Creativity and Cognition Studios (CCS) is a multidisciplinary research centre located in the University of Technology, Sydney. The centre is committed to fostering the enhancement and progression of human creativity through interaction with new media and digital technology. In aiming to do so the centre provides an environment for artists, technologists, curators, sociologists and various other scholars to gather and experiment with technology through practice-based research. The studio maintains a strong emphasis on the importance of partnerships and collaboration in their development processes.
The focus of CCS arose from concerns regarding the intersection between creativity and technology that were first expressed and explored by studio director Ernest Edmonds in the 1960s. Presently, CCS’s research focuses primarily on themes surrounding digital art and interactive entertainment. Research in these areas is based on a reflexive relationship between the development of new creative practice and research into the computer science and HCI issues around supporting such practice. Relevant CCS projects have investigated experimentation with cybernetic systems involving physical participation and interaction, technology enhanced performance, visual and sonic generative art, cellular automata and the logics that enable their creation. Projects are carried out from conception to evaluation and realization in CCS’s high-end facilities, which include an audio/visual studio dedicated to creation of artworks that explore synaesthetic effects in the viewer, an interaction studio equipped with a range of computers and set of sensor systems used for development of interactive artworks and environments, and a games studio in which researchers develop and engage with artificial intelligence as a driving technology that enables entertainment systems to deliver interesting and engaging experiences. CCS is committed to disseminating its results internationally through research publications, exhibitions, the continuation of the international conference series and through the provision of high quality postgraduate education.
Underpinning the CCS trajectory is a desire to design and understand computer systems that encourage creativity not only within experts’ artistic practice, but also for the benefit of wider society. As such the studio adopts the belief that the work of cutting edge artists can provide a valuable platform from which others can learn and gain new experience. In this respect an important innovation of the CCS has been the establishment of Beta_Space, a duplicate version of the centre’s interaction studio created in collaboraton with Sydney’s Powerhouse Museum. Housed in the public area of the museum, Beta_Space provides an experimental environment where the public can engage with the latest of CCS’s researchers latest prototypes and end products. A critical function the space performs is to allow audience members an opportunity to be creatively involved in the development of new artistic expression, as the engagement with the public provides researchers with essential information that is used to shape further iterations of their art works and research.