Creative Informatics: Data Driven Innovation for the Creative Industries

Future Tense - The Challenge of Imagining Alternative Futures (2023)
Book Chapter
Smyth, M. (2023). Future Tense - The Challenge of Imagining Alternative Futures. In Designing in Coexistence – Reflections on Systemic Change (77-88). Croatian Architects’ Association

So why is it so difficult to imagine futures? Not the futures set in galaxies far far away, but the ones connected to the present that lie tantalisingly just beyond the horizon. Futures still tethered to variants of today’s infrastructure. This essay... Read More about Future Tense - The Challenge of Imagining Alternative Futures.

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.

Speculating Futures in an Age of Nostalgia (2023)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Smyth, M. (2023, April). Speculating Futures in an Age of Nostalgia. Presented at Cumulus conference: Connectivity and Creativity in times of Conflict, University of Antwerp, Belguim

This paper will present an exploration of the relationship between the past and the present and how that interaction influences design thinking when speculating about possible futures. It will argue that the growing influence of nostalgia, supported... Read More about Speculating Futures in an Age of Nostalgia.

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.

The Quintuple Bottom Line: A Framework for Place-Based Sustainable Enterprise in the Craft Industry (2023)
Journal Article
Panneels, I. (2023). The Quintuple Bottom Line: A Framework for Place-Based Sustainable Enterprise in the Craft Industry. Sustainability, 15(4), Article 3791. https://doi.org/10.3390/su15043791

This study proposes to extend the sustainable business framework of the Quadruple Bottom Line into the Quintuple Bottom Line. The five Ps of the Quintuple Bottom Line support purpose-driven businesses to consider economic profitability alongside soci... Read More about The Quintuple Bottom Line: A Framework for Place-Based Sustainable Enterprise in the Craft Industry.