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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 field—information 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.

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Updated 1st February 2004


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