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Creativity and
Consumption Conference
University of Luton, UK, 29-31
1
March 1999
David I. Tafler
Reflecting
on
some new
On that
users.
terms
are a
genius.
severe
argues that
new
10
Creativity and
consumption:
mediating entities
11
Mayor of Luton affirmed the towns robust expectations for the technofuture The Mayor emphasised renewal, the recuperation of the town
from its industrial demise in anticipation of the electronic future. As
nascent powers at the turn of the century looked to industry for
empowerment, old industrial cities find their salvation somewhere on the
digital horizon.
The following morning the academic sessions began and the scope
broadened. In his keynote address, Philip Hayward defined another set
of parameters from those implied by the demise and rebirth of old
industrial cities. He addressed global tectonics - the melodies of
resistance and accommodation in other settings. In describing how
cultural technological issues look from somewhere else, Hayward
cautioned how assumed boundaries quickly become moribund.
Reaching beyond the conference assemblage, mostly white fellas
hanging out in the mother country, he suggested that on a deflated
globe, theorists in the first world should not forget the other world, the
non-western world, a world embodied by its own myths and storytelling.
That world also has fewer resources, a world of limited electricity, let
alone digital resources.
Even in that other environment, utopian ambitions can forge a virtual
distortion of the real world. Malaysias multimedia super corridor offers
a parable of the IT revolution. lndrajit Banerjee described how the
Malaysian government is constructing an unprecedented information
infrastructure for this part of the world and yet decries the loss of the
countrys cultural institutions and practices.&dquo;
Looking
at
world that
some
strong and
some
social, political,
weak, that do
not
necessarily
or
drivers.
12
districts and shift perceptions. Third world countries leapfrog into the IT
age leaving in their wake truncated traditions that forge cultural identity.
Cut off from
feel
if
global strategy.
Downloaded from http://con.sagepub.com by Constantin Ticu on April 19, 2009
13
Caroline Bassett in her paper, The Arc and the Machine, implicitly
challenged this focus on frames and environment. Cultural formation
with cyberspace oscillates between real and fictional moments rather
than real and fictional environments. Narratives universal attributes
open the spacings and crossings of active cultural formation, not the
fixed attributes constructed by some new technology. Narrative forms
an arc across the user-text-machine interface that helps to reconcile the
loss of temporality.
trying
uncertainty.
the body stretches to embrace other entities that permit
with slime enhanced memory, faster processing, reservoirs of experience. New
media technology may promote new storage capabilities for valuable
cultural material. Clare Birdsey, Andy Golding and Ralph Jacobson in
The Suitability of Employing Digital Technology for Accessing
Photographic Collections argued that the enhanced storage of
information and experience, not to mention archival materials
mediation by new formats, informs the process of its reception. In turn,
high quality reproductions augment research practices. Digital media
pumps
new
On another
14
environments for
controlling
and
Border culture Collective creativity revolves around social interaction. Computers bear
new implications for interactive processes that go beyond the produceruser screen interface. Geoff Cox and Mark Phillips revisited the place
of the implied author in electronic systems.&dquo; Their Autoicon project
looks at deferred authorship, auto-generative opportunities, made
possible by ruthless robotics and other machine practices. Within the
artwork, a self-referential awareness of the means of production
becomes part of the mechanism. It helps construct the author. In the
digital age, this means foregrounding programming as well as other
operational functions.
--~
Along the intermediate margins between the producer and the user,
Lorne Falk mapped out those interrelations on the archipelago of a
digital information age.9 Falk likens the computer interface to a
colossal, two-sided, mirror-like screen, itself dislocated by cultural
confrontation. In a different context Sean Bradbury suggested that the
computer can inform and enlighten, forming a partnership with the
producer during the creative process.2o Woven together with the
producers intuition and sensitivity, the computers output can broaden
Downloaded from http://con.sagepub.com by Constantin Ticu on April 19, 2009
15
reshaped as
now
a sense
an
sign, discourse,
information
semiotic
Heidi
16
compound
the
environment.
consumption of media
moves
from
passive
to a creative
activity
Whitelaw
intuition.
Sally
Svennevig
argued
empirical observation to begin to reconstruct
reciprocal influence, shifting tendencies, future trends. This argument
raises some compelling issues: for example, does e-mail merely impact
on letter writing, itself a relatively recent form of correspondence, when
measured against the whole of human history.
expressive
that it takes
17
Soundbeam -
six
to create music
18
expands the possibilities for building resistance within the text. Computers
become vehicles for uplifting and transforming life. Options appear at
newly created decision-making junctures, but for how long? The crucial
interactive difference lies in the networking that exists among computers,
tying them into other areas, enabling them to extend the corporeal
borders of the body to the far reaches of the planet. Just as the matrix of
decision-making possibilities pulls the traditional audience away, new
programs re-institutionalise narrative structures now embedded in new
formats. At the same time, they pull in the information floating in space.
In the end, the technological fix remains one of the mainstays of society.
Notes
1 The abstracts of all papers presented at Creativity and Consumption and the email addresses of all the speakers are available at the conference web site
which can be accessed via the Convergence web site at
Copies of papers other than those
<http://www.luton.ac.uk/Convergence>.
included in this issue of Convergence can be obtained by e-mailing the authors
direct.
2 Richard Walker, Computers as Fetish Objects, paper presented at Creativity
and Consumption.
3 The Demon of Originality, in Roger Shattuck, The Innocent Eye: On Modern
Literature and the Arts (New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1984), pp. 62-81.
4 Yoko Kanemitsu, Stereoscopy and Pre-Raphaelitism: The Pre-Raphaelites and
Ruskin in the New Media Age, paper presented at Creativity and Consumption,
and revised for inclusion in this issue of Convergence.
5 David Morrison, Michael Svennevig and Julie Firmstone, A Monkey Looking at
a Watch: Cultural Practice, Technology and Understanding Social Process,
paper presented at Creativity and Consumption, and revised by Morrison and
Svennevig for inclusion in this issue of Convergence.
6 Fred McVittie, Day of the Cockroach. Technology, Counter-Culture, and the
Ecological Paradigm, paper presented at Creativity and Consumption.
7 Adrian Page, Consumed by Creativity. Multiliteracy and New Technology,
paper presented at Creativity and Consumption.
8 Linda Candy, Collective Creativity and Interaction with Computers, paper
presented at Creativity and Consumption.
9 Philip Hayward, Cultural Tectonics, keynote address at Creativity and
Consumption, revised for inclusion in this issue of Convergence.
10 Indrajit Banerjee, Leapfrogging into the IT Age: Prospects and Problems. A Case
Study of the Malaysian Information Infrastructure Initiative, paper presented at
Creativity and Consumption. See also Malaysias Multimedia Super Corridor:
One-Stop Super Shop or Highway to Progress and Prosperity for All?
11
12
13
14
19
15
Wendy Dibean,
Counterparts;
Consumption.
18 Geoff Cox and Mark
19
Phillips,
as
20 Sean
21
22
and
Consumption.
28
29
30
31
Swingler,
Tim
at
The Invisible
Keyboard
Consumption.