- 📖definition
- Updated Dec 24, 2024
I gave version of this writing as a talk at ArtCenter Creative Tech Week in 2022.
One way to define the practice of creative technology is by looking at the day to day work that a creative technologist does. From my experiences, both working as a "named" creative technologist, as well as a designer doing creative technology things, there are three different categories of work that I can see.
Treating Technology as a Material
In the same way that designers learn to work with particular materials, creative technologist extend that practice by treating technology as a material. Conceptually this makes sense, but what does this mean in my day to day experience as a creative technologist?
First, this means getting a intuition for the material: I've spent the last 2 years learning to sew. I've been doing small projects, making different things, making mistakes, and mostly making things that are very simple. But the goal with all of this work is for my body and mind to start thinking with the material - being able to let the material itself guide my making. In the same way, I am currently in the process of getting an intution for XR - developing a toolkit, getting a feeling for interaction modes, understanding how the technology works best.
Second, this means when working with a technology, it's letting that material inform the design itself, finding inspiration and ideas within the constraints and nuances of that technology. Rather than just executing a given design, as a creative technologist, you are also seeing how the technology itself can inform the design itself.
Making ideas Tangible
Another category of work is to actually visualize technologies. I've found that talking to an idea, or even just making static sketches is never as compelling as an actual thing in front of you. The physical artifact, whatever fidelity it is at, is designed to have conversation around, to adjust understandings of the topic at hand. As a creative technologist, you have to know what prototype is necessary at what moment - this is where the design practice comes back in - this becomes about storytelling.
If you touch an idea too much without actually making it, just like dough or plaster, it dies. I think it's better to make and bake it and throw it away than to imagine how it would have worked or tastedOn Creative Work as Therapeutic Release, The Creative Independent.
Zeynab Izadyar
Understanding the Systems Perspective
One of the designer's superpowers, in my opinion, is to be able to draw connections across contexts. The creative technologist builds upon that, but also should understand the technical system. With that understanding of the systems perspective, they can use their making skills to make bespoke tools that enable that system, or maybe connect two systems together.
You also understand the design intent, and understand the technical system to know where the gaps are to meet that design intent
Working like a home cook
For my technology practice, as Robin Sloan has put it, "I am the programming equivalent of a home cook." As a technologist, I find myself most often working at the scale of "me and my friends."
Scale
When you liberate programming from the requirement to be professional and scalable, it becomes a different activity all together.
Robin Sloan
Having a systems perspective does have to mean working at the biggest scales. When you don't have to concern yourself with scale, you open yourself up to so many opportunities to think creatively with technology. When scale is of concern, then it becomes the only concern. So by thinking at the scale of "me and my friends," I truly have the space to be creative with the medium.
Contextual
Situated software, by contrast doesn't need to be personalized - it is personal from its inception
Clay Shirky