Creativity and Decision Making Processes

I have about 30 million thoughts running through my head on Thursday but the discussion always seemed to move on faster than my mind could run.

But I did write down some of my questions as we went along:

How is decision making processes random? Are they?
What is art? (seems like we have different definitions of what it is--clearing this up could help us communicate?)
What is my decision making process when it comes to art?
What does Dan mean 'we think so differently?'
Is there a commonality in the creative process?
How do we define creativity?
Is art making at all random?
What is random?
Is predictability bad? How does predictably factor into art? Is 'good art' unpredictable?

I'll muse on a few of these questions in this post.

First I'll address Dan's statement that "we think so differently"
On this point I disagree almost entirely. Sure every person "thinks differently" I don't think that's hard to argue, but I think a more accurate statement would be that we express our ideas differently. And not just because someone uses paint and someone else uses binary, I mean the words we use. I think that lead to a lot of misunderstanding on Thursday. Our vocabularies are different when we're expressing our ideas. I grew up with a Mother who double majored in Computer Science and Mathematics and went on to get a Masters in Math. My grandfather chaired the Math Department at BYU for a number of years. My sister is a Mechanical Engineer . . . I have a lot of experience with trying to express myself so my family gets it. But they do, and often we find we're on the same page in a lot of ways.

Second, How do we define creativity?
I was thinking a lot about this and couldn't come up with something succinct. I thought of one work I like better than creative and it was innovative, but beyond that I couldn't think up any that I really thought expressed what so-called creativity is. Is it original? No, a lot of things I would deem creative but not original. It's sticky really. And it's something I've never really tried to define. I'll keep working at it.

Lastly, Predictability.
We talked about this briefly in class and Dave said, "is predictability bad?" Well, not in some cases, but I think as artists you don't want to be predictable and so yes, it is. What is the point of trying to create (connoting something innovative or new) if it's predictable? It would defeat the purpose for creation.

Nothing is original...

How Can We Talk About Creativity?

In the context of class discussions, the word creativity is unclear and I think almost worthless. It is important that we all have the same understanding of what we mean when we say “creative”, otherwise it’s going to be hard to communicate. What are people’s thoughts on what creativity means? Let’s see if we can come to a consensus on what we mean for the purposes of the class, and for the purposes of discussing DARCI.

My working definition is (derived from Csíkszentmihályi): creativity is the process of making creative artifacts (pictures, songs, algorithms, designs, ideas, stories, etc.). Creative artifacts are artifacts that a field (judges) deem valuable and novel to a domain (category of artifact). In other words, the artifact is going to stretch and change the domain in some way that the field accepts.

When attributing creativity, the field can be as broad or as narrow as you please, but the attribution of creativity is limited by the field. For example, the field could be me alone. Then I would essentially be evaluating my own artifacts. If I decided they were creative then they are, but only to me. This would be an example of the p-creativity mentioned in class. If I wanted to create something that was considered H-creative in a particular domain, then my artifact would need to be accepted by the field representing the entire domain (the experts of a domain / the gatekeepers). Obviously, the field can be anywhere in between these two extremes.

The domain can also be as broad and narrow as you please. In other words, the term is not limited to a discreet set of established domains such as visual arts, or music, or math, or whatever. It could be a hybrid or a sub-area of these for example. However, for there to be H-creativity, then there needs to be a field that defines what a specific domain is.

My understanding is that artists and scientists are striving for H-creativity in their respective domains (that’s the point of being an artist or a scientist). This does not mean that p-creativity is meaningless. For someone to be capable of H-creativity, they must be capable of p-creativity. I think that this does NOT necessarily mean that something that is deemed H-creative is p-creative.

What about artists that explicitly do not want to be accepted by the field? I’m no artist so I may not know what I’m talking about; but, I think that there actually aren’t artists like this if you think about it. Rather, these artists are hoping that the domain will change, hopefully in a radical way, because of their work. Or even better, a new domain will be created! Once that happens, then of course the artist will be uncomfortable because a field now exists that accepts their work. So, the artist will continuously try to change the domain (or create new domains). Boden, calls this transformational creativity (T-creativity) and if I remember correctly, I think she considers it the “highest” form of creativity. At any rate, acceptance by a field is still part of the process.

I feel like I just wrote a book :) Anyways, please expand, discuss, or tear-apart these ideas; or share your own. Let’s come to an understanding of what we mean by creativity.

Thoughts..

The concept behind DARCI has been fascinating. I have been dwelling on a certain question about the way in which DARCI is learning. Language is a complicated area. We are influenced in many ways in how we communicate and when we feed DARCI adjectives I wonder how accurate her perceptions will be in the end. If one were to look at a work of art and feed DARCI adjectives and then individual comes to the site and see the same picture but has just been in a horrible argument and feel angry or their day has been unhappy, how will that affect the process in her learning? Is that the end goal for her vocabulary is to grow by feeding her different words that have emotional responses attached? (that can change how one would view or describe a work of art, I think)

Joe also asked us to contribute, via the blog, what we feel needs to be present in the process of creating a work of art. We sometimes feel that we have to be singular in approach (i.e. it is all centered around our own ideas and no one else.) Yet as I have gone through school I found that you are hindering your possibilities by secluding outside forces. There are many ways to view having input. One could look at higher power, a fellow classmate, an instructor, an individual that is simply coming to view your art, etc. How open are we to new ideas?

Also, what about what we like to call in the art community 'happy accidents'? Do we always embrace them and allow them to guide our initial direction into a new direction? I guess with all of these ideas the question really comes down to: Do we need to have so much control? I am sure as the semester goes on I will realize more and then update, but for now it is some food for thought for us as artist and also as DARCI is progressing towards her end goal of creation her own art.

The student has become the teacher

The copy of a copy activity we did in class was fun and insightful. During the in class discussion and afterward I thought about how that activity could apply to what we are trying to do with DARCI. When we make photocopies of photocopies we loose quality each time. However, as discussed in class, this change isn't always bad, in fact in may be very good. It reminds me of a teacher to student relationship. When a student learns from a teacher it can be thought of as copying information from the teacher to the student. However, the student can understand and interpret the information differently and the information is then changed a little. That student can then teach another student and the information is then changed again. Teaching DARCI adjectives seems no different than this. We as the teachers have our own understanding of these adjectives and how they are associated with images. DARCI, however, will develop her own understanding and interpretation of these adjectives that will be a little different from our own. These differences could provide an argument that DARCI is not just an overall reflection of her teachers, but adds something of her own. I also think it would be very interesting to have DARCI teach another copy of DARCI and compare them.

I Can Control My Heart Beat

Brian, I can control my heart beat. On a drizzly spring afternoon a few years ago, I was receiving a physical. I can remember the metallic cold of the stethoscope caress my back and chest. Then the doctor tested my heart rate. Because the physical was one of the athletic team sort, she had me run in place. After two minutes of running in place she tested my heart rate again. To her surprise, as well as mine, my heart rate had dropped. "What?" you say. Running would make your heart rate increase, not decrease. Well this is what happened. For years I had been running thirty to forty miles a week. Then I stopped. I hadn't run much in about six months. Luckily my body still had muscle memory. When my heart rate was supposed to raise, the training I had submitted my body to kicked in, and I slowed my heart instead. So you see, I can control the beat of my heart.

I rely on certain words, composed in a certain order, to connect with the reader and pull their interest in. Some people call these words the title. I also rely heavily on the reader having experienced a trip to the Doctor. This helps the reader connect to my story through their own experience. Without these connections the reader will lose interest in this story. The art of creating is not so much about slapping paint, or words onto an empty canvas. It is about communicating the creators intent. Creating is an attempt at communication through conditioned responses. The artist, writer, or scientist is trying to convey their thoughts by manipulating the viewers previous experience.

Images for Thought

For an assignment in another class, I read a chapter in a book called Western Wind (an introduction to poetry) by David Mason and John Frederick Nims. This chapter attributed all thinking to images. When a word is used, the reader has an image flutter through their mind. From the day we are born, we are taught to relate certain images with certain attributes. If I say the word hot, what do you see? A sunburned man, sweating large droplets of sweat, surrounding by nothing but cactuses. Or, the coils of a stove red hot and ready for a pot. The point is the word hot is processed in our minds using images. Without these images a word could not be processed, or thought. As the Darci project started to take shape in my mind; words swirling around in chaos began to settle down into a pattern that I seemed to understand. I read this chapter about imagery and thought, and realized this is what Darci does. She has images that she relates to a word. So when she is given a word she provides an image that she feels relates. Is this much different than the human process of thought?

;alialakia

Like the title of this post, I was left slightly confused. Each slide, each word, seemed to enter my head in an incongruent pattern. The first question I was able to identify as such, was, "Can Darci be given an image to create a word?" I found myself questioning who defines words. Then I realized that no word is defined the same. Each individual person has their own set of experiences that affect their perception of a word. These perceptions are often caused by past experiences in which they attribute feelings. These feelings are the defining factor in a definition. Kind of blew my mind. Will Darci be created with feelings? Or will she always be dependant on people?

Reflections so far

Darci is exciting. When we were introduced to the program and the project I had a lot of questions. Why do we want a computer to be creative? What purpose does it serve? Why is it important to understand the functions of creativity? What is creativity? How do you define it?

I was thinking about the questions that Darrel and David were asking us during class as we viewed each slide. "Is this creative? Is this artistic?" The words were so hard for me to define even to myself that I just went with a visceral response. Later in an art criticism class we were looking at Thomas Kinkade and I thought, "This is neither creative nor artistic" and slowly a definition is forming.

But still, what does this have to do with computers? I like that my computer isn't creative, that it reacts to what I tell it to do and that's all. I'm in the driver's seat and I determine the functions. I do think this project is exciting and interesting and worth pursuing, I'm just not exactly sure why yet.

I think that the projects in class have helped us to better understand "creativity." The activity designed by Amy and Melissa helped me to understand that each of us goes through a very real decision making process when we make art, and that that process varies greatly for each person. It made me wonder if Darci's decision making process will ever evolve to be as complex and often spontaneous as the decisions that we make as artists. I found that my approach to the project was very intuitive, I'm didn't consciously say, "I'll draw this and not this." I had the word "lonely" and I associate certain images with that word. In a way I guess it's like what Darci does. She pulls images that she associates with words or feelings.

It will be interesting to see how my understanding of many of these concepts evolve over the course of the semester.

A Creative Computer?

The first week of class was pretty exciting! The class made some very good comments about creativity in computers and seemed to enjoy the concept of DARCI. They expressed some great ideas about how we can help DARCI move toward creativity. For example, artists talk a lot about how their current mood and current life circumstances affect their work. They want to express their mood, or the feelings they feel when things happen in their life. So it would be cool to give DARCI something like a mood component that changes based on things like the weather, or current events in the world, or how often people interact with her. This mood component would then influence the way DARCI decides to render images. It is a neat idea that would significantly add to her ability to communicate intention in her artefacts.

Artificial Expression (Week 1)

So this is the first time I’ve posted in a blog. Pretty exciting! Anyways, I was thrilled with the response that the class gave to DARCI during our first week of class. Honestly, I had no idea what to expect. I was worried that maybe people would be upset, thinking that we were trying to replace human artists or something. Obviously that is impossible, since one of the main purposes of art is to act as a medium for people to express themselves—at least that’s the way I see it. Which leads to an interesting question: can a computer express itself with art, and if so, what is the value? I'm going to ponder this question now.

Beginning

Welcome to Art[ificial].  We will be using the blog as part of our experiment in what?  Computational Creativity?  Mixed Initiative Content?  Each time we meet together (that is, every Thursday), we will each be required to write at least one paragraph on what happened, what we think about it, what we learned, insights we had, etc.  At the end of the semester, we will have a good deal of (subjective) data about something, and it will be interesting to see what we can make of it all.  Perhaps this blog will die then.  Or, perhaps not.