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The first symposium on Creativity and Cognition in 1993 was an experiment in bringing together researchers and practitioners whose common interest was the creative process but whose goals, methods and domain expertise were markedly diverse. The very success of the event and the lively character of the debate between scientists, artists, designers and computer technologists, was, in no small measure, a product of that diversity. The programme ranged from personal reflections upon practice by artists to developments in computational models of creativity and the design of computer tools for creative tasks (see the proceedings, Candy and Edmonds, 1993). In addition, selected papers were published in the journals Languages of Design, Leonardo and Knowledge-Based Systems.
The International Symposium Creativity & Cognition has many starting points. In other words, it did not begin at a single moment. Rather, a number of threads developed which come together at this meeting. In terms of active debate these threads began more than twenty years ago but, as with many ideas of the late sixties and early seventies, there was a long period when they were only followed up in very isolated pockets. In this particular case, the first revival of real debate that I became involved with was the the "Exhibiting Space" series of discussions, exhibitions and performances in London in 1985. The discussions included the development of many interesting questions. For example, the artist Jeffrey Steele asked:
"What is the relation between the abstract beauty of the internal relations of a formal system and the sensual appeal of its representation-in-utterance ...... What is the relation between that objectivity ... which is attributable to formal systems, and that which is attributable to objects in the material world?".
Such questions may not be the exact concern of this meeting, but the answers might be very helpful to us. Certainly, at the centre of our concern is the relationship of the creative process to formal systems and to clear descriptions of the process. Thus, the relations between the value systems that, in principal, can be applied to material objects on the one hand and formal systems on the other, are relevant.
In 1988 two quite distinct but relevant meetings took place. The exhibition of constructive art, "Null-Dimension", together with a related PRO conference was held in Fulda, Germany. This brought a large number of artists who were concerned with formal systems together. In the same year, but on the other side of the world, a small conference was held on an appropriately small Great Barrier Reef Island, Heron. It was called "Modeling creativity and knowledge-based creative design". Philosophers, scientists and engineers debated creativity. Other meetings of artists and designers, on the one hand, and of thinkers and engineers on the other, have grown in number each year since that time.
An interest that has been common to all of these meetings is the nature of the creative process itself. Hence the cognitive modelling of creativity, the empirical study of the creative process and the theoretical reflection upon its characteristics are of concern to everyone involved whether artist, designer, philosopher, cognitive scientist or computer scientist.
The concern of Creativity & Cognition is to bring together representatives of all of the interests in order that each might inform and stimulate the other. The success of the venture is in the hands of the participants.
Creative Constraints and Unpredictability
Margaret Boden
University of Sussex, U.K.
Turning Breakdowns into Opportunities for Creativity
Gerhard Fischer
University of Colorado, U.S.A
A Search for Eudaemonia
Michael Kidner
Artist, U.K.
Parallel Lines of Thought
Bryan Lawson
University of Sheffield, U.K.
The Art Work as a Model of Society
Stephen Willats
Artist, U.K.
On Algorithmic Processes in Music Composition
James Harley
McGill University, Canada
Towards Artificial Creativity
Matthew Elton
University of Sussex, U.K.
Using the Computer to Augment Creativity: Computer Choreography
John Lansdown
Middlesex University, U.K.
Cognitive and Physiological Processes Underlying the Art of Drawing
Christopher Frith and John Law
MRC Cyclotron Unit, Hammersmith Hospital, U.K.
Navigating through Compositional Space
James Alty
Loughborough University, U.K.
Creative Participatory Behaviour in a Programmed World
Stephen Bell
Bournemouth University U.K.
A Personal Approach to the Computer as a Fine Art Medium
Mike North
Loughborough College of Art and Design, U.K.
The Development of My Work since 1970
Jiro Sugawara
Artist, Japan
The Timeless Fact of the Fourth Dimension in Art
Waldo Balart
Artist, Belgium
Three Objects: Object-Object, Object-Building, Object-City
Leandro Madrazo
ETH, Switzerland
Muse and Computer
Mikhael Porada and Sabine Porada
LAMI. G.I.P. France
Culture, Knowledge and Creativity: Beyond Computable Numbers
Ernest Edmonds
Loughborough University, U.K.
The Science of Correspondences and Russian Avant Garde Poetry and Painting
Patricia Railing
U.K.
Aesthetics and Representation in Art and Science
Arthur Miller,
University College London, U.K.
Extensionalism and Twistor Space
Fré Ilgen
PRO Foundation, Netherlands
Computer Technology: Methods and Tools for Design
A Method to Assist Building and Expressing Subjective Concepts and its Application
to Design Problems
Masanori Sugimoto, Koichi Hori & Setsuo Ohsuga,
University of Tokyo, Japan
WOLFGANG: PrŽcis of Architectural Elements which Bias Musical Design
Douglas Riecken
AT & T Bell Labs, U.S.A.
Programmable Applications for the Arts: Computational Tools for Hand, Eye
and Mind
Michael Eisenberg
University of Colorado U.S.A.
Computer Support for Designers: Back to the Drawing Board
Kathleen Carter
EuroPARC, U.K.
The Use of Interactive Computer Techniques to Capture and Structure Drawing
Surface Activity.
Sean Clark and Stephen A.R. Scrivener
Loughborough University and Derby University
The Cognitive Dimensions of Sketching Notations and Media in Creative Design
Activity
Charles Wood
University of Sussex, UK
Once upon a Meantime
Angela Eames
Artist, U.K.
Interactive Multi-Media : Creative Catalyst or Constraint?
Nancy Flint and John Sparrow
University of Central England, U.K.
Designing for End-user Redesign: Coupling Artifact and Rationale
Anders Morch,
University of Oslo, Norway
Small World Stephen Bell The Ally (VI) Dominic Boreham Life-Force Richard Brown Between Theory and Practice Angela Eames Rotterdam A Ernest Edmonds Ropes Jean-Pierre Husquinet Spiral Permutation Colin Jones Woodpecker II/The Community Michael Kidner Light Relief John Law Untitled Peter Lowe Diamond Series/Broken Circles Mike North Descent to Paradise Sabine Porada Inside Out CU-B Jiro Sugawara Natural Forms Anna Ursyn
Copies of C&C'93 Proceedings can be obtained from
Ernest Edmonds : E.A.Edmonds@lut.ac.uk
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