Ernest A. Edmonds

Collaborative creativity

Human creativity represents an enigma to the research community: It is all but impossible to describe the process in unequivocal terms, yet there is a strong desire to promote and encourage this uniquely human activity. Within the realm of human-computer interaction, the challenge is to understand in what ways technology can enhance the creative process. In the past, research on creativity focused on the individual and the individuals internal cognitive processes. As a result, there exists a legacy of guidelines and frameworks for building computer-based tools that encourage and promote individual creativity. However, recent research has begun to paint a more complicated picture of creativity that highlights the importance of social interactions , mentoring, and collaboration in creative work [1, 4, 6, 8]. The importance of analyzing creativity in this more holistic sense is readily apparent when one considers that most creative pursuits in industry involve interdisciplinary teams working together to develop a product that cannot be created by a single individual alone. The question for HCI research becomes then: What tools, methodologies, and practices can support creativity of individuals in interdisciplinary teams? There are a number of important differences in driving forces behind individual and collaborative creativity. By understanding factors that influence collaborative creativity we can devise ways to promote and enhance it and build a foundation for development of computer-based tools that augment the creative process. This article presents a view on interdisci-plinary creative collaboration inspired by two separate sources. One is a practitioners experience of creative collaboration in a music and sound design company. Another is based on a long-standing research program observing the collaboration of artists and technologists during the COSTART artist-in-residency studies at Loughborough University, U.K. [4]. The two creative environments discussed here serve as catalysts for bringing together collaborators with various backgrounds, skill sets, and experience levels. Despite the differences in goals between the two environments , both seek to develop teams that can uniquely solve a problem through their collective efforts, and both environments have done so with relative success. It is therefore instructive to analyze the commonalities between these two environments—one a commercial enterprise, the other a research institu-tion—to better understand how to encourage collabo-rative creativity in other situations. In both environments, we have observed collaborators engage in a process consisting roughly of three main activities: creative conceptualization, realization (or implementation), and evaluation. Within these three activities, partners in collaboration tend to …

Creativity Support Tools: Report From a U.S. National Science Foundation Sponsored Workshop

Creativity support tools is a research topic with high risk but potentially very high payoff. The goal is to develop improved software and user interfaces that empower users to be not only more productive but also more innovative. Potential users include software and other engineers, diverse scientists, product and graphic designers, architects, educators, students, and many others. Enhanced interfaces could enable more effective searching of intellectual resources, improved collaboration among teams, and more rapid discovery processes. These advanced interfaces should also provide potent support in hypothesis formation, speedier evaluation of alternatives, improved understanding through visualization, and better dissemination of results. For creative endeavors that require composition of novel artifacts (e.g., computer programs, scientific papers, engineering diagrams, symphonies, artwork), enhanced interfaces could facilitate exploration of alternatives, prevent unproductive choices, and enable easy backtracking. This U.S. National Science Foundation sponsored workshop brought together 25 research leaders and graduate students to share experiences, identify opportunities, and formulate research challenges. Two key outcomes emerged: (a) encouragement to evaluate creativity support tools through multidimensional in-depth longitudinal case studies and (b) formulation of 12 principles for design of creativity support tools.

A study in play, pleasure and interaction design

This paper focuses on the design of pleasurably playful interfaces within an interactive art context. It describes the development of a framework of thirteen pleasures of play and outlines the application of this framework during the design process of three interactive artworks. These processes included both initial conceptual development stages and later user evaluation studies. The paper compares the artists view of the pleasures that might be experienced in each work with the actual pleasures experienced by users during evaluation sessions. The results suggest that the pleasure framework is a useful tool to aid in the design of playful interfaces.

The Creative Process Where the Artist is Amplified or Superseded by the Computer

The advent of computing stimulates a desire to re-examine the subject of creativity. Though the computer can replace man in the production of graphic images, its function in the arts is seen as assisting in the specification of art systems and in their subsequent real-time management. An art of system or process is placed in the context of primarily the visual or plastic arts but the authors disavow concern with any ‘new’ or ‘modern technological’ art. Various types of art systems are mentioned and advantages of the fully interactive one are considered. It is pointed out that the inclusion of complex real-time responses in an interactive art system can frequently make use of a computer. In such work, the artist and the viewer play an integral part. The traditional role of the artist, composer or writer is thus called into question; it may no longer be necessary to assume that he is a specialist in art—rather he is a catalyst of creative activity. Three cases are discussed to illustrate the applications of this approach. L’avènemenl de l’informatique exige que Fon reconsidère le probième de la créativité. Bien que l’ordinateur puisse remplacer l’homme dans la production d’images graphiques, on peut penser que sa fonction dans les arts est d’aidcr à specifier les systèmes artistiques, et à les répartir ullérieurement dans le temps réel. Un art du Systéme et du processus se situe d’abord dans le contexte des arts visuels ou plastiques; cependant la préoccupation des auteurs n’est d’aucune manière un art ‘nouveau’ ou ‘technologique’. Ils citent plusieurs sortes de systèmes artistiques et décrivent les avantages de celui qui est entièrement ‘interactif’. Ils font remarquer que l’inclusion de réponses complexes du temps réel dans un système artistique interactif peut souvent appeler l’utilisation d’un ordinateur. Dans une telle œuvre, l’artiste et le spectateur jouent un rôle à part entière. Le rôle traditionnel de l’artiste, du compositeur ou de l’écrivain est ainsi remis en question; il n’est plus nécessaire d’affirmer que l’artiste est un spécialiste—il est plutôt le catalyseur d’une activité créatrice. Trois exemples illustrent les applications de cette approche.

Creative design of the Lotus bicycle: implications for knowledge support systems research

Abstract This paper is concerned with identifying the research directions for future computer systems for creative design. In order to define the requirements for support to the designer, or design team, we need to understand more about the way new ideas arise and come to fruition in an innovative product. We report a case study of the design of the LotusSport bicycle by its originator, Mike Burrows. In the light of this study and its relationship to other research into the characteristics of creative designers, we consider the implications for the design of computer support systems, in particular the knowledge intensive aspects of design. Support for interactive knowledge-based design requires fluent interaction between designer and knowledge in a way that does not impede the creative process. We term such a computer support environment a knowledge support system. Future research directions concerning interaction with design knowledge are proposed.

On creative engagement

This article is concerned with the design of interactive art systems intended for display in public locations. It reviews approaches to interactive art systems and discusses the issue of creative engagement with them by the active audience. An approach to elaborating a model of creative engagement is described and exploratory work on its refinement is reported.

The studio as laboratory: combining creative practice and digital technology research

Creativity research is a large and varied field in which the subject is characterized on many different levels. The arrival of digital media and computational tools has opened up new possibilities for creative practice. The cutting edge in the digital arts is a highly fertile ground for the investigation of creativity and the role of new technologies. The demands of such work often reveal the limitations of existing technologies and open the door to developing new approaches and techniques. This provides the creativity researcher with opportunities to understand the multi-dimensional characteristics of the creative process. At the same time, it places new demands upon the creators of the technological solutions and pushes forward our understanding of the future requirements of creative technologies. This paper is concerned with the nature of creativity and the design of creativity enhancing computer systems. The research has multi-disciplinary foundations in human-computer interaction and creative practice in Art, Design, Science and Engineering. As a result of a series of studies of creative people and the associated developments in technology, a strategy for practice-based research has evolved in which research and practice are interdependent activities that have mutual benefits as well its distinctive outcomes. This paper charts the development of that co-evolutionary process from the foundation studies to recent outcomes of a major project in art and technology collaboration. The notion of the Studio as a laboratory in the field is introduced and a new methodology for systematic practice-based research is presented. From the results of the investigations that took place, opportunities for the development of technology environments for creative collaboration are proposed.

What is generative art

There are various forms of whats sometimes called generative art, or computer art. This paper distinguishes the major categories and asks whether the appropriate aesthetic criteria—and the locus of creativity—are the same in each case.

Using memory for events in the design of personal filing systems

Abstract There is considerable interest in the question of how users can be supported in the management of large information systems. Existing systems are perceived as being difficult to use, and future systems will handle very much more information than at present, exacerbating the problem. This paper describes a prototype interface, MEMOIRS (Managing Episodic Memory for Office Information Retrieval Systems), which is designed to support the management of personal information in a new way. This approach treats a personal filing system as a history of events (of which documents are a particular type), and focuses upon users recall for those events. MEMOIRS therefore exemplifies a mnemonic support system which aims to optimize performance in two ways: It aims to improve users recall for the information they have handled; and it is also designed to exploit as much of what is recalled as possible. The rationale behind this approach is discussed and a broad specification of the system presented, with examples of MEMOIRS in use. The approach is compared and contrasted with other filing systems based upon models of human memory which are associative, rather than event-driven, in character.

Creativity, art practice, and knowledge

Achieving a balance of control and freedom by supporting a mix of strategies.