The Extended Importance of the Social Creation of Value in Evolutionary Processes

This is a single-authored paper delivered at the biennial European Conference on Artificial Intelligence (ECAI) in Riva del Garda, Italy 28 – 29 August 2006 and published in proceedings. The paper proposed that computational modelling be employed in order to test two processes that might hypothetically distinguish particular dimensions of human creativity. The first process is identified by the researcher as one in which the pursuit of novelty in artistic invention – especially music – tends to words the production of increasingly perceptually complex artefacts. The second process moves from a perspective orientated towards the individual artist and the individual art work’s reception to a more collective one: namely, whether cultural behaviour that tends towards novelty might find itself being reinforced by clustering of similar activities. This latter process would be one that explains why the process of “making special” – that may distinguish art in an anthropological sense – is one that forms particularly strong community bonds. These bonds between novelty seekers – which in the case of the researchers paper can be understood as musicians or artists – may reciprocally reinforce to support yet more novelty seeking. The relation of art and the new is not itself innovative. Boris Groys’ “On The New” provides a scoping of that territory. What is innovative is the proposal to use of computer simulation of individual and collective behaviour as a kind of artificial laboratory to determine the complex tendencies that animate these processes of novelty seeking and, by extension, artistic production. Computationally simulating behaviour that parallels both novelty-seeking as an individual practice (the artist) and the emergence of clusters of novelty seekers (the artistic styles) may, according to the researcher, provide us with new insights the historical evolution of creativity

Computational Social Creativity

This article reviews the development of computational models of creativity where social interactions are central. We refer to this area as computational social creativity. Its context is described, including the broader study of creativity, the computational modeling of other social phenomena, and computational models of individual creativity. Computational modeling has been applied to a number of areas of social creativity and has the potential to contribute to our understanding of creativity. A number of requirements for computational models of social creativity are common in artificial life and computational social science simulations. Three key themes are identified: (1) computational social creativity research has a critical role to play in understanding creativity as a social phenomenon and advancing computational creativity by making clear epistemological contributions in ways that would be challenging for other approaches; (2) the methodologies developed in artificial life and computational social science carry over directly to computational social creativity; and (3) the combination of computational social creativity with individual models of creativity presents significant opportunities and poses interesting challenges for the development of integrated models of creativity that have yet to be realized

Clap-along: A negotiation strategy for creative musical interaction with computational systems

This paper describes Clap-along, an interactive system for theorising about creativity in improvised musical performance. It ex- plores the potential for negotiation between human and computer par- ticipants in a cyclical rhythmic duet. Negotiation is seen as one of a set of potential interactive strategies, but one that ensures the most equitable correspondence between human and machine. Through mutual negotia- tion (involving listening/feature extraction and adaptation) the two par- ticipants attempt to satisfy their own and each other’s target outcome, without knowing the other’s goal. Each iteration is evaluated by both participants and compared to their target. In this model of negotiation, we query the notion of ‘flow’ as an objective of creative human-computer collaboration. This investigation suggests the potential for sophisticated applications for real-time creative computational systems

Player Responses to a Live Algorithm: Conceptualising computational creativity without recourse to human comparisons?

Abstract Live algorithms are computational systems made to perform in an improvised manner with human improvising musicians, typically using only live audio or MIDI streams as the medium of interaction. They are designed to establish meaningful musical interaction with their musical partners, without necessarily being conceived of as "virtual musicians". This paper investigates, with respect to a specific live algorithm designed by the author, how improvising musicians approach and discuss performing with that system. The study supports a working assumption that such systems constitute a distinct type of object from the traditional categories of instrument, composition and performer, which are capable of satisfying some of the expectations of an engaging improvisatory performance experience, despite being unambiguously distinct from a human musician. I investigate how the study participants' comments and actions support this view. Specifically: 1) participants interacting with the system had a stronger sense of the nature of the interaction than when they were passively observing the interaction; 2) participants couldn't tell what the "rules" of the interactive behaviour were, and didn't feel they could predict the behaviour, but reported this as being a positive, engaging aspect of the experience. Their actions implied that the improvisation had purpose and invited engagement; 3) participants strictly avoided discussing the system in terms of virtual musicianship, or of creating original output, and preferred to categorise the system as an instrument or a composition, despite describing the interaction of the system as musically engaging; 4) participants felt the long-term structure was lacking. Such results, it is argued, lend weight to the idea that as CC applications in real creation scenarios grow, the creative contribution of computer systems becomes less grounded in comparison with human standards

Creative Experiments Using a System for Learning High-level Performance Structure in Ableton Live

(Abstract to follow

Examining the Perception of Liveness and Activity in Laptop Music: Listeners’ Inference about What the Performer is Doing from the Audio Alone

Audiences of live laptop music have been known to express dismay at the opacity of performer activity and question how “live” such performances actually are. Yet motionless laptop performers endure as a musical spectacle from clubs to concert halls, suggesting that for many this is a non-issue. Understanding these perceptions might help performers better achieve their intentions, inform interface design within the NIME field and help our understanding of what ‘liveness’ means in the context of new performance practices. To this end, a study of listeners’ perception of liveness and performer control in laptop performance was carried out, in which listeners were presented with several short audio-only excerpts of laptop performances and answered questions about their perception of the performance: what they thought was happening and its sense of liveness. The study suggests that listeners naturally associate liveness with perceived performer activity (such as improvisation and the audibility of gestures). Listeners were also shown to be able to recognise generative music processes

'The Ghosts of Roller Disco', a Choreographed, Interactive Performance for Robotic Roller Skates

The project investigates how interactions with complex (biologically inspired swarming) behaviors of multiple robots are understood by human participants within a performative and dramaturgical system. Nonanthropomorphic robots in the form of roller skates are used in innovative ways by creating social formations from their movements, for example a leader and followers in a conga line. Synchronized audio signals and speech-like sonic structures are used in innovative ways by influencing and engaging the participant's interactions with the robots. Localization data of the robots in space is mapped to control the surround sound and lighting within the space. This is used to enhance audience immersion and engagement within the interactive performance work

Delineating Anaplasma phagocytophilum Ecotypes in Coexisting, Discrete Enzootic Cycles

Genetically distinct subpopulations have adapted to different niche

Timing of India-Asia collision: Geological, biostratigraphic, and palaeomagnetic constraints

A range of ages have been proposed for the timing of India-Asia collision; the range to some extent reflects different definitions of collision and methods used to date it. In this paper we discuss three approaches that have been used to constrain the time of collision: the time of cessation of marine facies, the time of the first arrival of Asian detritus on the Indian plate, and the determination of the relative positions of India and Asia through time. In the Qumiba sedimentary section located south of the Yarlung Tsangpo suture in Tibet, a previous work has dated marine facies at middle to late Eocene, by far the youngest marine sediments recorded in the region. By contrast, our biostratigraphic data indicate the youngest marine facies preserved at this locality are 50.6–52.8 Ma, in broad agreement with the timing of cessation of marine facies elsewhere throughout the region. Double dating of detrital zircons from this formation, by U-Pb and fission track methods, indicates an Asian contribution to the rocks thus documenting the time of arrival of Asian material onto the Indian plate at this time and hence constraining the time of India-Asia collision. Our reconstruction of the positions of India and Asia by using a compilation of published palaeomagnetic data indicates initial contact between the continents in the early Eocene. We conclude the paper with a discussion on the viability of a recent assertion that collision between India and Asia could not have occurred prior to ∼35 Ma