Generative Creativity - Lecture 2:
The basics

What it's about

There is ongoing debate about what creativity really is, or at

least what the concept picks out.

But this course side-steps that issue, taking creativity to be any process which produces an especially valued artefact.

The key distinction will be between `hands-on' and `hands-off' versions of the process.

Hands-on creativity: production of a valued artefact by direct action.
Hands-off creativity: production of a valued artefact by indirect action, i.e., manipulation of a generative mechanism.

The course focusses on the latter approach with attention focussing particularly on the possibilities opened up by modern, computational methods.

Basic questions

To make progress with any application of generative creativity, we need detailed answers to specific questions.

How does the generative process work?
How are its products valued?
Why are they valued?

So concerning production of images, say, we would want to know

what is the process by which a particular type of image is constructed?
how might it be valued?
are there different types of valuation?
can we maximise value somehow?

Application areas

Generative approaches are increasingly common in these areas.

Music (the biggest area at present)
Images
Video and animation
Stories
Jokes
Theories, analogies and models
Poetry
Interactive experiences combining several of the above

All approaches involve use of models.

Some attempt to build a model from examples.

Basic equipment

Java applets provide an excellent, zero-cost, genre-free framework for presenting generative media over the web.

But they are quite complex to use and some of the `fine details' of object-oriented programming are not really required.

We need some specific methods to make life easy.

Hello World applet - Java code

  import javax.swing.*;
  import java.awt.*;

  class AppletPanel extends JPanel {
     public void paintComponent(Graphics g) {
         super.paintComponent(g);
         g.drawString("Hello World", 10, 20);
     }
  }

  public class Hello extends JApplet {
     public void init() {
        getContentPane().add(new AppletPanel());
     }
  }

Hello World applet - HTML code

Make a file using a text editor called `Hello.html' containing

  <html>
  <body>
  <applet code="Hello.class" width=128 height=128> 
  </body>
  </html>

You can do this for any applet. The crucial details is the value of the 'code' parameter. This must be the name of the relevant class file.

Hello World applet in action

To run the applet, first make sure you have html file and the class file in the same folder. Then simply open `Hello.html' in a web browser.

Alternatively, you can run the applet as a standalone application using the `appletviewer' command from the command prompt:

  appletviewer Hello.html

Fonts and backgrounds

To change the background color, insert something like

setBackground(Color.blue);

inside the paintComponent definition.

To change the pen color insert something like

g.setColor(Color.yellow);

before the drawString call.

Mouse and keyboard interaction

If we want the applet to be interactive, we need to add MouseListener functionality.

This involves defining methods which `listen' out for certain types of button-press.

For full details, look at the documentation for `MouseListener'. (This is most easily done by googling `MouseListener', or `Java 5.0 MouseListener' if you want specific documentation for version 5, say.) Look at the documentation for `KeyListener' to see how to make an applet listen to the keyboard.

Interactive Hello World applet

  import javax.swing.*;
  import java.awt.*;
  import java.awt.event.*;

  class HelloWorldPanel extends JPanel implements MouseListener {
     MouseEvent event;

     public void paintComponent(Graphics g) {
        super.paintComponent(g);
        g.drawString("Hello World", 10, 20);
        if (event != null) g.fillOval(event.getX(), event.getY(), 20, 20);
     }

     public void mousePressed(MouseEvent event) {
        this.event = event;
        repaint();
     }

     public void mouseReleased(MouseEvent event) { }
     public void mouseClicked(MouseEvent event) { }
     public void mouseEntered(MouseEvent event) { }
     public void mouseExited(MouseEvent event) { }

  }

  public class HelloWorld extends JApplet {
     public void init() {
        HelloWorldPanel appletPanel = new HelloWorldPanel();
        appletPanel.addMouseListener(appletPanel);
        appletPanel.setBackground(Color.pink);
        getContentPane().add(appletPanel);
     }
  }

Interactive applet

Summary

For this course, creativity is taken to be any process which produces an especially valued artefact. No particular emphasis on `novelty' or `appropriateness' since these are implicit in `especially valued'.
Key questions for the course are `how does the mechanism work?', `how are the products valued?' and `why?'
Using Java applets for maximum power, flexibility and accessibility. But using shortcuts where possible.

Exercises

Look at the documentation for the Color class. Then modify the applet so that it uses one of the other colors predefined by this class.
Modify the applet so that clicking in the bottom, right corner causes the Java `beep' method to be called: Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit().beep();
Add a MouseMotionListener to the applet and modify the code so that you can drag the blob of color around with the mouse.

Resources

Sun applet tutorial: http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/uiswing/components/applet.html
Relevant Java documentation: `JApplet' `MouseListener', `KeyListener', `JPanel', `Graphics'. You can pick the documentation pages up using google. For an unsual word like `MouseListener', just specifying this as the search string should be enough to pull up the class documentation (as first result), provided you use the right mix of case. But for more common words (like `Graphics') you need to narrow down the search by inluding something like `Java 5.0' at the front.

Page created on: Wed Jan 13 12:09:42 GMT 2010
Feedback to Chris Thornton

Generative Creativity - Lecture 2: The basics