Museums on-chain? A designerly contribution in the development of blockchain-based digital strategies in cultural institutions

Blockchain technologies have been referred to as potential drivers for paradigm shifts in the arts and cultural sector. Their multiple applications in the cultural and creative industries have recently started to be discussed by scholars, mainly coming from social and computer science disciplines. From crypto collectibles for archiving and documentation, to rights management and digital protection, fundraising and decentralization purposes: the potential use cases of blockchain technologies are varied, so as are varied the actors in the cultural and creative ecosystems that have started experimenting with these disruptive technologies. Nevertheless, despite the turmoil experienced from the practitioners’ side, cultural institutions remain largely sceptical about the expected benefit. Museums refrain from engaging with decentralized technologies like blockchain due to their perception of the numerous risks involved, as well as to the inevasible barriers to entry. The present paper relies on the hypothesis that design knowledge, methods, and tools may foster the envisioning of valuable applications of blockchain technologies within cultural institutions, and museums. It includes a systematic review of blockchain technologies use cases in cultural institutions, and the preliminary results from a set of semi-structured interviews to practitioners active in the implementation of blockchain in cultural institutions. To discuss the results, the work aims to reckon on design knowledge to stimulate reflection on alternative, and future-oriented ways of experiencing culture and cultural assets, providing museums and their stakeholders with a fulfilling cultural experience and with novel revenue sources through blockchain

FinBook: literary content as digital commodity

This short essay explains the significance of the FinBook intervention, and invites the reader to participate. We have associated each chapter within this book with a financial robot (FinBot), and created a market whereby book content will be traded with financial securities. As human labour increasingly consists of unstable and uncertain work practices and as algorithms replace people on the virtual trading floors of the worlds markets, we see members of society taking advantage of FinBots to invest and make extra funds. Bots of all kinds are making financial decisions for us, searching online on our behalf to help us invest, to consume products and services. Our contribution to this compilation is to turn the collection of chapters in this book into a dynamic investment portfolio, and thereby play out what might happen to the process of buying and consuming literature in the not-so-distant future. By attaching identities (through QR codes) to each chapter, we create a market in which the chapter can ‘perform’. Our FinBots will trade based on features extracted from the authors’ words in this book: the political, ethical and cultural values embedded in the work, and the extent to which the FinBots share authors’ concerns; and the performance of chapters amongst those human and non-human actors that make up the market, and readership. In short, the FinBook model turns our work and the work of our co-authors into an investment portfolio, mediated by the market and the attention of readers. By creating a digital economy specifically around the content of online texts, our chapter and the FinBook platform aims to challenge the reader to consider how their personal values align them with individual articles, and how these become contested as they perform different value judgements about the financial performance of each chapter and the book as a whole. At the same time, by introducing ‘autonomous’ trading bots, we also explore the different ‘network’ affordances that differ between paper based books that’s scarcity is developed through analogue form, and digital forms of books whose uniqueness is reached through encryption. We thereby speak to wider questions about the conditions of an aggressive market in which algorithms subject cultural and intellectual items – books – to economic parameters, and the increasing ubiquity of data bots as actors in our social, political, economic and cultural lives. We understand that our marketization of literature may be an uncomfortable juxtaposition against the conventionally-imagined way a book is created, enjoyed and shared: it is intended to be

From rituals to magic: Interactive art and HCI of the past, present, and future

The connection between art and technology is much tighter than is commonly recognized. The emergence of aesthetic computing in the early 2000s has brought renewed focus on this relationship. In this article, we articulate how art and Human–Computer Interaction (HCI) are compatible with each other and actually essential to advance each other in this era, by briefly addressing interconnected components in both areas—interaction, creativity, embodiment, affect, and presence. After briefly introducing the history of interactive art, we discuss how art and HCI can contribute to one another by illustrating contemporary examples of art in immersive environments, robotic art, and machine intelligence in art. Then, we identify challenges and opportunities for collaborative efforts between art and HCI. Finally, we reiterate important implications and pose future directions. This article is intended as a catalyst to facilitate discussions on the mutual benefits of working together in the art and HCI communities. It also aims to provide artists and researchers in this domain with suggestions about where to go next

Arte generativa : interfaces comportamentais na mediação entre imagem e som

While attempting to find new ways to create art, artists transgress the traditional notions of creativity and art. Computers start to have creative behaviors in which the artist conducts his work. Both, generative practices and interactivity have a special impact on the creation of Art and in its new relationships. Interactivity and generative processes can create a space for genuine innovative creative practices in art where the artwork is the result of collaborative work between computers and users. Is our goal to express generative practices not as a static creative process, but instead as an iterative communication between system and interface/ interface and user. This collaboration between system, user and artist gains higher relevance through the creation of an interface that is capable of synthesizing these expressions. In the process of identification of a new way of relating generative graphics systems and user/performer, an application for mobile devices was developed where interaction takes into account the need to express the generative processes through the interface, generating a greater connection between the three parties (generative system, interface system and user). This need comes from the generative system itself since it is semi-autonomous and is constantly undergoing modifications exhausted in any type of static and rigid interface . Sliders and buttons take away the freedom of a system that aims to expand connections and collaborations, where the authoritarian act of the user/performer overrides the choices of the system by imposing their own. ALIVEART proposes a new form of communication where the generative graphics interface adapts depending on the characteristics of an artificial living system. Thus, the parameters set by the system are modified on the interface showing only those that the user may interact. Over time these choices cause modification of the a-life as well as the interface. The result is a system that algorithmically, via sound inputs, draws graphics that are modified by an adaptive interface. Rather than change the operation of the interface, we sought to create new interaction paradigms in which the user’s interference is revised by proposing a more conscious way to interact with artificial living systems. Via a survey of three areas of expertise (designers, performers and user interface experts), ALIVEART was assessed. New areas of interest were identified that confirmed the necessity to implement interfaces that adapt to systems and users thus allowing new forms of relationships and creative processes in the creation of digital art.No processo de encontrar novas formas de criar obras de arte, os artistas conseguem transgredir as noções tradicionais de criatividade e arte. Computadores desenvolvem comportamentos criativos em que os artistas decidem exploram capacidades externas a eles para alcançar novas expressões artísticas. Ambos, práticas generativas e a interatividade, têm um impacto especial na criação da arte e nas suas relações. Nesta conjuntura, interatividade e os processos generativos são um espaço de práticas inovadoras, criativas e originais para a arte em que a obra é resultado de um trabalho colaborativo entre artista, computadores e utilizadores. É o nosso objetivo demostrar que as práticas generativas não como um processo criativo estático, mas sim como uma comunicação que se repete entre sistema e interface / interface e usuário. Esta colaboração entre o sistema, usuário e artista, que ganha maior relevância através da criação de uma interface que é capaz de sintetizar todas estas expressões gerando uma nova visão artística que resulta dessa articulação. Através de uma detalhada revisão bibliográfica conseguimos datar as primeiras modificações de paradigma que foram decisivos na criação dos conceitos que trabalhamos nos dias de hoje. Dos 60 em diante, a arte e os aspectos socioculturais sofreram mudanças muito importantes permitindo que os artistas rejeitassem as práticas artísticas tradicionais e que introduzissem novas ideias. Essas ideias mudaram a forma como os artistas produziram arte e até mesmo aquilo que era considerado arte. Artistas dos movimentos artisticos Fluxus e Arte Conceptual foram reesposáveis por criar uma clivagem ainda maior entre antigas e novas práticas através da introdução de ideias que são a base para a arte como a conhecemos hoje. Essas ideias foram essenciais para gerar nos anos 90 o espaço em que os artistas por computador encontraram para explorar novas mídias na produção de arte. Uma das maiores mudanças que ocorreram durante os anos 60 advém da obra de arte deixar de estar relacionada com o artefacto, passando a ser mais relevante as ideias e os processos relacionados com o ato artístico. Artistas conceituais começaram a expor as suas instruções para a construção de uma determinada obra de arte como sendo a própria obra de arte. Este processo de separação das práticas artistas e das técnicas, incentivou novas estratégias de arte e deu um novo significado para o papel do artista. O processo tornou-se o aspecto mais importante das práticas artísticas alterando por completo a relação entre arte e artista. Com o uso do computador essas ideias ganham forma através da introdução de sistemas interativos (resultado directo da arte particiativa) e através da criação de comportamentos semiautónomos que surgiam das regras estabelecidas no computador. Muitos artistas contemporâneos desenvolveram tais obras de arte e foram capazes de criar um novo tipo de criatividade que emerge destas três entidades: o usuário, artista e sistema generativo. Apesar do computador permitir aos utilizadores novas formas de criar, muitas vezes verificamos que as estratégias utilizadas não conseguem desfrutar de forma completa da autonomia de sistemas externos devido a forma como se estabelece a interação. Em resposta, surge a necessidade de buscar uma nova forma de se relacionar sistemas gráficos generativos e utilizador/performer de uma forma que explorasse as capacidades dos sistema de vida articial dandolhe realmente alguma autonomia sobre a sua condição. Optou-se por desenvolver uma aplicação para dispositivos móveis onde a interação toma em consideração a necessidade do sistema de se expressar através do interface, gerando uma maior conexão entre as três partes (sistema generativo, interface e utilizador). Essa necessidade advém dos sistemas generativos serem semiautónomos e estarem constantemente a se modificarem, se esgotado num interface estático e rígido. Sliders e botões esgotam a liberdade de um sistema que pretende ampliar conexões e colaborações, onde o ato autoritário do utilizador/performer aniquila as escolhas do sistema impondo as suas próprias. ALIVEART propõe uma nova forma de comunicação com sistemas de gráficos generativos onde o interface se adapta consoante as características de um sistema de vida artificial. Essa adaptação significa que os parâmetros definidos pelo sistema se modificam no interface mostrando somente aqueles que o utilizador pode interferir. Ao longo do tempo as escolhas do a-life vão modificando assim como o interface. O resultado é um sistema que através do som desenha algoritmicamente gráficos que são modificados através de um interface adaptativo. Esta interface adaptiva apresenta ao performer os elementos visuais que podem ser controlados excluindo os que, naquele momento, são irrelevantes permitindo mais foco no ato performativo e permitindo que o utilizador/ performer seja capaz de uma maior imersão no sistema em si. Mais do que manipular parâmetros buscamos metáforas que sejam capazes de ampliar a comunicação entre mundo virtual e actual permitindo até criar uma ligação simbiótica entre os três elementos envolvidos. Mais do que alterar o funcionamento do interface, buscou-se criar novos paradigmas de interação onde o próprio acto de interferência do utilizador é revisto, sendo proposta uma forma mais consciente de interagir com sistema artificiais vivos e consequentemente explorando mais profundamente as propostas dos sistemas vivos artificiais através de tomam decisões ao definir a informação que é partilhada com o utilizador através do interface. Através de testes realizados com especialista das três áreas que sustenta ALIVEART (design, HCI e performance) foi avaliado a adequação dessa proposta e definidos novas áreas de interesse confirmando a necessidade de implementar interfaces que se adaptam ao sistemas e ao utilizadores para expandir novas formas de relações e processos criativos na criação de arte digital. Concluímos em nossos experimentos que tal tipo de interface Alcançou resultados importantes na promoção da colaboração e do compromisso do utilizador com sistemas generativos, promovendo uma interação mais dinâmica e fluida com um sistema que é, por definição, semiautónomo. Como que se espera das práticas generativas e interativa abordadas na revisão de literatura, ambas características foram muito importantes no processo de definição do conceito de criatividade. No desenvolvimento da interface de ALIVEART notamos que interface adaptável não só torna a tarefa para ambos os sistemas mas fácil como também muda o processo de criatividade em si, permitindo que o usuário defina e implemente num sistema externo à ele habilidades que promovam a criatividade. Apesar dos resultados positivos obtidos com este primeiro protótipo conseguimos apontar novos caminhos de investigação que se desenrolam do trabalho aqui desenvolvido. É nossa proposta que se amplie as possibilidades de escolha do sistema, colaborando ainda mais com o utilizadores apostando nas escolhas do sistema para o desenvolvimento de novas formas criativas de gerar gráficos. Acreditamos também que técnicas como Music Information Retrieval (MIR) são de grande importância para esta linha de trabalho uma vez que permitem que o sistema reconheça e se adapte mais livremente ao estilo musical de cada concerto

Sense-making of consumer wellbeing in information technology-enabled services from a relational ontology position

Information technology (IT) built into products and services have become the key drivers for service innovation. How information technology-enabled services (ITESs) affect consumer wellbeing has increasingly become a concern to service scholars. In response to this, transformative service research (TSR) has emerged as a new stream in service research. This paper investigates consumer wellbeing derived from the consumption of ITESs in consumers’ daily lives. A mixed-method approach was employed in our study, including self-reflective reports, in-depth interviews and visual artistic methods. We demonstrated that a relational ontology, drawing on the ‘focal things’ concept (Borgmann, 1984) and sociomateriality (Orlikowski, 2009), could be used as a lens for us to understand consumer wellbeing in ITESs. We used four vignettes to demonstrate how relational ontology can enhance our understanding of consumer wellbeing in ITESs. Theoretically, this paper contributes to TSR by proposing and demonstrating the need to shift or at least extend the extant predominant technology ontology in marketing literature to make sense of consumer experiences and wellbeing in ITESs. In practice, this research encourages ITESs designers to emphasise the relational entanglement of technology with consumer routine practices in their service innovations for the purposes of consumer wellbeing

PRINCIPLES OF METADESIGN Processes and Levels of Co-Creation in the New Design Space

In the tight of the material and cultural conditions of the present world and within the context of current design theories, this research aims to provide an understanding of Metadesign as emerging design cutture, and to integrate and advance its conceptual framework and principles through a tra nsdisci pli nary dialogue with the aesthetics and practice of Net Art. By rejecting the notion of Metadesign as an established design approach and practice, the creation of an etymological hypothesis based on the meanings of the prefix "-meta" (behind, together, between) becomes possible. Following this historical and cultural path, the research describes theories, frameworks and practices of Metadesign that have occurred in art, culture and media since the 1980s, in fields, such as, graphic design, industrial design, software engineering, information design, interaction design, biotechnotogical design, telecommunication art, experimental aesthetics, and architecture. The comparison and integration of all these approaches and viewpoints attows the identification of some design trends. More significantly, however, such an analysis enables the deconstruction of clusters of concepts and the production of a map of coherent etements. The anticipatory, participatory and sociotechnical issues raised 4 by the emerging and interconnected concepts that underlie Metadesign can be articulated and summarized in a three-fotd path based on the initial epistemological hypothesis. This can be characterized by three specific terms: 1) behind (designing design); 2) with (designing together); 3) betweenlamon3 (designing the "inbetween "). Interactive Art practitioners and theorists, both at an aesthetic and practical level, also share concerns about interaction, participation and co-creation. Compared to more financially oriented fields, Interactive Art, and collaborative practices of Net Art specificalty, have been We to answer to the new materiat and existentiat condition outlined by interconnectivity with a more dismantling experimentalism. The insights and advances they have produced in relation to the embodied and intersubjective dimension of human experience and creativity are stilt to be fully explored. Such insights can significantly fortify the three-fold path elaborated by this research, particutarty the third fo(d, which is concerned with the design of the 0rinbetween ". Focusing on collaborative systems for graphical interaction, as more suitable to the goal of understanding basic embodied and intersubjective processes of co-creation, the research identifies and analyses three projects of Net Art as case studies (GL&n6rateur Po*i 6tique, Open Studio, SITO Synergy Gridcosm). The results of these case studies provide an understanding of the experience of co-creation, a grasp of motivationat paths to co-creation, and a description of the features of the computationat environment which can sustain co-creation

The Body Politics of Data

The PhD project The Body Politics of Data is an artistic, practice-based study exploring how feminist methodologies can create new ways to conceptualise digital embodiment within the field of art and technology. As a field of practice highly influenced by scientific and technical methodologies, the discursive and artistic tools for examining data as a social concern are limited. The research draws on performance art from the 60s, cyberfeminist practice, Object Oriented Feminism and intersectional perspectives on data to conceive of new models of practice that can account for the body political operations of extractive big data technologies and Artificial Intelligence. The research is created through a body of individual and collective experimental artistic projects featured in the solo exhibition The Body Politics of Data at London Gallery West (2020). It includes work on maternity data and predictive products in relation to reproductive health in the UK, created in collaboration with Loes Bogers (2016-2017), workshops on “bodily bureaucracies” with Autonomous Tech Fetish (2013-2016) and Accumulative Care, a feminist model of care for labouring in the age of extractive digital technologies. This research offers an embodied feminist methodology for artistic practice to become investigative of how processes of digitalisation have adverse individual and collective effects in order to identify and resist the forms of personal and collective risk emerging with data driven technologies