Translating experience

Abstract

This paper describes research investigating the significance of physical experience and materiality in creative digital visual art and design practice. Findings are presented from a recent phenomenological study, which indicates the ways in which memory of lived experience informs creative cognition and feeds the imagination. The importance of physical engagement with the world, through the senses, enables emotional expression to be made in artworks that can be perceived by both artist and audience. Digital creativity support tools have been found, in this research, to lack interfaces that facilitate the translation of these visual aesthetic qualities in the virtual representation. Hand use and the sense of touch stimulate novel ideas and enable practitioners to break from fixated thinking when working with digital design tools. Examples of artworks are presented that illustrate ways in which artists, working with digital technology, make use of physical experience to inform visual ideas and innovate design solutions. Case study research is described that illuminates the ways in which memory of physical bodily experience and the time related factors involved in making by hand are crucial within the creative process. Findings from this research are presented that reveal the importance of physical interaction with the world when working creatively with digital design tools.