Vlog 2.1: A Manifesto For Responsible Creative Computing v.0.3

April 08, 2004

A Manifesto For Responsible Creative Computing v.0.3

context

We teach students who work in the creative industries. In creative computing contexts the products and processes of these industries are soft artifacts. They may be ideas, interfaces, or media. All remain malleable , before, during and after completion.

Their graduate computing context consists of small enterprises where IT skills are distributed amongst the work group. These skills are informal and self developed. There is no IT department and IT systems are self managed. It is common for graduates in these industries to be self employed.

This manifesto defines how we use computers in teaching and learning for creative industries in these contexts.

manifesto

Creative computing is being creative with a computer/network, not being creative on a computer/network.
Creative computing requires computer and network literacy. This literacy is analogous to, and as significant as print literacy.
Computer literacy is not the same as knowing how to use professional software.
Network literacy is not the same as knowing how to Google.
Network literacy is the ability to engage with and represent yourself within the network.
Computer literacy is synonymous with network literacy.
This literacy is demonstrated in the responsible use of computers which understands that the network includes social, ideological, legal, political, ethical and ecological contexts.
Computer literacy requires basic understanding of the principles of human-computer interaction.
This literacy is demonstrated in the ability to transfer knowledge between computing environments.
These literacies are learnt by doing.
Breaking, gleaning and assembling is a theory of praxis for these literacies.
Learning happens when things work, different learning occurs when things don’t work.
These literacies are an essential requirement for responsible creative computing in pervasive digital networks.

Adrian Miles and Jeremy Yuille.

Posted by Adrian Miles at April 8, 2004 09:14 AM | TrackBack

Comments

saw this on air, nice. a few things. you say:

"This literacy is demonstrated in the responsible use of computers which understands that the network includes social, ideological, legal, political, ethical and ecological contexts."

what about changing responsible with progressive? and what are the goals of creative computing? why not add:

creative computing works with and towards social justice, equality, and freedom.

creative computing works towards creative expression and the reduction of suffering.

"This literacy is demonstrated in the ability to transfer knowledge between computing environments."

i like it but what about:

This literacy is demonstrated in the ability to share knowledge within multiple cultures and computing environments.

Posted by: david at April 9, 2004 05:15 PM

there's a previous issue of the Journal of design research that looks at Design as a Social Process

http://jdr.tudelft.nl/articles/issue2002.02/editorial.html

Posted by: jeremy at April 10, 2004 06:03 PM

Important point here:
"Breaking, gleaning and assembling is a theory of praxis for these literacies."
And I would add that these are some (not all) of new rhetorical possibilities for computing. Others should be added: juxtaposition, non-linearity, commutation, iconicity, etc. Tap into composition studies (in America) and put your ideas out there for those who teach writing and work with theories of writing.

jeff

Posted by: jrice at April 10, 2004 09:44 PM