Creative Informatics: Data Driven Innovation for the Creative Industries

Materialising data – getting to grips with slippery concepts (2024)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Smyth, M., Panneels, I., McDonald, C., & Helgason, I. (2024, May). Materialising data – getting to grips with slippery concepts. Presented at P/references of Design. Cumulus Budapest 2024, Budapest, Hungary

Data is ubiquitous in the 21st century, we voraciously create and consume it, it can be the driver of innovation and the lens through which we view the world. But data is a slippery, shapeshifting material that can take a myriad of forms which makes... Read More about Materialising data – getting to grips with slippery concepts.

Digital and data literacy (2024)
Book Chapter
Osborne, N., Helgason, I., Lechelt, S., Michielin, L., Panneels, I., Parkinson, C., Smyth, M., Ross, J., Sulaiman, Y., & Warren, K. (2024). Digital and data literacy. In Data Driven Innovation in the Creative Industries (71-100). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003365891-4

In this chapter we explore models for training and upskilling people in the creative industries in data, technology and entrepreneurial skills, situating this in the wider skills and training context. We will particularly look at the challenges of de... Read More about Digital and data literacy.

FestForward: Participatory Design Futuring and World-Building for Equitable Digital Futures in Performing Arts Festivals (2023)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Elsden, C., Jones, V., Helgason, I., Abernethy, L., & Brown, W. (2023, July). FestForward: Participatory Design Futuring and World-Building for Equitable Digital Futures in Performing Arts Festivals. Presented at DIS '23: Designing Interactive Systems Conference, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

FestForward is a fictional, local, cultural magazine, set in 2030, designed to stimulate conversations about equitable and sustainable digital futures in performing arts festivals. This extensive design fiction was developed through a series of parti... Read More about FestForward: Participatory Design Futuring and World-Building for Equitable Digital Futures in Performing Arts Festivals.

Digital Skills for the Creative Practitioner: Supporting Informal Learning of Technologies for Creativity (2023)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Helgason, I., Smyth, M., Panneels, I., Lechelt, S., Frich, J., Rawn, E., & McCarthy, B. (2023, April). Digital Skills for the Creative Practitioner: Supporting Informal Learning of Technologies for Creativity. Presented at CHI '23: CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Hamburg, Germany

The creative industries play an important role in economic, cultural and social life, and in many creative disciplines much of the workforce is made up of individual practitioners including freelancers, sole traders and small or micro enterprises. Th... Read More about Digital Skills for the Creative Practitioner: Supporting Informal Learning of Technologies for Creativity.

Distance: digital immersive technologies and craft engagement (2023)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Panneels, I., Helgason, I., Smyth, M., Darzentas, D., Hocking, L., & Shillito, A.-M. (2023, April). Distance: digital immersive technologies and craft engagement. Presented at Cumulus Conference: Connectivity and Creativity in times of Conflict, Antwerp, Belgium

The DISTANCE project (digital immersive technologies and craft engagement) is a novel practice-led experiment in the use of immersive technology to enable dispersed craft practitioners to apply their haptic skills and material knowledge in a digital... Read More about Distance: digital immersive technologies and craft engagement.

There Be Dragons: Navigating the uncharted data territories of creative practice (2023)
Report
Panneels, I., Helgason, I., & Smyth, M. (2023). There Be Dragons: Navigating the uncharted data territories of creative practice. Creative Informatics

This report documents the work of the Creative Informatics Creative Horizons 4: There be Dragons project.

The There Be Dragons project starts from the premise that data can empower creative businesses to do more and to do it better. Data can be u... Read More about There Be Dragons: Navigating the uncharted data territories of creative practice.

Speculative and Critical Design: approaches and influences in education (2022)
Journal Article
Helgason, I., Encinas, E., Mitrovic, I., & Smyth, M. (2022). Speculative and Critical Design: approaches and influences in education. Interaction Design and Architecture(s) IxDetA, 5-7. https://doi.org/10.55612/s-5002-051-001psi

As guest editors of this special edition we are delighted to present this selection of papers responding to our call about Speculative and Critical Design in education. The response to the call demonstrates that interest in this approach is increasin... Read More about Speculative and Critical Design: approaches and influences in education.

A hefty dose of lemons: the importance of rituals for audiences and performers at the online Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2020 (2022)
Journal Article
Piccio, B., Helgason, I., Elsden, C., & Terras, M. (2022). A hefty dose of lemons: the importance of rituals for audiences and performers at the online Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2020. International Journal of Performance Arts and Digital Media, 18(1), 154-175. https://doi.org/10.1080/14794713.2022.2036489

When the pandemic began to affect the performance world, both festival artists and producers started to adopt creative approaches to moving their work online. In the study presented here, we focus on the 2020 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, which offered... Read More about A hefty dose of lemons: the importance of rituals for audiences and performers at the online Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2020.

Recorded performance as digital content: Perspectives from Fringe 2020 (2021)
Book Chapter
Elsden, C., Yu, D., Piccio, B., Helgason, I., & Terras, M. (2021). Recorded performance as digital content: Perspectives from Fringe 2020. In L. Bissell, & L. Weir (Eds.), Performance in a Pandemic. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003165644

Within days of performance venues being forced to close their doors in 2020, the National Theatre began broadcasting high-quality recordings of the best of London’s West End. Few other companies could dream of having such rich recorded archives to dr... Read More about Recorded performance as digital content: Perspectives from Fringe 2020.

Learning from the 2020 Edinburgh Festival Fringe: Recommendations for Festivals and Performing Arts in Navigating Covid-19 and New Digital Contexts (2021)
Report
Elsden, C., Piccio, B., Helgason, I., & Terras, M. (2021). Learning from the 2020 Edinburgh Festival Fringe: Recommendations for Festivals and Performing Arts in Navigating Covid-19 and New Digital Contexts. AHRC

When it happened, the announcement that the Edinburgh Festivals would not go ahead was both predictable and shocking. Cruelly, so many aspects of what makes the Edinburgh Festival Fringe unique, appeared suddenly impossible and unpalatable. How could... Read More about Learning from the 2020 Edinburgh Festival Fringe: Recommendations for Festivals and Performing Arts in Navigating Covid-19 and New Digital Contexts.