COSTART OUTCOMES

Overview: Project and Outcomes 

The COSTART project addressed the design of digital systems for creativity support. The focus for this project was the visual arts, where the capabilities embodied in the new media afford significant opportunities for the generation of creative works. Phase one took place over eighteen months during which seven artist-in-residency studies were carried out. From this project, a number of research questions concerning opportunities for developing innovative digital technologies, support environments, user learning and creative cognition were identified. The work provided a framework for COSTART 2, in which a further ten studies were undertaken, and is documented in the book Explorations in Art and Technology. The outcomes of the COSTART project are significant contributions to the emerging research area of computation and creativity. The research results are documented in 10 journal papers and 20 refereed conference papers. Exhibitions and performances were important outcomes that reflected the overall approach in which the co-evolution of research and creative practice was a corner stone.

Book

Candy, L. and Edmonds, E.A. (2002). Explorations in Art and Technology, Springer-Verlag, London. ISBN 1-85233-545-9 .

The Studio as Laboratory: Combining Creative Practice and Digital Technology Research

Edmonds, E.A., Candy, L, Fell, M. Pauletto, S. and Weakley, A. (2005). The Studio as Laboratory: Combining Creative Practice and Digital Technology Research, International Journal of Human-Computer Studies Special Issue on Creativity and Computational Support, Vol. 63, issue 4, August pp 452-481.

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 as 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.

The COSTART Artist and Technologists

In June and July of 2002, a group of people came together under the auspices of the COSTART research project to take part in a series of artist-in-residencies. From the collaborative projects that took place new approaches to technology-based art emerged. The people who conceived the ideas and made the art forms and systems give their own accounts of what happened. The artists came from far-flung locations: Sydney, New York, Milan and many parts of the UK. The works created in their residencies were shown at the Creativity and Cognition 2002 Exhibition.

Publications List

CREATIVE PROCESSES

Collaborative Creativity

Mamykina, L. Candy, L. and Edmonds, E.A. (2002). Collaborative Creativity. Communications of the ACM Special Section on Creativity and Interface, Volume 45, Issue 10, October, pp 96-99.

Candy, L. and Edmonds, E.A. (2002). Modelling Co-Creativity in Art and Technology, Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Creativity and Cognition, (eds) T.T. Hewett & T.Kavanagh, ACM press: New York, pp 134-141

ABSTRACT: Collaborative projects in art and technology provide an opportunity to investigate how co-creativity takes place. This paper describes some of the characteristics of collaborative work that were identified from empirical evidence captured during the COSTART project. We examine the way the information was analyzed and the results of that exercise. An approach to modeling co-creativity based on case study data is described and three example models proposed. This work enabled us to consider the implications of the different models for supporting creativity and their relationship to success factors. We conclude that the provision of support for co-creativity in art and technology needs to include ongoing collaborative relationships that are fostered by organizations dedicated to the co-evolution of both art and new technology.

Candy, L. (2002) Co-Creativity in Interactive Digital Art, Consciousness Reframed, Fourth International CAiiA-STAR Research Conference, 2-4th August, Perth: CD ROM.

ABSTRACT: Creating interactive digital artworks involves the construction of complex computer systems. Artists working in this area have a choice of acquiring personal technical expertise or forming collaborative arrangements with technologists. Collaboration involves multi-disciplinary teamwork and this has implications for the creative process. Co-creativity in digital art has several dimensions: interaction between artist and digital technology, interaction between artist and audience and interaction between artist and technologist. The paper discussed these issues and provides examples of current research into the development of interactive digital art.

Candy, L. (2002) The Art of Collaboration : A Guide to Co-Creativity in Art+Technology. Feature Article in i3 Magazine: The European Network for Intelligent Information Interfaces, No 12, June, pp12-16.

Expertise and Creativity

Candy, L. and Edmonds, E. A. (2004). Expertise, Collaboration and Creativity for Technology Design. Proceedings of APCHI 2004. Rotorua, New Zealand Springer- Verlag, Berlin. pp 60-69.

Candy, L. and Edmonds, E.A. (2003). Collaborative Expertise for Creative Technology Design, In Proceedings of Expertise in Design, Design Thinking Research Symposium 6, edited by N. Cross and E.A. Edmonds, University of Technology, Sydney, November ,2003, Creativity and Cognition Studios Press, pp 295-310.

Edmonds, E.A. and Candy, L. (2002). Creativity, Art Practice and Knowledge, Communications of the ACM Special Section on Creativity and Interface, Volume 45, Issue 10, October, pp 91-95.

Interaction and Creativity

Candy, L. and Edmonds, E.A. (2002). Interaction in Art and Technology, Crossings: Electronic Journal of Art and Technology , Volume 2 Issue 1 March.

ABSTRACT: The interest of artists and art theorists in audience participation with artworks has been particularly active since the 1960s. Interactive artworks that could transform viewers into participants were envisaged and created using the media available at that time. Today the opportunities for audience participation have been increased significantly by the widespread availability of digital technology. The degree of collaboration between technologists and artists affects the necessary interaction between artist and computer. This paper discusses the role of technology in interactive art and the complex ways in which the artist can interact with computers and digital media in order to specify artworks. Categories of interactive art systems defined earlier as static, dynamic-passive, dynamic-interactive and dynamic-interactive (varying) are brought up-to-date and illustrated by examples of work from the Creativity and Cognition Research Studios.

Edmonds, E.A. and Candy, L. (1999) Computation, Interaction and Imagination: Into Virtual Space and Back to Reality. In Proceedings 4th International Roundtable Conference on Computational Models of Creative Design. J.Gero and M-L Maher (eds), December, pp 19-31.

CREATIVITY SUPPORT TOOLS

Candy. L. and Edmonds, E.A. (2000). Creativity Enhancement with Emerging Technologies. Communications of the ACM Special Issue on Personalization Systems. Volume 43, No.8, August, pp 62-65.

Programming Environments

Edmonds, E.A., Candy, L, (2005). Macaroni Synthesis: A Creative Multimedia Collaboration, YLEM Journal: Artists using Science and Technology, September.

In the COSTART Project 1998-2003 an innovative approach to the study of technology-based art founded on practice-led research methods has been developed. The work centers on the practice of art making. In this paper, we report on the particular innovations associated with one of the residencies; that of Yasunao Tone, an artist who was awarded the 2002 Ars Electronica Golden Nica prize for Digital Music. Tone has been changing calligraphic characters into images, then the images into sounds. The artists and technologists explored sound representation in real-time (interaction between image and sound. In the Yasunao Tone residency, a highly challenging view of human-computer interaction was taken. It led to the development of a quite novel interaction device that formed the core base of a new creative performance artwork by Tone. The nature of the study undertaken, in which the roles of artist, technologist and researcher were allocated equal place, was highly effective in stimulating innovation. As well as enabling valuable research into the creative use of technology, the approach can be used to stimulate the creative development of technology.

Edmonds, E.A. Candy, L., Fell, M., Knott, R.P..Weakley, A. (2003). Macaroni Synthesis: A Creative Multimedia Collaboration. IV03, 7th International Conference on Computer Visualization and Graphics Applications, (eds. E. Banissi et al. 16-18 July, London, pp 646-651.

Turner, G. and Edmonds, E. A. (2003). Towards a Supportive Technological Environment for Digital Art. Proceedings of OzCHI2003. Viller, S. and Wyeth, P. (eds). University of Queensland. pp 44-51

ABSTRACT:This paper presents the case for extending programming languages to support digital artists engaged in technologically-innovative work. The anticipated result is an environment for building environments, which will need to satisfy certain technological requirements according to the areas in which digital artists most need creative support. A review of these areas is undertaken, and a proposal is made to capture the specific areas in which digital artists most need technological support. Download paper

Art Systems

Edmonds, E. A. and Turner, G. (2004). Intelligent Interaction in Art Systems, Proceedings of Intelligent User Interfaces, Nunes, N. J. and Rich, C. (eds). ACM Press, New York, pp 354-355.

Edmonds, E. A. and Pauletto, S. (2004). Audiovisual Discourse in Digital Art. SIGGRAPH 2004 Electronic Art and Animation Catalogue, ACM Press, New York. pp 115-118.

Edmonds, E. A. & Dixon, J. (2001) Constructing Inter-Relationships: Computations for Interactions in Art. Proceedings of 5th International Conference on Computational and Cognitive Models of Creative Design, Sydney University, December, pp 173-185.

ABSTRACT: The thinking behind the authors time-based and interactive art is briefly reviewed from the early inspirations of Malevich to current logic based work employing image recognition. In this work one can think about the implications of underlying structures in ways that were not possible without computers. Generating time-based and interactive work of this kind, was transformed by the computer. It enables the effective construction of inter-relationships that provide computational models for building correspondences between forms and systems. The paper describes the computational methods used to introduce interaction to the video construct works in which the body movements of the observer influence the visual behavior of the work.

Web Tools

Weakley, A. J. and Edmonds, E. A. (2004). Shared Visualizations in Support of Distributed Creative Communities, in Proceedings of OZCHI 2004, Wollongong, Australia.

ABSTRACT: The paper is concerned with support for distributed groups of creative knowledge workers: in this case designers. We consider requirements that designers have regarding internalisation and externalisation of ideas and concepts as well as requirements relating to collaboration. We review an online system whose facilities for the graphical representation of data were found to be popular. The evaluation was in the context of a group task and the results, including instances of tacit knowledge sharing, have led us to formulate a number of recommendations as to how such systems might be made still more effective for collaborative working.

Weakley, A. J. and Edmonds, E. A. (2004). Web-Based Support for Creative Collaboration. In Proceedings of the IADIS International Conference Web-Based Communities 2004 (Eds, Kommers, P., Isias, P. and Nunes, M. B.) IADIS Press, Lisbon, Portugal, pp. 239-246.

EXHIBITIONS AND PERFORMANCES

Creativity and Cognition 2002 Exhibition

Candy, L. and Edmonds, E.A. (2002). The COSTART Exhibition at C&C2002. In Proceedings of the Fourth Creativity & Cognition Conference: Exhibition Papers and Posters, Mottram,, J. Candy, L. & Kavanagh, T. (eds), LUSAD Publications, Loughborough University, UK, pp 11-22.

COSTART Artists: Adriano Abbado, Kirsty Beilharz, David Corbett, Gina Czarnecki, Pip Greasley, Sarah Minney, Jack Ox, George Saxon, Yasunao Tone, Ray Ward

ABSTRACT: Creating interactive artworks involves the construction of complex computer systems. For artists this often requires the formation of collaborative arrangements with technologists. Collaboration involves multi-disciplinary teamwork and this has implications for the creative process. In June and July of 2002, a group of people came together under the auspices of the COSTART research project to take part in a series of artist-in-residencies. From the collaborative projects that took place new approaches to technology-based art emerged. In parallel research into the process was carried out and is ongoing. In this paper, the people who conceived the ideas and made the art forms and systems give their own accounts of what happened. The artists came from far-flung locations: Sydney, New York, Milan and many parts of the UK. The works created in their residencies are being shown at the Creativity and Cognition Exhibition, Loughborough University in September and October, 2002.

SIGGRAPH 2004

Edmonds, E. A. and Fell, M. (2004). Broadway One. SIGGRAPH 2004 Electronic Art and Animation Catalogue, ACM Press, New York, p 30.

Beta Space

The Powerhouse Museum and Creativity and Cognition Studios (CCS), University of Technology, Sydney are collaborating to create beta_space an experimental environment where the public can engage with the latest research in art and technology.
beta_space will show interactive artworks in development by CCS researchers and collaborators. The works may be at different stages, from early prototype to end product. In all cases engagement with the public will provide critical information for further iterations of the art work or of the research. The name beta refers to a new piece of software or hardware that needs testing and feedback from its users to help the project team to eliminate design and engineering errors.

Creativity and Cognition 2002

Candy, L. and Hori, K. (2003). The Digital Muse: HCI in Support of Creativity, Creativity and Cognition Comes of Age, Interactions Journal Vol. X.4, July, July/August, ACM Press, New York, pp 44-54.

Tutorials

Candy, L. (2004) Approaches and Methods for Studying Creative Interaction between People and Technology. Research Methodologies Seminars, July-August, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia.

Candy, L. and Edmonds, E.A. (2004). Enhancing creativity: Understanding Creativity and Informing HCI Design.

Candy, L. and Edmonds, E.A. (2003). Supporting Human Creativity. HCI International 2003,