A Phenomenological “Aesthetics of Isolation” as Environmental Aesthetics for an Era of Ubiquitous Art

Here the concept of the human being as a “relatively isolated system” developed in Ingarden’s later phenomenology is adapted into an “aesthetics of isolation” that complements conventional environmental aesthetics. Such an aesthetics of isolation is especially relevant, given the growing “aesthetic overload” brought about by ubiquitous computing and new forms of art and aesthetic experience such as those involving virtual reality, interactive online performance art, and artificial creativity

Towards artificial creativity: evolutionary methods for generating robot choreographies

Today robotics is widely used in many fields, from simple houseworks like floor cleaning to more complex tasks like rescuing people in dangerous situations such as earthquakes. Recently it has been expanding to a more creative field: entertainment. For this reason we have thought of developing a genetic algorithm that allows the robot to dance, starting from the codification of movements in order to achieve the creation of true choreographies.We start by analysing Noh choreographies, and then we transpose them ontoa humanoid robot, Nao. We then proceed by going through the implementation of an algorithm that allows the creation of choreographies. One of the hardest challenges that we will face is to create choreographies that are both faithful to Noh theater and new at the same time. We will conclude focusing on the evaluation criteria of the results and presenting some hypothesis for future developments in this field

Implementing feedback in creative systems : a workshop approach

One particular challenge in AI is the computational modelling and simulation of creativity. Feedback and learning from experience are key aspects of the creative process. Here we investigate how we could implement feedback in creative systems using a social model. From the field of creative writing we borrow the concept of a Writers Workshop as a model for learning through feedback. The Writers Workshop encourages examination, discussion and debates of a piece of creative work using a prescribed format of activities. We propose a computational model of the Writers Workshop as a roadmap for incorporation of feedback in artificial creativity systems. We argue that the Writers Workshop setting describes the anatomy of the creative process. We support our claim with a case study that describes how to implement the Writers Workshop model in a computational creativity system. We present this work using patterns other people can follow to implement similar designs in their own systems. We conclude by discussing the broader relevance of this model to other aspects of AI

Creativity and authenticity: perspectives of creative value, utility and quality

This paper is written from the perspective of creative practitioners in sound, music and the visual arts teaching in UK higher education. Primarily concerned with the understanding of creativity as a developmental capacity and identifiable and measurable process and outcome, what began initially as a focused discussion about the assessment of creative artefacts developed progressively into a more general analysis of creative value in terms of reception and developmental experience. Recognising the impact of new technologies and the changing conceptions of creative technique and craft, collaboration and origination, and diversification of attendant interpretive meanings inherent with new artistic forms, the study is an attempt to establish a position from which pedagogic practices can be honed and refined to meet the expectations and needs of contemporary practitioners and educational contexts. The objective in any educational experience and any process of artistic creation being to enrich and to effectively inform further development steps, value is therefore a highly diverse and granular commodity, measurable on many different scales, and capable of understanding in many different ways. This is a study of considerations and perspectives and ways of understanding and working with creative value and an attempt to develop a framework through which to base creative decisions as educators and practitioners. Creativity models tend to emphasise utility and originality as the key factors in determining creative value; the wider recognition and impact of the outcomes of creative endeavour preeminent in the interpretation and attribution of quality and significance. Whilst most evident and analytically objectifiable in the study of reception and in the analysis of outcomes, creative practices and processes nevertheless feature more prominently in the interpretation of value in some fields. Whilst the products of the creative practice of artists, musicians and writers retain the centre ground in the discourse of creativity, the authentication of creative endeavour is nevertheless closely connected to the narratives surrounding the inception and development of the work and the security of the connection established between the creative object and the creative originator; the intangible and entirely conceptual matter of attribution and provenance often proving more significant than physical artefact in substantiating at least commercial value in many cases. Investigating the potential for a meaningful definition of ‘authentic creativity’, notions of novelty, ignorance, forgery, fakery, reproduction and patterning, provide a basis for consideration of creativity both as an unstable concept and in parallel as a metaphor for the human condition. Considering the discourse of authenticity and aesthetics, this paper explores different perspectives of creativity as lived experience and positions analysis in the narratives of insight, imagination, and the romanticism of discovery and talent. Introducing an analysis of creativity through a series of conceptual models to illustrate key concepts and ideas, this essay presents a discussion rooted in a context of collapsing distinctions between the natural and the artificial, the authentic and the inauthentic, the original and the copy, and develops a tentative definition of authentic creativity and creative authenticity for wider consideration. That creativity matters in education and society is widely acknowledged and appreciated. This paper argues for a greater focus on the lived experience of creativity and the significance of determining value in terms of human experience over productivity

Artificial Creativity: A Case Against Copyright for AI-Created Visual Artwork

Artificial intelligence is becoming increasingly complex, and provides examples of compelling, human-like performances. One such artificial intelligence technology is known as Creative Adversarial Network (“CAN”) technology, which relies on inputs of preexisting pieces of art to create pieces of original art that pass as human-made. Whether the coders responsible for CAN-technology should be granted coverage for the resultant art remains an open question in United States jurisprudence. This paper seeks to explore why, given both software’s historical legacy in copyright law and bedrock copyright justifications, extending copyright coverage to the coders responsible for CAN technology would be a grave misstep in copyright policy

Swarm Intelligence and Weak Artificial Creativity

Swarm intelligence via its infamous struggle to identify a suitable balance between exploration and exploitation phases, provides a valuable mean to approach artificial creativity. This work deploys two swarm intelligence algorithms, one simulating the behaviour of birds flocking and fish schooling (Particle Swarm Optimisation) and the other mimicking the behaviour of ants foraging (Stochastic Diffusion Search) in order to lay the foundation for a discussion addressing the concepts of freedom and constraint within the topic of creativity in general, and more specifically their impact on the artificial creativity of the underlying systems. An analogy is drawn on mapping these two ‘prerequisites’ of creativity onto the two well-known aforementioned phases of exploration and exploitation in swarm intelligence algorithms. This is accompanied by the visualisation of the behaviour of the swarms whose performance are evaluated in the context of the arguments presented. Additionally in the spirit of Searle’s definition of weak and strong artificial intelligence, a discussion on weak vs. strong artificial creativity in swarm intelligence systems is presented