Beyond Productivity:
Information Technology, Innovation, and
Creativity
by William
J. Mitchell, Alan
S. Inouye,
and Marjory
S. Blumenthal,
Editors
The National Academies Press, Washington
DC, 2003.
268 pages, illus b/w, paperback $35.00
ISBN: 0-309-08868-2
Reviewed by Amy Ione
The Diatrope Institute
PO Box 6813
Santa Rosa, CA 95406-0813
ione@diatrope.com
Since computer science emerged as a field
in the middle of the 20th century, it has
become an increasingly integral part of
human life. The degree to which revolutionary
inventors turn to computerized tools is
both obvious and understated. As a result
we frequently need to be reminded that computer
science has drawn from and contributed to
many disciplines and practices. These interactions
are the core of what we now term information
technology (IT)new forms of computing
and communications.
Beyond Productivity: Information Technology,
Innovation, and Creativity, developed
over 18-months, does this, drawing on the
expertise of W.J. Mitchell, N. Katherine
Hayles, John Maeda, Lillian F. Schwartz,
Barbara Stafford, and other authorities
who were members of the report committee.
The report summarizes where practitioners
have developed new applications and praises
the creative promise of this approach. In
doing so this book argues that the
powerful alliance forged by the computer
with arts and design is establishing an
exciting, new fieldinformation technology
and creative practices (ITCP). Here, they
assert, we find evidence of the benefits
in expanding IT's sphere of influence. The
committee also brings to light all that
we might gain from encouraging, supporting,
and strategically investing in this domain
Comprehensive and impressive overall, the
reader gets a sense of the excitement experts
in the field bring to their research. Their
enthusiasm will no doubt match that of many
Leonardo readers who are personally
involved with projects that link computer
science with the arts communities. The Leonardo
community will also welcome the way the
documentation incorporates innovative architectural
and product designs, computer animated films,
computer music, computer games, interactive
art installations, cross-cultural experimentation,
and Web-based texts. With an eye toward
the future, the report additionally acknowledges
that the abundant examples of current success
also point to the many opportunities for
new collaborative ventures that remain to
be explored.
Well organized overall, the chapters effectively
summarize the broad reach of specific topics
and are carefully cross-referenced to point
the reader to areas where ideas were expanded
in an earlier (or later) section. This outline
effectively presents advances in the underlying
disciplines of ITCP and associated applications,
probes creativity, and comes to terms with
the particular concerns of the academic
environment and policy issues. It would
be hard to remain unimpressed by the encyclopedic
accumulation of knowledge concerning all
aspects of the topic. As a fan of the way
footnotes allow for an ongoing counterpoint
to an analytic commentary, I was particularly
impressed by the reach of the footnotes.
Full of information, they provided delightful
asides to the trends generalized in the
body of the text. Anyone seeking to learn
more about a specific approach will find
leads in abundance offered in the extensive
subtext. Example boxes also add tremendously.
Topics included range from the utility of
information technology in our computer-linked
world to use of the computer in music improvisation
and the telerobotics found in the work of
people like the artist/ engineer Ken Goldberg.
While I already knew many of the examples
mentioned in these asides, some like the
fascinating object-based sculpture of John
Simon served as introductions. (For those
unfamiliar with his work, Simon focuses
in on how he combines the skills of painting,
sculpture, computer hardware construction
and software developments.) More functional,
but of great importance to the field, were
the boxes that exposed issues. One, for
example, outlined how the new technologies
have led to a review of the laws surrounding
copyright protection.
Despite all of these attributes that recommend
the report, I was tremendously disappointed
to find that the scrutiny given to the state
of the field did not make a serious attempt
to introduce the key distinction between
science and technology and to clarify how
computer science differs from natural science.
To oversimplify, it is generally agreed
that technology is the systematic study
of techniques for making and doing things.
Science, by comparison, is defined as the
systematic attempt to understand and interpret
the world. From this perspective, technology
is concerned with the fabrication and use
of artifacts. Science, on the other hand,
is devoted to the more conceptual enterprise
of understanding the environment. While
one could conclude that both depend upon
the comparatively sophisticated skills of
literacy and numeracy, not all would conclude
that the two domains are equivalent (although
this report seemed to implicitly infer they
are). Perhaps I missed it, but as I read
through the pages it seemed that this committee
simply assumed that computer science is
a science, much the way social scientists
assume their work is science. However, many
continue to question the validity of aligning
fields like mathematics, computer science,
and social science with the natural sciences.
Similarities in their methodology can be
shown, to be sure. Nonetheless, we can also
find that the use of analogy to manipulate
information yields different types of conclusions
from field to field.
One area of contention
is the way in which the natural and life
sciences question their analogies through
experiments that yield a different kind
of data than creative projects conceived
using mathematical tools that are more adept
in coupling logical/algorithmic criteria
when relating information. This committee
never asks if it matters that a logical
or algorithmic "science" approaches inquiry
from a different vantage point than that
of a data-driven experimental science. As
a result, this report presents the context
of the experiential, technical and contextual
issues effectively without reckoning with
what the analytic rigor of science conveys
from field to field. Without examining the
"science" of computer science, these experts
adequately look at everything from working
within institutional environments to funding
issues and problems of peer-review without
conceptualizing issues outside of what is
essentially a narrowly defined scope that
initially appears to be a quite sweeping
analysis.
As a National Research Council publication,
this oversight was particularly unsettling.
By reputation this group aims to further
communication on scientific and technological
endeavor. Given its sponsorship one would
assume that clarifying relationships between
science and technology would have a high
priority. Yet Beyond Productivity: Information
Technology, Innovation, and Creativity seemed
to be more aligned with the humanities.
Indeed it brought the liberal arts of the
medieval European university to mind. In
this educational system the liberal arts
were characterized in terms of the Trivium
and the Quadrivium. The traditional
Trivium included language, rhetoric
and logic. Language is seen in terms of
grammar, the study of meaning in written
expression. Rhetoric is defined as a comprehension
of verbal and written discourse. Logic refers
to argumentative discourse for discovering
truth. These elements seem integral to the
way ITCP methodology is conceptualized.
Similarly, the Quandrivium, like
computer science, is about number.
Included are Arithmetic, the understanding
numbers; Geometry, the quantification of
space; Music, the study of number in time;
and Astronomy: laws of the planets
and stars. Only astronomy is what all would
agree is properly termed science today.
Yet, in the medieval university, the study
of astronomy was hardly the empirical science
of contemporary astronomy.
The transdisciplinary approach that the
committee elevates further brings to mind
today's liberal arts curriculum, which aims
to give one a knowledge of the humanities
(literature, language, philosophy, the fine
arts, and history), the physical and biological
sciences and mathematics, and the social
sciences. This kind of mix seemed to be
the foundation for the undertakings represented
in Beyond Productivity as well, a
comprehensive survey that did not seem to
see its role in terms of asking challenging
questions. Rather, the product suggests
the goal was to communicate issues familiar
to those who work in the art, science, and
technology environment. Yet, and this is
why I raise this point, in the United States
there is an ongoing debate as to whether
educators have dumbed down science within
the humanistic framework. The lack of engagement
with where science interfaces with ITCP
brings this question to mind and with it
the related question of whether we have
successfully educated humanists to the ideas
and methods of the scientist.
For example, one interesting section outlined
the difference between interdisciplinary
and transdisciplinary thinking/activity.
According to the view presented, interdisciplinary
work is the more appropriate term when an
expert in one discipline reaches out to
integrate views from other fields. The transdisciplinary
worker, conversely, does not dabble in related
fields. Rather this practitioner will have
developed expertise in all of the fields
needed to accomplish a creative task. While
a wonderful goal, particularly in light
of the report's view that interactive projects
are becoming more evident in the evolving
institutional environment, I still found
the report did not address why so many who
work in art, science, and technology confuse
science and technology and indiscriminately
conflate them when doing so.
In summary, the committee does recommend
mechanisms that would enable and sustain
productive cross-disciplinary collaborations
but without addressing the difference between
science and technology (or explaining why
the authors believe they are comparable
if this is their view). This oversight weakens
the overall impact of this report. Elevating
the transdisciplinary projects stressed
all that creativity promises, but some of
the implicit limitations seemed to highlight
the goals (and shortcomings) of a liberal-arts
education. The way in which the physical
and biological sciences are abstractly present
and never clarified raised many of the questions
often expressed by critical commentators
of interdisciplinary, cross-disciplinary,
and transdisciplinary work. As such, Beyond
Technology will aid those eager to learn
more about information technology in terms
of art and design. Those who believe that
the breadth of the field too often subsumes
distinctions between science and technology
might find this report, too, fails to speak
to distinctions. Aside from this caveat,
those who are new to the field will definitely
appreciate the care with which the authors
summarize contemporary work. Those who work
in this area will no doubt find that the
survey is a good resource for thinking about
the funding situation, conceptualizing policy
issues, and finding like-minded people.