 21-25.
Harris, D. (2007). The Complete Guide to Writing Effective & Award-Winning Grants: Step-By-Step Instructions. New York: Atlantic Publishing Company.
John, D., & Catherine, T. (2008). 30 Years of the John D. and Catherine T. New York: MacArthur Foundation.