A6YorkCilke

A6YorkCilke

To Do

• please work as a group (minimum: 2 members; max: 6 members) and submit one answer as a group (clearly identifying the members of your group)
• read Fischer, G., Giaccardi, E., Eden, H., Sugimoto, M., & Ye, Y. (2005) "Beyond Binary Choices: Integrating Individual and Social Creativity," International Journal of Human-Computer Studies (IJHCS) Special Issue on Computer Support for Creativity (E.A. Edmonds & L. Candy, Eds.), 63(4-5), pp. 482-512.

Task 1

Critically evaluate the following two claims based on the arguments in the reading assignment (the claims are from: Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1996) Creativity - Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention, HarperCollins Publishers, New York, NY):

• "An idea or product that deserves the label 'creative' arises from the synergy of many sources and not only from the mind of a single person."
  • to do: comment whether this argument is valid? can you think of exceptions?
  • to do: reflect on your own creativity (or major achievements)- does the argument apply to them?
• "It is easier to enhance creativity by changing conditions in the environment than by trying to make people think more creatively."
  • to do: provide examples and analyze features/requirements of systems which "change the environment" to enhance creativity.

Task 2

Section 4 of the Paper lists four "Examples of Environments That Support Creativity"; for each four examples, say in one sentence

• what you found interesting and
• uninteresting or missing

Group response

1. Members of the Group

Dain Cilke, Ian York

2. Task 1

The validity of the argument that creative work derives from the interaction of many sources and not just from a single mind depends on how you define the terms. Most of the history has creativity has focused on contributions of the lone creator (Socrates, Ovid, Newton, Basho, Dickenson, Einstein, etc). However, Newton is famous for acknowledging that 'If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants', thereby acknowledging the essential role that the work of predecessors and contemporaries helped guide his own creative endeavors. Similarly, the fact that Leibniz and Newton may have both discovered/created Calculus about the same time also emphasizes that all individuals are part of larger social movements which help frame and guide the expression of their creativity. Also, in regards to the development of calculus, Newton/Leibniz provided the base for calculus, but it has been evolving ever since. In essence the work of Cauchy, Riemann and Weierstrass can be viewed individually as the work of a single creative genius however, their work can also be thought of as the continued synergy of mathematicians, current and historical, in the expansion of calculus. The zeitgeist phenomenon in which many individuals may unknowingly exploring the same ideas is seen across the disciplines and the trend to attribute creative acts to individuals may obscure the larger contributing historical and social context. (Art & Physics by L. Schlain offers interesting parallels in the art and science movements for instance)

For my own work, it is often grounded in domain specific problems and is necessarily informed by other approaches at similar problems. As such, my accomplishments are guided by the needs of my users, the technology and knowledge of my institution, and the ideas of my colleagues. Even when considering my early creative work (such as elementary art projects), I must consider all the pictures, drawings, paintings, etc that I had seen before I set my own pencil (or crayon) to paper. If you consider environmental influences as part of the dialog between the individual and society, it would be difficult to consider any work as have been born from a single mind. Nonetheless, the final product is often unique. One can argue that given a problem two people with the same background will solve it two completely different ways. In essence, my work has been the "synergy" of the influences and motivations in my life as well as my unique creative approach to a problem.

Changing the environment to enhance creativity requires systems that are flexible enough to allow for exploration while resilient enough to adequately capture the intent of the user(s). I think the Lego/Toolkit approach is often times the best way to encourage creativity by providing appropriately sized building blocks that can be recombined in a variety of ways without each piece losing its own functionality. This allows one to always decompose the current creation and reuse the underlying components, or recombine various sub-components in novel ways. One software example that I tend to return to often is knime (http://www.knime.org/) which is a modular, data analysis pipelining tool. Systems, such as this one, that are highly modular, configurable, interoperable, and reusable tend to allow for creative and unique approaches, although potentially at the expense of efficient and correct solutions (should they exist).

3. Task 2

EDC

I find these sorts of collaboration technologies quite interesting, although I have never had the opportunity to employ them to solve a problem. I initially have concerns about dominant personalities monopolizing the control as well as the lack of a personal space for independent design.

Caretta

I think the division between personal and collaborative space is better balanced here. At work, one of the companies we collaborate with for data visualization (http://www.mayaviz.com/) has a circular white board room for simultaneous collaboration, while each mobile desk has its own white board for individual exploration. While the whiteboard approach allows for ultimate flexibility, the ability to quickly copy from one space to the other is a helpful technology. I would also include some type of version tracking so you could keep multiple approaches up on the wall side-by-side and continue to explore and compare the various branches as desired.

Face Poiesis

While I can grasp the re/combinatorial aspects of the image software, it was unclear to me how the viewer themselves interacted with the work to change its display. Regardless, interactive art tends to challenge many people's interpretation of what it means to be an artist and its traditional association with the notion of an artisan or craftsperson. Also, I feel that art is the expression of the artist and if somebody could constantly change their work the meaning and emotion behind the work is diminished.

CodeBroker

While interesting and potentially useful, I remain skeptical that the semantic engine would get this right enough of the time to be valuable. However, some technologies such as Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) more readily lends itself to modular design and reuse, although dissemination of the available services is still done through human categorization and separation of core and application layers.