generative futures

MIT Media in Transition Conference 12-15 May 2002

Abstract

Children are now the main users of computing devices and children have different approaches to their use.  Computers and digitally mediated content have been with children all their lives, computers and other devices such as mobile phones are not something they get used to in adulthood.

One transition that is important is the development of new genres of content which are only possible with computer power and knowledge based systems.  The children in the study develop generative music [Eno 1996], which is rule based, and which creates subtly different versions of a piece or set of rules each time it plays. 

Doubts are being expressed now [Spector 2001] about the claims for New Media Technologies [NMTs] to provide suitable educational experiences.

In this case study, which considers the role of computers for creativity, a school in the city of Brighton and Hove, UK is using NMTs across the curriculum to motivate and enhance general literacy of 11 -16 year old students from disadvantaged social conditions.  In particular the work of Edmonds [2000] on how computers can enhance creativity is considered in the context of children acting as artists.

The project, called Some Old Bones, based on the discovery of the world's oldest musical instruments [Zhang et al 1999], is positive about the creative use of computers in the future.  Children are asked to recreate 9,000-year-old sounds.

The role of intelligent use interfaces and how children construct a model and relationship to deal with them has been covered in previous work with children [Pettigrew 2002].  The assumptions behind much IT teaching and other experiences for children have been questioned [Pettigrew and Elliott 1999], since what needs to be learned is an approach, the reliance on teaching microskills is redundant and demotivates children.

The long term implications of these kinds of experiences and relationships are reviewed in the context of the Fourth Great Discontinuity [Mazlish 1994] - the co-evolution of humans and computers: carbonware and siliconware and their combinations.  A new man-machine relationship is likely to develop, influenced by the changing nature of digital production, distribution and consumption of media content.