Design and evaluation across disciplines

A brief overview of national and international efforts to incorporate creative practices from the arts and humanities into technology design and evaluation practice.

Key similarity among efforts to merge arts, humanities, technology and HCI:

Core belief that theory and practice across disciplines will be improved by increased collaboration and understanding as technology becomes an increasingly ubiquitous part of life in the new century.

Why this?Why now?

Big technical systems do not seem to enhance our feelings of personal fulfillment, enjoyment, delight, surprise, or inspiration as we are using them in the way that great movies, provocative artwork, or poignant music make us connect to ourselves and others through the experience of shared creative expression.

Differences among efforts to merge arts, humanities, HCI and technology:

“How” to work together:

• Artists/scientists will make art about science

• Artists/scientists will “rethink” science--art IS science

• Artists/scientists will critique science

• Artists/scientists will use scientific methods in their work

• Artists/scientists will develop systems to support creativity and personal expression

Artists/scientists will make art about scienceAmerica’s Most Wanted Painting (Komar and Melamid)

“The United States survey was sponsored by the Nation Institute. The survey of 1001 adults was conducted by Marttila & Kiley, Inc.”

Artists/scientists will “rethink” science--Art IS science The Influencing Machine (Sengers, Höök)

Vibe Reflector (Boehner, Gay)

“Affective Computing”

Artists/scientists will critique scienceAfghan Exploprer (Csikszentmihalyi)

Artists/scientists will use scientific methods in their workHome Horoscopes / Home Health Monitor (Gaver and Sengers)

Artists/scientists will develop systems to support creativity and personal expression

NSDL MagPads (Terrizzi and Cramer)

Initiatives, organizations, groups

• The Committee on Information Technology and Creativity of the Computer Science and Telecommunications Board Div. on Engineering and Physical Sciences of the National Research Council of the National Academies investigated the intersection between computing and the humanities or arts with funding from the Ford Foundation. The 2003 report, Beyond Productivity, Information Technology, Innovation, and Creativity, is available online at: http://www7.nationalacademies.org/cstb/pub_creativity.html

Initiatives, organizations, groups

• King’s Manor (KM) Group on Arts, Humanities, and HCI Artists, designers, interactive media developers, and HCI practitioners were brought together by the University of York to discuss how arts and humanities practices and theory might be brought into HCI methodologies. Collaborative projects among HCI practitioners and artists have resulted in early examples of how this might be done. Some of this work is discussed in workshop position papers posted at the web site.online at: http://www.hiraeth.com/conf/HCI-arts-humanities-2003/

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Initiatives, organizations, groups

• Seoul Digital Media City http://www.dmc.seoul.kr/english/why/overview.jsp

• BRIDGES International Consortium on Collaboration in Art & Technology http://www.banffcentre.ca/bnmi/bridges/

• The Kitchen http://www.thekitchen.org

Acknowledgements

The Cornell Affective Computing Group:•Prof. Geri Gay

•Prof. Phoebe Sengers

•Kirsten Bohner

•Jofish Kaye

•Susan Porter Wyche