Conceptual framework for the intersection of software and art Salah Uddin Ahmed, Letizia Jaccheri, Anna Trifonova, Guttorm Sindre Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim, Norway {salah, letizia, trifonova,
[email protected]}
Introduction With the rapid development of technology, software is being used in every sector of life. The interconnection between software and art dates back to the early sixties (Sedelow '70). The context of intersection is growing each year with increased number of artists participating in multimedia software projects, games etc. and many software engineers participating in software dependent art projects such as interactive art installations. Art festivals, software festivals, workshops, and symposiums reveal the interests of many people in the interdisciplinary domain of software and art. In this chapter, the intersection of software and art is conceptualized through a framework describing where and how software and art interact, who are involved with it, why software and art is combined and what are their interests and attitudes towards the intersection of software and art. The conceptual framework is proposed based on our literature review on software and art in the context of the SArt project. SArt project 1 is conducted inside the Software Engineering group at the Department of Computer Science in the Norwegian University of Science and Technology and the focus of the project is exploration of research issues in the intersection between software engineering and art. The preliminary results of the review along with the research methodology and the review process has already been reported in (Trifonova, Ahmed et al. '07). The framework presented here is based on the result of our review and all the concepts and information presented here refers to our understanding gain from the literature review.
Where software and art interact Interdisciplinary events and activities are often supported by institutions or organizations. In this section we identify the places and fields/ sectors in which software and art interact in general. The most common form of interaction between art and software is found to occur in the context of institutional frameworks such as educational institutes, research institutes, software industry and art institutes (Wilson 03). Besides these institutions, festivals like Ars Electronica, Make Art, Transmediale, Trondheim Match Making are meeting places for artists and technologists. The most prominent fields of software industry where art is involved are user interface design, web design, human computer interaction, games development and other entertainment and leisure related applications. On the other hand, prominent fields in the art domain where software is highly utilised include but are not limited to interactive art, digital art, net art, software art, interactive installations, multimedia installations, performance art, electronic music etc.
1
http://prosjekt.idi.ntnu.no/sart/
Who are involved in it The people who are involved with software and art come from varying backgrounds such as art, science, history, sociology and they have varying interests and attitudes towards the relationship between software and art. In this section we would like to present these varying actors in this domain and their roles. According to their interests and their roles they can be divided into groups such as artists, software developers, art critics and researchers. Artists are the people who are involved with the creation of artworks where software is used to realize the artwork. By artists we refer to any kind of artists working with software, from graphics designers to interactive artists, from computer animators to documentary film makers and the level of experience starting from amateur art students to experienced art professionals with multiple art skills. Software developers are the people who are working with artists in an art project and/or involved with developing artistic software i.e., software that is used for artwork. Art critics are people who scrutinize, encourage and/or criticize the use of technology in art and its impact on the social and cultural life. Researchers involve themselves in the intersection by conducting research works that address both art and software or focus on one aspect of art or software with relation to the other. Examples and references to these various kinds of people will be provided in the main article accordingly from the literature.
Viewpoints on the relationship of software and art Depending on their background and role, the relationship between software and art has provoked many interesting and varying viewpoints among various people. For example, the long lasting debate on whether software engineering is art or science has provoked many software engineers to argue on their opinions on both sides and this debate has been continuing for more than 30 years (Glass 06). Another group of computer scientists believe that the task of programming itself is an art, for example, famous computer scientist Donald Knut titles his Turing award lecture as “the art of programming”. In a 1999 lecture series at MIT entitled God and Computers, Knuth likens beauty in a program to beauty in literature or music- programs whose tasks are elegantly stated and whose parts come together symphonically (Bond '05). Knuth identifies correctness, maintainability, readability, lucidity and efficiency as properties that inspire pleasure or pain in software’s readers. Another interesting viewpoint sees software as a material for art. For example, theorist Florian Cramer and Ulrike Gabriel extend the view of software art by focusing on the underlying code “We are more focused to the external display as a factor of aesthetics and often forget about the underlying code” (Cramer and Gabriel '01). Through the word software art the authors express a shift of the artists’ view from displays to the process of creation of systems. This viewpoint is supported by many others as we find Bond stating “Casting software as an artistic medium might strike many readers as odd, or even objectionable, but there is a growing body of evidence to show that it is perceived and utilized in just this way”(Bond '05). Knuth also categorised some programs as “art for art’s sake” which are appreciated in light of the challenge the programmers face in creating it, for example one line programs, programs that output them selves etc.
Why software and art need each other? It is easily assumable that software and art come to interact in various stages of our life as technology is advancing and changing every aspect of our life. On the other hand art finds its scope to challenge and scrutinize every aspect of our life including technology and its impact on our social and cultural life. There are various reasons why artists and software engineers collaborate. For example, artists need software tools support and software engineering knowledge while working with technology in software dependent art projects (Machin ’02). Thus software engineers have to extend their view to understand the art characteristics and adopt their development process to smoothly run the project without hampering artistic process. Computing researchers who want to incorporate aesthetics in their discipline wants collaboration with artists and apply art theories in their work (Fishwick ’06). Finally with the advancement of technology the possibility for art to reach new audiences brings artists and software professionals together to develop new mediums and business models for art.
Conclusion Art and software meet each other in many places, in many ways and this interdisciplinary domain involves people from different backgrounds and interests. In this chapter we address this interesting intersection of software and art and conceptualize the shape of intersection with a framework that identifies the important entities involved. This provides the reader a sound knowledge on how the relationship between software and art looks and what are the factors and entities that characterize it. The framework thus outlines the domain in a structured way which assists the reader to understand the field well. It assists the people involved in this field to understand each other well, to gain good understanding of various concepts and thus it contributes to the knowledge base of this interdisciplinary domain.
References Bond, G. W. (2005). "Software as art." Communications of the Acm 48(8): 118-124. Cramer, F. and U. Gabriel (2001). "Software Art." American Book Review 22(6, Alan Sondheim ed. "Codework"). Fishwick, P. A. (2006). Aesthetic Computing (Leonardo Books), The MIT Press. Glass R. L. and DeMarco T. (2006) “Software Creativity 2.0” Machin, C. H. C. (2002). Digital artworks: bridging the technology gap. Proceedings of The 20th Eurographics UK Conference, 2002 16-23. Sedelow, S. Y. (1970). "The Computer in the Humanities and Fine Arts." ACM Computing Surveys (CSUR) 2(2): 89-110. Trifonova, A., Ahmed S. U., Jaccheri, Letizia. (2007). SArt: Towards Innovation at the intersection of Software engineering and art. Proceedings of The 16th International Conference on Information Systems Development. Galway, Ireland, Springer. Wilson, Stephen. (2003) Information Arts: Intersections of Art, Science, and Technology The MIT Press, ISBN-13: 978-0262731584.
