CoCreativity in Interactive Digital Art

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Co-Creativity in Interactive Digital Art

• Linda Candy

Creativity and Cognition Research
Studios Loughborough University, UK
Consciousness Reframed 2002
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Overview

• Research Approach
• Co-Creativity
• Interactive Art
• Challenges
• Conclusions

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Themes

• Interactive Digital Art
• Co-Creativity
• Multi-disciplinary teamwork
• Collaboration
• Partnerships

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COSTART Project

• COMPUTER SYSTEMS FOR CREATIVE WORK
• AN INVESTIGATION OF ART AND TECHNOLOGY
  COLLABORATION
• A Research Project Supported by the EPSRC
• Engineering and Physical Sciences Research
  Council UK

Creativity and Cognition Research
Studios Loughborough University, UK
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Research Approach

• Practice
• Nature of art practice role of digital
  technology in creativity
• Technology
• Requirements for future technologies
• Collaboration
• Co-creativity between artists and technologists,
  artists as technologists, technologists as
  artists..

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Research Approach

• Practice-based
• Participant led
• Residency studies
• Process-oriented
• Multiple outcomes

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Residency Studies

• 20 artists technologistsobservers
• 1 year fellowship at CCRS
• Pre-residency preparation
• Feasibility of proposals
• 5 day residency per artist
• July 1999
• June/July 2002
• Exhibition at Creativity and Cognition Conference
• Data Collection and Analysis
• Reported in Modeling Co-Creativity in Art and
  Technology, Fourth International Conference on
  Creativity and Cognition, October 2002, ACM press

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25 contributors including

• Harold Cohen
• Manfred Mohr
• Marlena Novak
• Jack Ox
• Stelarc
• Roman Verostko

• Joan Ashworth
• Fre Ilgen
• Beverley Hood
• Michael Quantrill
• Juliet Robson
• Esther Rolinson

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Dimensions of Co-Creativity

• ArtistTechnology
• ArtistAudience
• ArtistTechnologist

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Dimensions of Co-Creativity

• ArtistTechnology
• ArtistAudience
• ArtistTechnologist

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Interactive Art
ArtistTechnology

• Artist creates using computer
• To produce the artwork
• Artist interacts directly with software
  application or programming language
• Artist works alonemostly

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ArtistTechnology
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ArtistTechnology
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Dimensions of Co-Creativity

• ArtistTechnology
• ArtistAudience
• ArtistTechnologist

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Interactive Art
ArtistAudience

• Audience participation with artwork
• The art system
• Artist specifies the rules used to govern the
  relationship between audience and artwork as it
  takes place in the world.

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Interaction Types
ArtistAudience

• Dynamic-Passive
• Dynamic-Interactive
• Dynamic-Interactive (Varying)

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Interaction Types
ArtistAudience

• Dynamic-Passive
• Dynamic-Interactive
• Dynamic-Interactive (Varying)

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Example of Interaction Type Dynamic-Passive
ArtistAudience

• 21st Century Color Organ Jack Ox
• The art work is the result of a translation
  between musical compositions and 3D visual
  images. The work changes according to the
  viewpoint of the audience moving through a space
  via the Web or a Vision Dome/CAVE.
• The art system operates using pre-determined
  images that are displayed in real-time according
  to the position of the audience.

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Spiral Visualization of Im Januar am Nil over
Beating objects in the desert organ stop Jack
Ox, Clarence Barlow, Dave Britton 2001
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Interaction Types
ArtistAudience

• Dynamic-Passive
• Dynamic-Interactive
• Dynamic-Interactive (Varying)

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Example of Interaction Type Dynamic-Interactive
ArtistAudience

• Sensor Grid Art Work Michael Quantrill
• The art work is made by taking the position of
  people moving in a physical space into the
  computer and generating continuous imagery.
• The art system responds to the audience in
  real-time and each work is created dynamically
  from a set of visual and sound objects as a
  result of the interaction.

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Interaction with Sensor Grid
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Art Work from Sensor Grid
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Interaction Types
ArtistAudience

• Dynamic-Passive
• Dynamic-Interactive
• Dynamic-Interactive (Varying)

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Example of Interaction Type Dynamic Interactive
(Varying)
ArtistAudience

• Heron 2002 Ernest Edmonds
• The art work consists of real-time image
  sequences based on recorded history of movement.
  The performance of the piece is changed according
  to the history of the interactions with the
  recorded input. The art system can be configured
  so as to generate images in response to different
  external stimuli such as sound, position,
  movement

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A Generative Interactive System with Meta Rules
Edmonds
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Dimensions of Co-Creativity

• ArtistTechnology
• ArtistAudience
• ArtistTechnologist

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Interactive Art
ArtistTechnologist

• Artists collaborate with technologists
• Multi-disciplinary teams create installations for
  artist and audience participation
• Partnerships between artists and technologists
  are formed and sustained

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Example of an Artist-Technologist Partnership
ArtistTechnologist
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Living without a Water Feature Saxon and Fell
ArtistTechnologist

• The art work is a display of live camera input
  combined with recordings of earlier input so that
  people see themselves and others moving around
  the space. This has the effect of randomly
  displaying the person in the space so that there
  is a uncertainty about where one is and what is
  presented.
• The art system takes a live video input from a
  camera which is fed into MAX/MSP software which
  records this input.The software then cross fades
  at varying speeds between the recorded and live
  input. The system spec does not remember the
  history the next time it runs.
• cf. Edmonds art system

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Video of work
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Co-Creativity as Partnership
ArtistTechnologist

• Partners generate, implement and evaluate
  together
• Equal but different roles
• Computer acts as aid to co-creativity
• New digital objects/forms essential
• All the technology used is not yet available in
  the marketplace

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Challenges

• Opportunities for Participation and Interaction
  are more attainable technologically
• For new forms of arttechnology work, the
  technology needed is more complex and beyond the
  control of a single person

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Technology Challenges

• Technology Environments
• for multiple forms of interaction
• for different types of users
• Special Systems and Devices
• Sensor input mechanisms
• Transferring data between systems
• Human-Computer Interaction
• Graphical programming
• Prototyping for requirements

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Example of a Technology Challenge

• Interactive pieces that involve
• - sensing the environment
• a general-purpose sensor interface and its
  interaction with highly capable software
• providing the artist with a usable system for
  specifying new work

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Co-Creativity as Assistance
ArtistTechnologist

• Roles are clearly differentiated
• Artist Asks Technologist answers questions
• can we switch LEDs on and off?
• - how can we produce different colours?
• - leads to
• Providing controlling hardware and software for
  an installation

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Challenges for Co-Creativity

• Partnership or Assistant Model?
• Co-ownership..
• Team Building
• Roles and Responsibilities
• Complementary Skills
• Mutual Benefit

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Successful Partnerships

• Require
• Common Vision
• Shared Language
• Sustained Engagement
• Recovery Time

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Conclusions

• Co-Creativity for Interactive Art requires
• Effective Models of Collaboration
• Multi-disciplinary Contributions
• Sustainability of Creative Process
• New Concepts of Ownership
• Evidence-based Research

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COSTART-2 Artists and Technologists

• Adriano Abbado
• Kirsty Beilharz
• David Corbett
• Gina Czarnecki
• Pip Greasley
• Jack Ox
• George Saxon
• Yasuneo Tone
• Ray Ward

• John Connolly
• Ernest Edmonds
• Mark Fell
• Colin Machin
• Sandra Pauletto
• Andre Schappo
• Manu Uniyal
• Alastair Weakley

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