Creative Technologies

Permanent link for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/10292/7318

Creative technologies is involved in research and development in areas of:

Serious games, augmented, pervasive, immersive, interactive and tangible technologies

Transmedia – multiple narrative strategies, cross platforms, mobile media

Making – materials, physical computing, post-digital craft, hacktivism and object-oriented research

Innovation in education

Social and Creative Entrepreneurship & Innovation

Neuroscience and Creativity (in association with KEDRI)

Big data, visualisation, software studies

Urban Futures

Sound, Light, Space

Critical interfaces, systems, networks

Methodologies for trans-disciplinary research and collaboration

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A Computational Interrogation of “Big-C” and “Little-c” Creativity
(Informa UK Limited, 2021) Sosa, R; Dijck, MV
The distinction between “Big-C” and “little-c” creativity implies that the generative process of celebrated creators is of a special type or degree. Arguments for and against such a hierarchy of creativity are found in the literature, primarily built on rhetorical argumentation. The aim of this work is to examine the rationale behind Big-C and little-c creativity using explicit and more systematic means of inquiry. We employ computational agent-based simulations to study these constructs, their premises, and their logical implications. The results of this work indicate that hierarchies such as the Big-C and little-c of creativity fail to provide a consistent way to explain and distinguish the generative processes of individual creators. In these computational models of creative social systems, only about half of disruptive changes can be explained by the characteristics of individual agents. This shows how labels like Big-C that are dependent on evaluation outcomes can easily be misattributed by observers to individual creators. This work demonstrates how the use of computational simulations can be useful to examine fundamental ideas about creativity. It shows that the Big-C/little-c distinction is a false dichotomy that should be approached critically by scholars to avoid conflating generative and evaluative dimensions of creativity.
Exploring the “Dark Matter” of Social Interaction: Systematic Review of a Decade of Research in Spontaneous Interpersonal Coordination
(Frontiers Media, 2021-10-11) Ayache, J; Connor, A; Marks, S; Kuss, D; Rhodes, D; Sumich, A; Heym, N
Interpersonal coordination is a research topic that has attracted considerable attention this last decade both due to a theoretical shift from intra-individual to inter-individual processes and due to the development of new methods for recording and analyzing movements in ecological settings. Encompassing spatiotemporal behavioral matching, interpersonal coordination is considered as “social glue” due to its capacity to foster social bonding. However, the mechanisms underlying this effect are still unclear and recent findings suggest a complex picture. Goal-oriented joint action and spontaneous coordination are often conflated, making it difficult to disentangle the role of joint commitment from unconscious mutual attunement. Consequently, the goals of the present article are twofold: (1) to illustrate the rapid expansion of interpersonal coordination as a research topic and (2) to conduct a systematic review of spontaneous interpersonal coordination, summarizing its latest developments and current challenges this last decade. By applying Rapid Automatic Keyword Extraction and Latent Dirichlet Allocation algorithms, keywords were extracted from PubMed and Scopus databases revealing the large diversity of research topics associated with spontaneous interpersonal coordination. Using the same databases and the keywords “behavioral matching,” “interactional synchrony,” and “interpersonal coordination,” 1,213 articles were identified, extracted, and screened following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses protocol. A total of 19 articles were selected using the following inclusion criteria: (1) dynamic and spontaneous interactions between two unacquainted individuals (2) kinematic analyses, and (3) non-clinical and non-expert adult populations. The results of this systematic review stress the proliferation of various definitions and experimental paradigms that study perceptual and/or social influences on the emergence of spontaneous interpersonal coordination. As methods and indices used to quantify interpersonal coordination differ from one study to another, it becomes difficult to establish a coherent picture. This review highlights the need to reconsider interpersonal coordination not as the pinnacle of social interactions but as a complex dynamical process that requires cautious interpretation. An interdisciplinary approach is necessary for building bridges across scattered research fields through opening a dialogue between different theoretical frameworks and consequently provides a more ecological and holistic understanding of human social cognition.
An Interactive Multi-agent System for Game Design
(Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 2021) Kruse, J; Connor, AM; Marks, S
This paper presents a novel approach to procedural generation of game maps for multi-player, competitive video games. A multi-agent evolutionary system is employed to place streets, buildings and other items, resulting in a playable video game map. The system utilises computational agents that act in conjunction with the human designer to produce maps that exhibit desirable characteristics. This paper compares the impact that the additional agents have in terms of the quality of candidate solutions. The results indicate that the use of the agents produces higher quality solutions in comparison to a traditional interactive genetic algorithm.
Activity Scenario Modelling: An Emerging Method for Examining Human-artefact Interaction
(Design Research Society (DRS), 2020) Montiel, M; Sosa Medina, R; Hocking, D
Everyday activities are jointly shaped by people and artefacts. This points to the need for tools that designers can use to examine the joint agency of people and artefacts. This paper reports progress in developing Activity Scenario Modelling (ASM), a design approach that can be used for such purpose. ASM combines techniques of video analysis, discourse analysis and social network analysis. The paper provides an overview of the theoretical foundations of ASM and illustrates it by modelling an activity scenario from an online tutorial on tea-making. The paper also describes a research agenda to apply ASM in design for sustainability efforts.
Nominal Groups? Ok Boomer! A Future-oriented Agenda for Brainstorming Studies
(Digital Research Society (DRS), 2020) Sosa Medina, R
This paper critically examines brainstorming going back to the original sources to assess its origins and the origins of its systematic study. It identifies the “nominal groups” fallacy that is often used to discredit this ideation method and reviews evidence that supports the key principles behind group brainstorming. Lessons for a future design-led agenda of universal creative literacy are discussed. Brainstorming appeared eighty years ago, and it is abundantly clear that it works when properly conducted. The substantial challenges that we face in the next eighty years require the power of collective creativity. Properly conducted creative literacy is a strategic priority for the twenty-first century.
Creative Technologies: A Retrospective
(Primrose Hall Publishing Group, 2020-06-22) Connor, AM
This paper undertakes an analysis of articles published in the area of Creative Technologies to inform the future development of the field. Articles were collated in a corpus and analysis conducted around keywords, content and authorship. The observations arising from the analysis is that there is some empirical evidence to support that Creative Technologies is an interdisciplinary field of research, with individuals having expertise across multiple domains having the potential to connect otherwise disparate disciplines. The results of the paper support some assertions around the nature of Creative Technologies, however it also suggests that more work is required to scope the field and change is required to secure a future for the Creative Technologies communities of practice.
Teaching (with) Empathy and Creativity in Design
(Design Research Society (DRS), 2019-11-21) Sosa Medina, R
Empathy and creativity are desirable core design competencies. The relationship between these concepts, however, has remained largely unexplored. This work unfolds the creases between empathy and creativity, identifies their synergies and contradictions, and defines a research programme to improve the teaching of creative and empathic dispositions in design. We suggest that com-prehensive, multi-method, and creative research approaches be used to amplify our understanding and inform future design practices.
Qualities of Design Briefs for Studio Learning
(Design Research Society (DRS), 2019-11-21) Sosa Medina, R
The design brief is considered a pivotal component in studio-based learning, yet there is a paucity of studies on the student brief genre in design education research. This work seeks to contribute by examining brief qualities from a variety of relevant sources that can help tertiary educators name, define, frame, evaluate, and present student briefs. The paper draws from the scant but growing academic literature on this topic, as well as from textbooks and publications on professional practice and design competitions. A dozen qualities are articulated from the literature that shape the purpose, content and context of briefs. Of special interest are the affective qualities of briefs, the interplay between project outcomes, learning objectives and assessment criteria, and the degree to which student briefs are execution dependent. A research agenda concludes the paper to comprehensively study the effects of design briefs in studio-based learning.
Activity Recognition Evaluation Via Machine Learning
(European Alliance for Innovation (EAI), 2019-11-15) Rameka, ANA; Connor, AM; Kruse, J
With the proliferation of relatively cheap Internet of Things (IoT) devices, smart environments have been highlighted as an example of how the IoT can make our lives easier. Each of these ‘things’ produces data which can work in unison to react to its users. Machine learning makes use of this data to make inferences about our habits and activities, such as our buying preferences or likely commute destinations. However, this level of human inclusion within the IoT relies on indirect inferences from the usage of these devices or services. Activity recognition is already a widely researched area and could provide a more direct way of including humans within this system. This research explores the feasibility of using a cost effective, unobtrusive, single modality ground-based sensor matrix to track subtle pressure changes to predict user activity, in an effort to assess its ability to act as an intermediary interface between humans and digital systems such as the IoT.
Redirecting Textile Knowledge; An Innovative Approach to Recycling
(Estonian Academy of Arts, 2019-09-23) Cleveland, D
This paper identifies an opportunity to design a localised textile waste system in New Zealand which provides the raw material required to develop a value added, closed loop, innovative and sustainable textile product. Sustainability is a key challenge of our time. The mass production processes of the apparel industry create large volumes of waste posing significant sustainability issues at all levels. New Zealand is a wasteful country that has up until recently managed textile waste recycling by exporting or landfilling the problem. Ministry for the Environment records indicate 100 million kilos of textile waste is disposed of into New Zealand’s landfill annually. At present options for unwanted textile waste in New Zealand are limited. The emergent crisis of textile waste stream management requires systems change and new forms of collaboration to be researched, designed and actuated. This paper challenges some of the complexities surrounding an unsustainable manufacturing cycle and the associated problems of textile waste. This research directly engages with individual New Zealand companies and re-circuit their waste manufacturing streams. A customised design solution that tangibly maximises the utility of an individual company’s textile waste is illustrated. The intervention into the established system reveals itself as a reconfiguration of sustainable practice. The paper explores the nature of new knowledge generation in this area, how it was gained, distributed and deployed. Tacit and experiential materials knowledge about textiles is extended by the designers’ phenomenological experience and subsequent knowledge brought about by iterative practice. Design led strategies serve as a platform to demonstrate how to re-design and initiate a new pathway for the New Zealand apparel sectors textile waste, to initiate change.
Collaborative Ecologies through Material Entanglements
(Estonian Academy of Arts, 2019-09-30) Smitheram, M; Joseph, F
This paper addresses aspects of collaboration and conceptual frameworks in practice that are central to our project, Phenomenal Dress. The research has been informed by material thinking, posthuman theory and New Zealand Māori perspectives, through processes of “making-with” (Haraway, 2016). Working with an ecosystem, engaging with localized non-human phenomena as well as cultural and scientific experts, mediated materials, textile surfaces as new forms of “dress-action” (Tiainen, Kontturi and Hongisto, 2015) have been developed through relational entanglement. The artefacts produced in the project are not functional or fashionable products, they are matter flows, formed through diverse perspectives and collaborative processes. They suggest a reconsideration of dress as material-aesthetic activations and pathway towards co-emergent understanding. Through this approach, the ecosystem is recognised as the primary collaborator, repositioning human and more-than-human relationships. This approach is informed by Māori knowledge and ways of knowing (mātauranga Māori), perspectives of kaitiakitanga (stewardship) and deeper relationship with the lifeworld through acts of sensing, noticing, making and following. The methodology is grounded in an ontological shift away from human-centredness, where matter and place have been positioned as object, to focus instead on matter as vital collaborator and place as habitat where the interconnections between things can be expressed.
Transformative Technologies and Social Change: An Introduction
(Academic Conferences International Limited, 2019) Karmokar, S
Rapid transformation in the technology is accelerating has create exponential growth in many areas. New innovation in product and services are seen in all sectors such as agriculture, medical diagnosis and treatment, societal changes, manufacturing and business. It has captured the imagination and provided diverse sectors of business and society with new opportunities for strategic and social changes. These changes are coming fast and we need to be creative and collaborative to navigate positively to these changes. Transformative technologies have the potential to contribute to both personal and societal transformation. Transformative technologies can enrich our life and bring social awareness and changes in the society. In this conceptual paper, we explore transformative technology and its capability to drive social change. We present some examples where transformative technologies have played a significant role in social awareness and change.
Entrepreneurial Ideation: Effects of Morphology and Complexity
(Cambridge University Press (CUP), 2019-07-26) Antonio, E; Sosa Medina, R; Connor, AM
Studies of product architecture identify a mirroring process between the product and the organisation. Parallel, empirical studies of effectual entrepreneurship show an accumulation of commitments between stakeholders while negotiating the features of the product in a similar fashion to product mirroring. This paper presents a study that looks at the effects of mirroring architectural complexity in early stages of entrepreneurship. The survey asked participants to interpret parametrically generated artefacts with the purpose of starting a new firm. Responses were analysed for complexity in the lexical semantic structure of ideas. Results show that the effects of artefact complexity are not as straightforward as hypothesised and provide evidence that suggests an important role of artefact morphology in entrepreneurial ideation. These findings support a model of product architecture mirroring that is filtered by design morphology.
Community Capacity Building: The Role of Design in Entrepreneurship
(FGCU Publishing Inc., 2019) Karmokar, S
Academic entrepreneurship refers to efforts undertaken by universities to promote commercialization, start-ups, technology transfer and university spin offs. A growing trend among tertiary students is to consider not only traditional ventures and new product initiatives but also expand to include social ventures that serve social needs. This paper builds upon the emerging interest and explores ways to connect academic entrepreneurship to external communities through design methods. We use design as a core component of all activities and observe how these activities foster ethnic entrepreneurship. The knowledge and application of design methods is transferred from product development to entrepreneurial capacity-building in the ethnic community. Ethnic entrepreneurship is a challenging process of identifying opportunities in a new market, and undertaking innovative projects. Small communities and minority groups often feel left out either because they come from a different background and culture, or because they are unfamiliar with approaches, and lack the necessary networks that are required to become entrepreneurs. This paper presents a pilot study in which we have addressed key entrepreneurial needs of a selected community, through a series of capacity-building workshops based on design methods.
No More and Less: The Withdrawal of Speculation
(Ubiquity Press, Ltd., 2019-07-18) Charlton, J
In the ten years since the seminal workshop on Speculative Realism at Goldsmiths College (Bassier), speculation has become the new noumenon of the art world: Promising the final fulfilment of the avant-garde dream that would finally emancipate the art object from indexicality, the speculative has held an irresistible appeal for artists (Beech, 1–2). As leader of the pack, Graham Harman’s Object Oriented Ontology (OOO) has become the champion of the cause. Yet, after all this speculation around realism, we seem to have got no closer to the real object of art than we ever where: OOO and its speculative variants, have left artists standing in the studio with nothing but a handful of sensual qualities that, as a symptom of transcendental withdrawal, are of little practical use. Speculation it seems has failed the facticity of practice and threatens to reduce art to little more than an indirect aesthetics. Anticipating the release of Harman’s Art and Object in mid 2019, this paper attempts to head off any speculative Greenbergian revitalisation by considering the implications of Tristan Garcia’s intensity with regard to the facticity of practice (Garcia, 2018). Central to Garcia’s ontology, intensity – the difference between what a thing is and what it is not – is seen to resists speculative naivety while informing practice’s need for certitude. Thus, unlike the speculative withdrawal of indirect aesthetic, aesthetics of intensity withhold nothing, and emerge in art practice as the tension between thought and action. Bassier, Ray, et al. “Speculative Realism.” Collapse, III, 2007, pp. 306–433. Beech, Amanda, et al. Speculative Aesthetics. Urbanomic, 2014. Garcia, Tristan. Life Intense: A Modern Obsession. Edinburgh University Press, 2018. Harman, Graham. “Aesthetics and the Tension in Objects.” [Met]Afourism, Midsea Books Ltd, 2018, pp. 11–19. Harman, Graham. The Quadruple Object. Zero Books, 2011a. Harman, Graham. “The Road to Objects.” Continent, vol. 1.3, 2011b,171–179. Harman, Graham. Art and Object. Polity Press, 2019.
Fluid Materialities: Physical and Digital Modes of Textile Making
(Plymouth College of Art, 2016-09-20) Joseph, F; Smitheram, M; Kalyanji, J
New processes of textile making that involve both physical and digital dimensions, and the conceptual implications of these new materialities, are the focus of the research discussed in this paper. Through a consideration of recent theoretical framings, technological infrastructures and experimental processes of making, contemporary textile design is addressed in terms of materiality, mediation and embodiment and their social and aesthetic implications. The relationships between new textile surfaces, new frameworks and the new sensibilities produced through these technological infrastructures (Thrift 2005) are explored in light of the transformative potential of materials within which technology is embedded (Küchler 2008).
Making With: Hybrid Practices in the Development of New Forms of Intra-active Dress
(Aalto University, 2018-05-31) Joseph, F; Smitheram, M
The project Phenomenal Dress explores a posthuman notion of dress as particular, dynamic surface and form that enfolds with different situations through physical and metaphysical forces. The project draws on perspectives and methods from fashion and textile design, science, technology, ecology and indigenous frameworks, to develop intra-active forms of dress that engage with and are activated through localised phenomena including human, biological and material agents. This hybridisation of dress as a nexus of technological, physiological, material, and cultural perspectives recognises matter as history and narrative, and place as having both physical and metaphysical dimensions. The different modes of working through these complex relationships, engaging a team of collaborators from diverse disciplinary and cultural positions, foreground the project, shifting it beyond a response to material properties or location as site, to an engagement with matter, media, place and forms of being, and the agential and aesthetic potential of these entanglements. The first iteration of this project is based in Karekare, a west coast black sand beach in the Waitakere Ranges Regional Park, fifty kilometres from Auckland, New Zealand.
Evolutionary Generation of Game Levels
(Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering (ICST), 2018) Connor, AM; Greig, TJ; Kruse, J
This paper outlines an approach for evolutionary procedural generation of video game content. The study deals with the automatic generation of game level designs using genetic algorithms and the development of a fitness function that describes the playability of the game level. The research explores whether genetic algorithms have the ability to produce outcomes that demonstrate characteristics that arise through human creativity, and whether these automated approaches offer any benefits in terms of time and effort involved in the design process. The approach is compared to a random method and the results show that the genetic algorithm is more consistent in finding levels; however analysis of the game levels indicates that the fitness function is not fully capturing level playability. The ability to produce playable levels decreases as the play area increases, however there is potential to produce larger maps that are both playable and arguably creative through a recombination method.
Engaging Undergraduates with Research to Promote Cumulative Learning
(Consortia Academia, 2016-08-10) Connor, AM
This paper argues that academia is undergoing a crisis, particularly in terms of some institutions experiencing growing student disengagement. Many changes to curriculum design and delivery have been focused on the modularisation of degree programmes to promote greater flexibility for a changing student demographic. This paper suggests that modularisation has the potential to create segmented learning, where students learn particular content in isolation and do not create linkages between knowledge gained across different modules. It is suggested that blurring boundaries between modules can address concerns about segmentalism. It is also suggested that blurring boundaries between other academic structures can also add value, for example the distinction between teaching and research. This paper presents a number of examples of work-in-progress strategies for using the creation of a third space of learning where research is used to generate cumulative learning.
Innovation teams and organizational creativity: Reasoning with computational simulations
(Elsevier, 2018) Sosa Medina, R; Connor, AM
A computational social simulation encourages systematic reasoning about the management of innovation teams and organizational creativity. This article draws upon historical literature to identify a potential dilemma faced by business organizations: Is it better to promote creative behavior across a whole organization or focus on the development of small and highly creative teams? We formulate the dilemma from the literature on organizational creativity, and explore it using a multi-agent simulation. Our study models creative behavior abstractly, as the ability to introduce novelty. By varying the scale and scope of non-conformist behavior in the simulation, our research supports the systematic study of the breadth vs. depth dilemma. The results of this study invite an informed examination of strategies to sustain innovation based on the introduction of either a small number of significantly novel ideas, or a large number of novel but more familiar ideas. Results from this study on change agency also indicate that there is a possible trade-off between a highly creative team and its creative efficiency, drawing attention to the importance of a creative critical mass in an organization. We also discuss the implications of these results and our research approach.

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