Computers and Creativity

Reviews / Votes

"This book is a brilliant contribution to the literature on creativity in general and the role of computers for fostering and understanding creativity in particular. It presents first a wide range of fascinating projects in the visual arts and music before plunging into theoretical issues concerning the nature of aesthetics and the cognitive processes underlying creativity. Every contribution in this book contains diamonds of novel deep insight, fascinating experiments, and downright good ideas for future work. The cross references and links between the different articles, the added discussion, and the edited conversations between the authors make this book more than the sum of its parts. Computers have already shaken up how art is being conceived, produced and distributed, and this book shows that this evolution can and will go much further than what most people think. It is required reading for everyone involved in the creative arts and interested in the role of technology towards shaping its future." Luc Steels, Professor and Head, Sony Computer Science Laboratories, Paris, France"A wonderful collection of articles from some of the best in the field. The book fantastically illustrates what an exciting time this is for the interaction between computers and the creative process. Computers are really starting to surprise the people who program them." Marcus du Sautoy, Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science at the University of Oxford"Full of information and insights about the creative partnerships between computers, artists and musicians, Computers and Creativity is a timely book that does not shy away from tackling tough questions like where the creativity lies in art made by machines and how improvisation between human and non-human performers can be modelled. Along the way the reader is challenged to rethink assumptions about creativity and question whether a future 'genius' or 'virtuoso' might emerge from code. Thebook will be a valuable resource for anyone interested in the relationship between creativity and computation." Jane Prophet, Professor of Art and Interdisciplinary Computing, City University of Hong Kong"If I had to pick just one point out of this richly intriguing book, it would be something that the editors stress in their introduction: that these examples of computer art involve creative computing as well as creative art." Margaret A. Boden, OBE, Professor of Cognitive Science, University of Sussex"This is a challenging, thought provoking, and important book. Challenging because it forces us to confront issues about our relationship with intelligent machines; thought provoking because it asks many difficult questions, some of which do not as yet have answers; and important because it tackles the issues of machine intelligence and artificial creativity in a non-trivial, non-hysterical profound manner. ... Refreshingly there is no techno-messianic hype at all in this book. All chapters are written by leading researchers (25 in all) working at universities, literally at the coalface one might say. This approach leaves no room for flights of science fantasy and ill-founded speculation, which I have found is almost endemic in much of the Extropian style literature regarding human-machine integration. Considering the complexity of the subject matter and its theoretical underpinning, every chapter is extremely well written in a way that makes the book thoroughly accessible to expert and educated layperson alike. ... I thoroughly recommend this book to the widest possible range of practitioners, theorists and students in the field of artificial intelligence related to creativity and the arts." (Rob Harle, February 2013, Leonardo)