Libre culture: meditations on free culture

Libre Culture is the essential expression of the free culture/copyleft movement. This anthology, brought together here for the first time, represents the early groundwork of Libre Society thought. Referring to the development of creativity and ideas, capital works to hoard and privatize the knowledge and meaning of what is created. Expression becomes monopolized, secured within an artificial market-scarcity enclave and finally presented as a novelty on the culture industry in order to benefit cloistered profit motives. In the way that physical resources such as forests or public services are free, Libre Culture argues for the freeing up of human ideas and expression from copyright bulwarks in all forms

What can managers do for creativity? : brokering creativity in the creative industries

'Creativity' has become a fashionable term in the contemporary managerial and political lexicon, signalling generalised approval in education, business and the arts. In Britain, 'creative industries' has replaced 'cultural industries' as the umbrella term for artistic and cultural production and distribution, and 'creativity' has been incorporated into the national tourism brand . In business, managers and academics use 'creativity' to indicate an organisation's capacity for innovation, flexibility and autonomy; these 'creative' values are seen to have replaced operational efficiency and strategic planning as the primary source of 'competitive advantage' in business. In education, creativity has spread beyond its original context of arts based subjects and is used to refer to a generalised ability to solve problems and generate new concepts across the entire curriculum. The term creativity has become so all-embracing as to lose any clearly defined meaning and value. Ask any organisation, industry or individual whether they would ever admit to being 'uncreative' and the corruption of meaning is only too apparent. It seems that we are all creative now. Creativity has become both the language and currency of today's knowledge economy

The Dynamics of Creativity in Software Development

Software is primarily developed for people by people and human factors must be studied in all software engineering phases. Creativity is the source to improvise solutions to problems for dominating complex systems such as software development. However, there is a lack of knowledge in what creativity is in software development and what its dynamics are. This study describes the current state of the research plan towards a theory on creativity in software development. More specifically, it (1) states the motivation for studying creativity in software development under a multidisciplinary view; it (2) provides a first review of the literature identifying the shortcomings in the field; it (3) proposes a research design, which includes rarely employed methods in software engineering. To understand creativity in software development will provide a better knowledge of the software construction process and how individuals intellectually contribute to the creation of better, innovative products.Comment: 6 Pages. To be presented in the 14th International Conference on Product-Focused Software Process Improvement (PROFES 2013) - Doctoral Symposium, 12 June 2013, Paphos, Cyprus. This is the final, accepted version (after peer review

Rethinking professional learning in higher education: a study on how the use of Open Educational Resources triggers the adoption of Open Educational Practice

This study explores how the practices of higher education educators evolve towards open educational practice (OEP) as they use open educational resources (OER) as a form of social media. Drawing on the theories of self-regulated learning (SRL) and cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT), the study provides a novel way of analysing learning and development at work by focusing on related tensions. The interview data were, firstly, analysed by a thematic categorisation of 6 sub-categories of self-regulated learning and secondly, by using the method of discursive manifestations of contradictions. The findings evidence that educators find that their OEP does not fit easily within the current educational system. They have to balance conventional forms of education at scale with new and emerging open forms of education. This creates tensions indicating that educators need support in evolving their educational practice towards OEP and to reflect on what this change means for their practice

Entanglements of creative agency and digital technology : a sociomaterial study of computer game development

Digital technology, with its distinctive characteristics that result from the fundamental process of digitalization that underpins it, is seen as fundamentally altering processes of creativity. However, we currently have limited understanding of creativity in relation to the development of digital technology. Computer game development, with its combination of esthetic, affective and cultural use features and highly sophisticated digital technologies, is a valuable setting for investigating these issues. In this paper, we explore how computer games are shaped through the interplay between the creative intentions of developers and the digital technologies involved in their production and playing. Drawing on in-depth studies conducted at three leading computer game development studios and a leading producer of the software system used in game development, this paper shows how the game developers' creative ideas for imagined novel game-playing experiences relate to a) the development of relevant digital technologies, and b) the emergence of new game development practices. The article goes on to propose a view of creativity as an on-going flow that, following an initial ‘creative impulse’, ripples through the sociomaterial entanglements of a particular setting, reconfiguring them in the process and spreading out in time and space in often unexpected ways

An aesthetic for sustainable interactions in product-service systems?

Copyright @ 2012 Greenleaf PublishingEco-efficient Product-Service System (PSS) innovations represent a promising approach to sustainability. However the application of this concept is still very limited because its implementation and diffusion is hindered by several barriers (cultural, corporate and regulative ones). The paper investigates the barriers that affect the attractiveness and acceptation of eco-efficient PSS alternatives, and opens the debate on the aesthetic of eco-efficient PSS, and the way in which aesthetic could enhance some specific inner qualities of this kinds of innovations. Integrating insights from semiotics, the paper outlines some first research hypothesis on how the aesthetic elements of an eco-efficient PSS could facilitate user attraction, acceptation and satisfaction

Beyond Green: The Arts as a Catalyst for Sustainability

The creative sector has played a significant role in efforts to raise awareness of the impacts of climate change and encourage sustainable social, economic, and environmental practices worldwide. Many artists and cultural organizations have embarked on remarkable projects that make us reflect on our behaviors, our carbon footprints, and the claims of infinite growth based on finite resources. Sometimes treading a fine line between arts and advocacy, they have sparked extraordinary collaborations that reveal new ways of living together on a shared planet. The 'art of the possible' will become even more relevant as 2016 dawns - bringing the challenge of how to implement the Sustainable Development Goals and the Climate Change Agreement adopted at the end of 2015. Yet with negotiations overshadowed by scientific controversy, political polemic and geographic polarization, individuals can easily lose faith in their own ability to shape change beyond the hyperlocal level. Against this challenging backdrop, could the arts and creative practice become a particle accelerator - to shift mindsets, embrace new ways of sharing space and resources, and catalyze more creative leadership in the public and private spheres? The goal of this Salzburg Global Seminar session was to build on path-breaking cultural initiatives to advance international and cross-sectoral links between existing arts and sustainability activities around the world, encourage bolder awareness-raising efforts, and recommend strategic approaches for making innovative grassroots to scale for greater, longer-term impact

Small cities for a small country: Sustaining the cultural renaissance?

Copyright @ 2006 RoutledgeThis chapter explores the implications for smaller cities of adopting culture-led regeneration strategies. It is suggested that there is a divergence between cultural planning for long term sustainable urban cultural renaissance and culture-led makeovers which rely on externally orientated projects devised to draw in new visitors, residents and enterprises. Drawing on evidence from Sheffield, an industrial city in South Yorkshire, northern England, it is suggested that small cities by thinking big, have been seduced into entering a culture-led city competition in which the stakes are high and the prospects of success limited

Conformity, deformity and reformity

In any given field of artistic practice, practitioners position themselves—or find themselves positioned—according to interests and allegiances with specific movements, genres, and traditions. Selecting particular frameworks through which to approach the development of new ideas, patterns and expressions, balance is invariably maintained between the desire to contribute towards and connect with a particular set of domain conventions, whilst at the same time developing distinction and recognition as a creative individual. Creativity through the constraints of artistic domain, discipline and style provides a basis for consideration of notions of originality in the context of activity primarily associated with reconfiguration, manipulation and reorganisation of existing elements and ideas. Drawing from postmodern and post-structuralist perspectives in the analysis of modern hybrid art forms and the emergence of virtual creative environments, the transition from traditional artistic practice and notions of craft and creation, to creative spaces in which elements are manipulated, mutated, combined and distorted with often frivolous or subversive intent are considered. This paper presents an educational and musically focused perspective of the relationship between the individual and domain-based creative practice. Drawing primarily from musical and audio-visual examples with particular interest in creative disruption of pre-existing elements, creative strategies of appropriation and recycling are explored in the context of music composition and production. Conclusions focus on the interpretation of creativity as essentially a process of recombination and manipulation and highlight how the relationship between artist and field of practice creates unique creative spaces through which new ideas emerge