[candy + code @ the ICA]

Shamefully I arrived home quite late lastnight and then had to pack for today's trip up to York (Inanimate Alice is up for a Learning on Screen Award and the Faculty of Humanities is paying for me to go up there AND enjoy the 2-day conference!)...so I didn't really have *time* to blog. Is that a better excuse than the dog ate my blog post?

I'll catch up and post all the notes I made on the three incredible artists: Rachel Beth Egenhoefer, Dr Barbara Rauch and Nicola Naismith? They were all working on different things yet there were loads of crossovers. I was able to ask a few questions too during the final panel session but amazingly, we ended up going over and we had to be kicked out into the ICA bar (darn!). :)

I also want to *shout out* to Helen Sloan director of SCAN who is interested in social media and mapping business networks!

Thanks to Dr. Jane Harris for organising the event and to Lucy for all her help e-mailing updates and organising ppts etc...

Hopfully the National Science Learning Centre will have wireless...

[transliteracy workshop today]

Today is the day!

Following on from last year's transliteracy unconference we're holding a transliteracy workshop. Last year the vote was to have a day where we could put into practise our ideas of transliteracy in order to *make* transliterate objects.

We have piles of string, coloured papers, digital cameras, computers, scanners, robot lego, old answering machines, playstation and more.

As a reminder, the definition of transliteracy (so far) that we're using is:

"The ability to read, write and interact across a range of platforms, tools and media from signing and orality through handwriting, print, TV, radio and film, to digital social networks."

The aim of making transliterate objects will help us understand *why* something is transliterate as right now we seem to have an innate idea of what transliteracy is but how to we begin to describe it in words, images, sounds etc...?

more on the PART blog.

[copyright and creativity]

The study, "Recut, Reframe, Recycle: Quoting Copyrighted Material in User-Generated Video" by the Center for Social Media lists nine current ways of *using* information..."re-appropriation practises." It reminded me that copyright and fair use guidelines need to be taught alongside any of the digital literature, transliteracy or new media writing/reading that I expose my students to. As Danah Boyd says: "It's a really really really screwy system that pits little people against big corporations, stifling innovation and creativity. Yet, in order to change it, people have to understand what is taking place, what is at stake, and how to rethink the situation. This is the goal of this study."

TYPES OF USES OF COPYRIGHTED WORKS IN ONLINE VIDEOS
• Parody and satire
• Negative or critical commentary
• Positive commentary
• Quoting to trigger discussion
• Illustration or example
• Incidental use
• Personal reportage or diaries
• Archiving of vulnerable or revealing materials
• Pastiche or collage

(page 6)

Interestingly, this isn't about *copying* existing information, but commenting on it:

"This participatory spirit explains the transformativeness that marks so much quoted copyrighted material. Most online video makers incorporating copyrighted works (as opposed to those simply copying them) do not seek to replicate the services provided to them by mainstream media providers. They are sampling in order to comment, critique, illustrate, express. They are salvaging, rescuing, celebrating, heralding, bonding. They are expressing vital connections both to popular cultural expressions and also to others who share their passions and the meanings that they have created around those expressions."

(page 7)

[creativity conversation]

Following my presentation on "Reader 2.0" for the Creative Writing and New Media Masters run by Sue Thomas and Kate Pullinger, the creativity Conversation held it's 8th session.


Speakers: Andrew Hugill (Composer, writer, and Director of the Institute of Creative Technologies)
Mohammad Ibrahim (Technology fusion, artificial life, and design methodologies)

Some notes (live-blogged)

"Why do we abandon or switch ideas, methods and views whilst being creative?"

Mohammad Ibrahim:




Strategies for Switching (intuitive or naturalistic)
Naturalistic/Action based
Intuitive
Process Oriented
Evolving Design Space


Current Research:
There is some work on switching between strategies
Lots of work and debate on identifying and switching between stages/phases
Very relevant for rational approach
Personal view - waste of time for the intuitive approach


Conclusion:
Apart from "initial scan brief" no real pattern
Hence naturalistic approach in the dominant one
No clear clusters of activities into phases/stages - the second scale
Clustered activities into phases - but no real agreement on order of activities in each phase (here are some activities, can you give us the order in which you do these activities? - they couldn't)
SO: Different intuitive approaches to evaluating a design space (trying to understand what the project is about rather than figuring out what they have to do)

Question on strategy: need to teach both strategies to students but the "experts" will develop their own strategies

Can we make a safe place where students can be creative, where engineering students can work with art and design students?




Andrew Hugill



Sees creativity as a process
Can you not change your mind in the process of creation? Why do we change our minds or rather, why don't we.
Rimbaud wrote the best poetry and then radically changed his views and became a banker - interesting exacmple of someone rejecting creativity

Three key words:
clinamen - from Epicurus, every so often an atom makes a slight swerve in its course and collides with another atom thus creating matter so clinamen is that swerve or bias
syzygy - from astronomy, when suddenly you get three bodies (unexpectedly) in alignment - things fall into place (eclipse)
anomaly - when something appears that doesn't fit

"The Act of Creation", A ha, Ah, and the Ha-ha (Arthur Koestler - adjusted, thanks Andy)

Andrew's own experiment into creativity with a musical composition, created a process and followed it through rigorously (though this process is not audible in the final musical product). However, when copying some music he made an error but this ended up adding to the creative aspect of this piece.

[art experiments in new york]

From Rhizome:

"New York-based organization Location One's International Residency Program was initiated in 2001 to foster artistic experimentation. Each year a group of artists develop a body of new work?often involving technology?during a period of four to ten months, which is then presented in a group show at Location One's Soho gallery. The first of two exhibitions showcasing the projects of eight of the 2006-2007 artists-in-residence runs from February 14 to March 17. Reflecting the multiple practices of their creators, the pieces on view represent multiple media and aesthetics, from sound, sculpture, and performance, to political readings of the urban space or explorations of perception. Bewernitz and Goldowski's installation, 'Unveiled Presence (secret sounds 2)' (2007), constitutes one of the highlights of the exhibition. The artists were inspired by the rooftop water towers found all over New York, as well as Duchamp's 'Bruit Secret' (1916), an assisted ready-made consisting o! f a ball of twine between two brass plates containing a small, unknown object revealed only when shaken. Using a complex topographical approach, they recorded the city?s sounds in specific locations, creating a psychologically engaging vision of the secret dimensions of this otherwise well-known metropolis. Other works are also worth mentioning, including Teresa Henriques's drawing/sculpture, created with the open-source animation software Blender, or Alessandro Nassiri's video of a fictional demonstration in which the participants wear white t-shirts exposing a scarlet letter, so that, together, the participants?s shirts spell-out the expression 'coming soon.' Presenting innovative artists and works to New York?s audience, this promising group show thus continues Location One's custom of contributing to the dynamics of its art scene." - Miguel Amado