This issue highlights how computers aid us all in realizing creative expression across various mediums. The presence of computers in our daily lives has produced an environment where various mediums coexist in a digital space where creativity can fly. Our images and data have quickly become creative artifacts. The emergence of online, collective communities, which support new forms of combined creativity, is leading to new types of creative partnerships. In many ways the tools that we use or produce for creative ends can enable or hinder artists. This all begs the question: Who owns this content? Video mashups, online music composition, animation, visual effects, computational origami are just some of the ideas explored in this issue.
We continue our conversation on open access ("Information Wants to be Free" XRDS Spring 2013) by taking a closer look at a few recent developments, which highlight some of the conflicting interests fueling the debate over academic publishing.
By Inbal Talgam-Cohen, Peter Kinnaird
The XRDS blog highlights a range of topics from conference overviews to privacy and security, from HCI to cryptography. Selected blog posts, edited for print, will be featured in every issue. Please visit xrds.acm.org/blog to read each post in its entirety.
By Gidi Nave, Arefin Huq
A look into the workings of the Emmy and Emily Howell programs, including musical examples with pointers to where they can be heard as well as seen.
By David Cope
A study of the online music writing community FAWM.ORG reveals that people who collaborate share less in common than you might think.
By Steven Dow, Burr Settles
Online content creators are making decisions every day based on copyright laws that even judges have trouble interpreting. What impact does this confusion over the law have on our technology use and our creativity online?
By Casey Fiesler
For animated film "Brave," Pixar Animation Studios adopted a procedural workflow for special effects. This new paradigm changed how Pixar approached effects. It allowed them to iterate, experiment, and layer physics alongside artist-directed elements. The effects artists used proceduralism to create a Scottish river for the main characters to enjoy some mother/daughter time.
By Michael O'Brien
How can people and AI equally participate in creating something? How do they do it when they cannot edit or revise their work?
By Brian O'Neill
By Adrian Scoică
Mediums such as fine art and poetry are common subjects in computational creativity---but what about something closer to home? Can computers be as creative in programming as they are in poetry?
By Michael Cook
Kodu Game Lab is a complete, 3-D game development environment designed to be accessible to children as young as 9 years old. The core of Kodu is a custom visual programming language, which blends ease of use with expressibility.
By Stephen Coy
To some, mathematics is an art form. In this interview, we discuss the creativity behind computational origami, a growing area of computational geometry, with Erik Demaine.
By Michael Zuba, Nick DePalma
By Mohammad Arif
