Creative Constraints Research Articles

AI-assisted Curatorial Research

This thesis explores the application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in curation, especially from the screening of photographic works to a new perspective of exhibition design and audience experience. With the rapid development of AI technology, the field of curation is undergoing profound changes.AI improves the efficiency and accuracy of work screening through image recognition and automated processing in photography; in exhibition design, it provides innovative tools for exhibition layout and optimisation by using Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) technology; and in terms of audience experience, AI enhances interaction and engagement through intelligent guides and personalised recommendations. interactivity and engagement. However, the application of AI also faces challenges, including data privacy, creative constraints, costs and technical thresholds. Future research will focus on the integration of AI with artistic creation, the enhancement of personalised experiences, privacy protection, and the integration of cross-domain technologies. By addressing these challenges, AI is expected to drive continued innovation and development in the curatorial industry, providing smarter and more efficient solutions for art presentation and audience experience.

Artificial intelligence (AI) -integrated educational applications and college students’ creativity and academic emotions: students and teachers’ perceptions and attitudes

BackgroundIntegrating Artificial Intelligence (AI) in educational applications is becoming increasingly prevalent, bringing opportunities and challenges to the learning environment. While AI applications have the potential to enhance structured learning, they may also significantly impact students’ creativity and academic emotions.ObjectivesThis study aims to explore the effects of AI-integrated educational applications on college students’ creativity and academic emotions from the perspectives of both students and teachers. It also assessed undergraduate students’ and faculty’s attitudes to AI-integrated applications.MethodologyA mixed-method research design was used. In the first phase, a qualitative research approach was employed, utilizing theoretical sampling to select informants. Data were collected through in-depth interviews with undergraduate students and university lecturers to gain comprehensive insights into their experiences and perceptions. A scale was developed, validated, and administered to 120 students and faculty in the quantitative phase. Descriptive statistics was used to analyze the data.FindingsThe study revealed that AI applications often impose rigid frameworks that constrain creative thinking and innovation, leading to emotional disengagement due to AI interactions’ repetitive and impersonal nature. Additionally, constant AI assessments heightened performance anxiety, and technical frustrations disrupted the learning process. Conversely, AI applications stimulated creativity by introducing new ideas and problem-solving techniques, enhanced engagement through interactive elements, provided personalized feedback, and supported emotional well-being with gamified elements and constant availability. Quantitative data also verified that teachers and students have positive attitudes toward the benefits and challenges of these applications.ConclusionsAI integration in educational applications has a dual-edged impact on college students’ creativity and academic emotions. While there are notable benefits in stimulating creativity and enhancing engagement, significant challenges such as creativity constraints, emotional disengagement, and performance anxiety must be addressed. Balancing these factors requires thoughtful implementation and continuous evaluation to optimize the role of AI in education.

THE USE OF NATURAL STONE IN FURNITURE DESIGN WITHIN THE CONTEXT OF LIMITATIONS AND CREATIVITY

The interaction of the individual with the environment contains boundaries. The phenomenon of creativity, which is revealed by the consciousness of the individual and the interaction of the environment, creates a tense situation with the limitations he is in and encounters. The study focuses on the correspondence of the boundaries created by the material in the design and the creative processes. The chain of choices that starts with the designer’s reaction to the limits of the material determines the direction of the design. In the study, the use of natural stone in design is handled through furniture and it is aimed to investigate the direction it finds in furniture as a design input and the direction it gives to design. For this purpose, firstly, furniture samples designed using natural stone were researched and 24 furniture were determined. Then, the type of natural stone materials used in the furniture was determined, the characteristics of the material used (physical, chemical, mechanical), how it directed the furniture design (functional, technical, aesthetic) were examined and analysis graphics were created for each furniture. Based on the data obtained, the advantages and disadvantages of using natural stone materials in furniture design have been revealed. As a result of the study, the importance of natural stone can have creative or guiding effects on design and while doing this, it is emphasized that it can display a beneficial and sustainable approach to the environment with the use of natural materials. At the same time, it is among the most important benefits of the research that it paves the way for other research on different materials and creative constraints in design.

Asymmetric VR Game Subgenres: Implications for Analysis and Design

This paper identifies subgenres of asymmetric virtual reality (AVR) games and proposes the AVR Game Genre (AVRGG) framework for developing AVR games. We examined 66 games “in the wild” to develop the AVRGG and used it to identify 5 subgenres of AVR games including David(s) vs. Goliath, Hide and Seek, Perspective Puzzle, Order Simulation, and Lifeline. We describe these genres, which account for nearly half of the 66 games reviewed, in terms of the AVRGG framework that highlights salient asymmetries in the mechanics, dynamics, and aesthetics categories. To evaluate the usefulness of the AVRGG framework, we conducted four workshops (two with the AVRGG framework and two without) with novice game designers who generated 16 original AVR game concepts. Comparisons between the workshop groups, observations of the design sessions, focus groups, and surveys showed the promise and limitations of the AVRGG framework as a design tool. We found that novice designers were able to understand and apply the AVRGG framework after only a brief introduction. The observations indicated two primary challenges that AVR designers face: balancing the game between VR and non-VR player(s) and generating original game concepts. The AVRGG framework helped overcome the balancing concerns due to its ability to inspire novice game designers with example subgenres and draw attention to the asymmetric mechanics and competitive/cooperative nature of games. While half of those who used the AVRGG framework to design with created games that fit directly into existing subgenres, the other half viewed the subgenres as “creative constraints” useful in jumpstarting novel game designs that combined, modified, or purposefully avoided existing subgenres. Additional benefits and limitations of the AVRGG framework are outlined in the paper.

Strategi Koperasi Syariah TKI Artha Mulya dalam Meningkatkan Perekonomian Purna TKI

The Artha Mulya TKI Cooperative is a Sharia Cooperative founded by TKI and retired TKI. The Artha Mulya TKI Sharia Cooperative has a market segment that includes the middle to lower levels of society. This research aims to answer, describe and analyze the problem formulation, namely 1. What is the Strategy of the Artha Mulya TKI Cooperative in Improving the Economy of Retired TKI through Creative Economy activities. 2. What are the obstacles and solutions for the TKI Artha Mulya Sharia Cooperative in improving the economy of retired TKI through creative economic activities. The research method used in this research is descriptive qualitative, namely a research method based on scientific objects. And the research instruments used to collect data are observation, interviews and documentation. The Artha Mulya TKI Sharia Cooperative has become popular and close to the community. The results of this research concluded that: (1) The Artha Mulya TKI Sharia Cooperative has several strategies to help improve the economy of its members and the wider community, namely borrowing business capital, creating business groups, holding business training, supplying raw goods, marketing production results, helping with paperwork. permission, while the strategy for the TKI Artha Mulya Sharia Cooperative in improving the economy of retired TKI through creative economic activities is to create a creative economic business in the form of a snack making business with the name "Snack Bu Ernie and KKBM Bintang Mulya". (2) The existence of creative economic activities held by the Artha Mulya Sharia Cooperative in this new normal era has increased the income level of retired migrant workers. The Artha Mulya TKI Sharia Cooperative has several obstacles in helping to improve the economy of retired TKI through creative economic activities, namely capital constraints, member creativity constraints, and product marketing constraints

(Plat)formatted Creativity: Creating Music in the Age of Streaming

What impact does music streaming have on the production and aesthetics of popular music? Based on 15 qualitative interviews with Norwegian music creators, this article explores how music production is executed and interpreted under the paradigm of platformization. Following the concept of ‘creativity constraints’ – a concept highlighting the restraining and enabling possibilities inherent in the complex sets of constraints surrounding creative agency – this article proposes an analysis centered around three different views emphasizing the opportunities, the limitations, and the negotiations that are put into play throughout the processes of platformized music production. The article finds that the music creators continuously negotiate between these three different (partly opposing, partly overlapping) views when producing music, of which an exchange between emphasizing the democratizing and creatively liberating potential of platformization, and criticizing the commercializing and creatively standardizing effect platformization (and the attention economy) pose on contemporary music culture, constitutes the analysis discursive point of gravity. In this way, the article highlights various dialectics and contradictions concerning the ways in which popular music production develops under the paradigm of platformization.

"Contradiction pushes me to improvise": Performer Expressivity and Engagement in Distanced Movement Performance Paradigms

The virtualization of traditionally in-person experiences has altered the workflows of performing arts communities, resulting in modifications to performance venues and alterations to expressiveness and interaction. 25 professional movement-based performers who have participated in both live and online performances were interviewed in order to determine how virtualization processes affected their practices and how they adapted to these changes. We discovered that performers viewed online performances as time-limited, non-interactive film recordings. Instead of avoiding distant venues, performers adapted to new limitations, inventing improvisation strategies in distracting environments and using time and technological constraints as creative constraints. To investigate how a distanced paradigm affects the live-action workflow of dancers, we staged a performance in which a dancer interacted with a robot in a remote location. The case study demonstrated that the performer modified her rehearsal techniques to work with remote technology and adapted to live interaction with a remote audience by visualizing unseen interactions. This study provides guidance for the design of interactive technology for virtual performances, taking into account the adaptation strategies that performers are currently employing to circumvent limitations of time, location, and absence.

Constructive constraints: On the role of chance and complexity in artistic creativity

Creativity is sometimes understood as the individual, mental creation of novelty which is then imposed as form onto a material substrate. On this view, constraints would feature only as obstacles in the creative process. In contrast, we support the view that creativity emerges from the interactions between human agents and the material, cultural, and social constraints that comprise a particular situation. In this account, constraints play a key enabling role, scaffolding the space of possibilities in which improvisation and chance give rise to novelty. In this paper, we review experimental work on interpersonal synergies between jazz pianists, which provides a scientific framework from which to approach the complex relationship between chance, constraints, and creativity. We also explore two case studies from the science of complexity and the creative arts in order to substantiate this notion of creative constraints: Anthony Braxton’s musical innovation at the intersection between composition and improvisation, and Marcel Duchamp’s radical interventions in the fields of sculpture and conceptual art.

Laugh Lines: Humor, Genre, and Political Critique in Late Twentieth-Century American Poetry

Laugh Lines: Humor, Genre, and Political Critique in Late Twentieth-Century American Poetry

Essay Jams and Collaborative Writing as a Community Event

The Pandemics and Games Essay Jam <https://pandemics-and-games-essay-jam.pubpub.org/> was a community writing event hosted by Arizona State University’s Center for Science and the Imagination <https://csi.asu.edu/> and online games writing nonprofit Critical Distance <https://critical-distance.com/> . The event drew on the practice of “game jams,” in which participants spend a short, focused period of time creating digital games, either as solo developers or teams that may have only formed at the start of the jam. Echoing prior events hosted by Critical Distance and organised by Emilie Reed, the essay jam provided a social context, theme, and creative constraints for participants to create a piece of writing and share it with a community. The publishing platform PubPub provided tools for peer feedback, swift sharing and revising, and sorting essays into sections that would comprise the structure for an ebook edition. Meanwhile, the existing Critical Distance Discord <https://discord.com/> server provided a space for synchronous chat during the jam and later for a book launch event. Building on Critical Distance’s role as a community hub and signposting resource for critical writing about games, the essay jam located submissions within a specific community structure. The leadership role of editors and curators at Critical Distance is nuanced, and the organisation’s work suggests a negotiation between two polar positions: neither fully autonomous and informal community-led editorial management, nor fully hierarchical and formal academic journal management. Critical Distance offers a recognition, response, and context for community writing, through events such as essay jams as well as ongoing curatorial and archiving work. In this essay, we consider how the essay jam, and Critical Distance’s larger editorial structure, both captures productive tensions in community-led, community-responsive publishing, and suggests future directions for structuring collaborative writing activities, from figuring out incentives for participating authors to creating a culture of dialogue around drafts and ideas in progress.

Trade‐offs to using standardized tools: Innovation enablers or creativity constraints?

AbstractResearch SummaryIn platform ecosystems, the creation of new products is often based on standardized development tools. Complementors often have a choice between either using these tools or creating the functionality themselves. In this paper, we study how the use of standardized development tools is related to the type of products created. By using data on the use of middleware (e.g., game engines) in the console video game market, we show that the use of development tools is associated with products that are less novel but with higher sales on average. We exploit a policy change that affected the ability of U.S.‐based developers to hire foreign workers as an instrument for the use of development tools and find further support for these patterns.Managerial AbstractWhen developing new products, firms often have to decide whether they base their technology on preexisting components and standardized tools or develop that technology themselves. In general, it has not been clear how using standardized third‐party tools that may be available to all firms in an industry affects the nature of the products that are created. Using data on middleware components, such as game engines, in the console video game industry, this paper shows the use of such standardized tools is associated with the creation of products that are less novel but generate higher sales on average. This is an important strategic consideration for firms, but also for platforms that make decisions regarding whether such tools should be allowed on their platform.

Challenging creativity constraints

In this design and development research, we revisit the term affordance and explore its contribution to understanding and facilitating collaborative designing in educational settings. Collaborative designing requires students to frame the design task and generate their design ideas by constructing the problem and solution together. We focused on various design challenges – that is to say, creativity constraints – during collaborative designing. Our research entailed three design studios focusing on authentic design tasks with supplied resources. The design tasks were a part of the compulsory first-year courses in Craft Studies at a university. The first design studio consisted of workshops in which student teams constructed toys based on children’s drawings. In the second design studio, the teams designed functional three-dimensional textile puzzles for visually impaired children, and in the third design studio, they produced wearable sea creatures for groups visiting the SEA LIFE aquarium. The study revealed how the creativity constraints and particular sources of inspiration facilitated students’ progressive design processes. The outcomes of the design tasks varied from simply reproducing the elements of the inspiration sources to more complex approaches through which ideas were further developed. We concluded that a balance between openness and the constraints of collaborative design tasks needs careful consideration. Keywords: affordance, collaborative design, constraints, creativity, design task, learning environment

Diamonds, Abaci, and Hexagrams: Exploring the Pitch Surface of the Guitar Fretboard

In this presentation, I will analyze the idiosyncrasies, challenges, limits, and affordances of the guitar’s "pitch surface": its fretboard and tuning. Whatever the context—staff notation, music theory, improvisation, performance, and other arenas of guitar activity—the layout of the fretboard exerts a profound influence on how guitarists learn, play, and compose. Inspired by De Souza, Goodrick, and Martino, I will also explore the benefits of creative constraints: scordatura, capo, MIDI tools, and other ways of remapping the guitar’s pitch matrix. These constraints can be used to break the guitarist’s tight auditory-motor link, revitalizing the fretboard as a primary musical space and insightful musical "abacus."

Faraway Women and the Atlantic Monthly

<i>Faraway Women and the</i> Atlantic Monthly

Hacking the Medium: Shaping the creative constraints of network architectures in multiplicitous media artworks

In this article we discuss our practice-based research into effective architectures and creative workflows for creatively coding massive multidevice light and sound installation artworks. We discuss the challenges of working with networked multidevice systems and illustrate these challenges with examples of the type of content that one may wish to display on these systems. We then consider how the structuring of a creative framework can strongly influence how an artist approaches the creation of such work, eases the process of creative search and discovery and reduces the time cost and risk of solving technical problems of architecture design. We take a design perspective on how to make effective creativity support tools and also consider a holistic perspective on creative practice that attempts to satisfy creative ideals grounded in the reality of practice.

How creative versus technical constraints affect exploring a design space

The creative design process can be conceptualized as the repeated search for highly-evaluated novel solutions within a design space of possibilities. Such design spaces are bounded by creative constraints of what are considered appropriate solutions as well as technical constraints of what solutions are possible given the tools in place. Past research on the role of constraints in creative design and innovation have found mixed results, hindered in part by not separating out the type of constraint—creative versus technical—and in part by focusing on singular projects that neglect the learning effects of repeated exploration of a design space. We analyzed ten years of data from an online innovation community hosting repeated creative design competitions, and we examined how creative and technical constraints in a design space affected how individuals learned to improve their performance as evaluated by their audience. We find that creative constraints lead to high rates of learning only if technical constraints are sufficiently relaxed. Our findings have implications for the management of creative design work in both online and offline settings.

Cross-organisational Communities of Practice: enhancing creativity and epistemic cognition in higher education

The purpose of this work is to investigate the impact of participation in cross-organisational Communities of Practice (CoPs) on higher education learners studying Design, and specifically the ways in which CoPs can affect their creative outcomes and perceived epistemic cognition. CoPs are social groups that share common interests and goals in a particular field, and interact to build relevant knowledge and expertise. Cross-organisational CoPs can include members from diverse spheres, such as education and industry. Research on the design, implementation and evaluation of this type of CoP in HE remains limited.Findings from this study indicate that CoPs can have significant positive effects on student knowledge gains, creative outcomes and perceptions of epistemic cognition. Key motivators triggering positive epistemic effects in learners included: authentic exchanges and interactions with members of the CoP, such as industry experts; creative constraints; prospective audiences for the end-products; and the potential impact on their future careers.

Stretch‐Thinking Loops: A New Technique for Scenario Planning

In crisis management, scenario planning is a necessity in our volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous world. Strategic planners need to be able to imagine future environments even in the most uncertain conditions. The scale of potential scenarios and associated management suggests that those involved will require innovative planning techniques. To support innovation in strategic planning, we have combined the research on creativity, divergent thinking, and creative constraints to design a method called “Stretch‐Thinking Loops.” This technique uses iterative thinking approaches that identify broad scenarios, the likely consequences, and the potential constraints, and then uses this information to identify new opportunities and innovations to support scenario planning. We report on the development of this technique in the context of crisis management and its application in a collaborative project with an Australian State Government that explored a series of post‐COVID‐19 recovery scenarios for a 12‐month time horizon. The proposed Stretch‐Thinking Loops are not just limited to crisis management but offer all organizations a structured method to enhance their capability to engage in divergent‐thinking for future scenario planning.

Beat Machine: Embracing the Creative Limitations and Opportunities of Low-Cost Computers

The Beat Machine is a handheld music synthesizer and sequencer. The authors discuss the development of the Beat Machine and how creative constraints and opportunities were introduced by the particularities of low-cost microprocessors and associated electronics. The discussion is framed as an exemplar of Kåre Poulsgaard's concept of enactive individuation, a framework for relating material engagement to digital design and fabrication. In reflecting on the design and making of the Beat Machine the authors connect this framework with more established notions of creative interaction and the affordances of digital media.

Beat Machine: Embracing the creative limitations and opportunities of low-cost computers

The Beat Machine is a hand-held music synthesizer and sequencer. We discuss the development of the Beat Machine and how creative constraints and opportunities were introduced by the particularities of low-cost microprocessors and associated electronics. The discussion is framed as an exemplar of Kåre Poulsgaard's concept of enactive individuation, a framework for relating material engagement to digital design and fabrication. In reflecting on the design and making of the Beat Machine we connect this framework with more established notions of creative interaction and the affordances of digital media.