How I Became A Creative Technologist And What Role Abstraction Played In It

#hybrid-habitat

Ever since I can remember I have been into too many topics and ideas to name them all. As a kid I was following shows, natural documentaries, sports and read many books. I processed what I liked by reenacting them in terms of my own little imaginary world, while being outside exploring nature. Picking out ideas and features I like about one topic and combining them with those of others, while ignoring those that I found boring or meaningless for my purpose. I didn't not know it back then, but now in retrospective, I was working with abstraction.

Long hiking trips were especially suitable for this. While walking, I would distract myself following long thought-trains trespassing and combining various concepts often prototyping my stories by roleplaying through them in my mind. I started getting into video games, later programming and roleplaying system and found the idea to put this activity of dreaming up worlds from disjoint concepts as systems, articulated through parameters and clear relationships very appealing. I played around with programming, but resources on the topic were not as accessible as nowadays, also I couldn't really see any feasible applications for a 15yo back then, thinking that the one thing I was interested the most in: video games were simply out of my reach. So it became a dream for me to one day being able to make my own video games (dream accomplished... by the way).

I decided to pursue design for the time being, sharpening my mind for aesthetics, and learning how to express my imagination other than day-dreaming or producing convoluted write-ups about it -- I did. Many writeups. Very convoluted. I learned to sketch, about composition, about target audiences, various design principles and elements (colors, contrasts, shape language, typography, etc...) and how to sell something by expressing their main qualities through those design elements. Expressing qualities for a certain purpose?
Isn't that? Yes, abstraction. Again.

I followed this up with a Bachelor of Media Design. At it's core this programme was about understanding every medium as it's own vehicle that can carry unique information and as such have different requirements, expressing a topic through it's unique lens. For example a poster about space exploration, or a book design, or a video game, or a movie would all allow to express different nuances of the same topic based on the nature of how we interact with it. This is the reason why I am so obsessed with what unique concepts each programming language can express. And I followed this fascination up with my Master Thesis.

We explored this with practical projects. This was complemented by rigorous philosophical theory, where one of the core concepts was that of a Sign. An object becomes a sign when it expresses or refers to another object. While symbolism is an arbitrary association of one object with another, based on context: charging the symbol with meaning. Other forms of signs like icons (representation) deal with abstraction as fundamental principle. Observing the features of an object being able to extract and isolate them from any other feature and apply them to a different object.

Over multiple semesters we would explore different media types. In the first semester we were focused on free artistic works, where the medium of choice was secondary. Instead the goal was to unlock a creative process. In the second semester it was about printed media, like books, booklets, posters and so on. In the third semester we explored new media, digital media, web dev, art installations, video games, interaction design, to name a few. This is when I got back into touch with programming and finally had an application for it. The fourth semester was simply known as the "film semester", either animation or live action. We had to script, cast, produce and finalize a short film in the span of 3 months. Fifth semester's main idea was to make cross-media campaigns and to apply what we had learned to participate in design competitions. My team decided to go for a new media installation for the Ars Electronicaabout the myth of AI and it's controversial relationship to humanity's fear and fascination with it. This was also the moment where I turned from a convoluted dreamer into an artist.

Let me explain.

We started framing the artwork from the topic's perspective, trying to come up with interesting scenarios, a twist or a narrative. As I was used to do, since I was a child.
However by doing so we distracted from the real substance of our work: the AI. We started depicting it as a monstrous autonomous installation of computers, or tried to emphasis it's cold calculated nature by designing scenario's in which we would highlight it's inability to empathize with the human and by doing so endangering the user, sometimes even without any harmful intention. We were modeling a vaguely related message and attaching it to our main subject focusing on a controversial theme and constructing a concept from it. We were representing already known themes and concepts in a new form, in doing so, not providing any insight worthy of it's own work. We were using abstraction arbitrarily. Applying the general methodology. Something I had learned so far. Expressing a target message through a target medium, is the essence of media design. Any message would have worked; therefore none where worth the artwork. But art requires more sophistication. How do we find the "real" message? Well... Abstraction.

Our supervising professor has noticed this and encouraged us to think from the perspective of our subject, engaging directly with it, understanding what makes it, what it is and only then iteratively exploring themes and ideas. Instead of asking how can we show the dangerous or threatening perception society has of AI as a scenario, we should ask ourselves what is AI, and what in that process is the aspect that provokes the collection of emotions and themes we associate with it? How can we deliberately focus on certain aspects, highlighting them with interaction and presenting it in a way that it reveals the essence of that idea. We followed a heuristic in which we had to reflect our theme through the features of our subject. The subject became the medium. The line between canvas, subject, theme and art-style became one self-sufficient piece, that stood as unique product of an intuitive artistic process. Once again abstraction was the key. Instead of applying and highlight features, abstraction would be used to extract the essence that was already inside the subject. We just had to find it.

It did not try to embody any additional external message. It was it. Self sufficient. It alone was the message. It had clear intent, however communicates it subtly through the interaction with it, and our multiple synergistic micro-decisions that lead to it's final form, iterating over ideas, integrating and adapting observations, and removing anything that would distract from that final form it wants, and needs to be. Art is about understanding what the subjects wants to be.

I learned how fundamental it is to synchronize your thought process with the subject. Every subject matter requires it's unique creative process. Which is iterative in nature. Iteration allows you to view the engagement with the artwork as a journey. Uncovering piece by piece what you want to express and what the art needs. Removing, adding, adjusting.

However when engaging with technical systems, I realize that often the tools and systems you use to realize you artistic vision follow their own internal design and logic, and you have to invest a lot cognitive effort rephrasing your mental creative process into concrete realization steps aligning with your selected tools, often disrupting the creative process.

This is were my passion for creative processes, artistic value and abstraction meet to become a personal mission. Understanding the unique requirements to forge tools that align with the creative process. Their design and affordances modeled after the unique abstractions that the subject matter suggests and requires. On the other hand I also switch the perspective, and embrace every technology, language, framework, tool as a unique abstraction, similar to a medium in my studies. Any system is more suitable to express certain features more than others.

But mostly I have transcended the small boy I used to be. I found my medium of choice. Transforming imagination to language. Art is a language. And programming is a language.
And together they are a language that can allow to execute my imagination.

Quite literally.