Weak and Strong Computational Creativity - Computational Creativity Research: Towards Creative Machines - page 37

non-photorealistic rendering; particularly, many papers approach drawing and paint-
ing using the optimisation framework (where optimisation and generative techniques
are utilised an artistic context). Furthermore, particles have been used for stippling
and other aesthetic styles in numerous papers. Turk and Bank's work [ 36 ]isanearly
example of optimising particle positions to control a stroke-based rendering. Hertz-
mann [ 22 ] optimised a global function over all strokes using a relaxation approach.
In one of his works, Collomosse [ 14 ] used a global genetic algorithm to define a
rendering algorithm. More recently, Zhao et al. [ 41 ] deployed an optimisation-based
approach to study the stroke placement problem in painterly rendering, and pre-
sented a solution named stroke processes, which enables intuitive and interactive
customisation of painting styles.
This work is an extension of ideas first presented at the Computing and Philosophy
symposium at AISB 2011 [ 2 ] and subsequently published in the Cognitive Compu-
tation journal [ 6 ]. In the work discussed herein the impact of freedom and constraint
on the concept of 'creativity' is discussed, followed by a discussion on the creativity
of swarm intelligence systems. This paper also addresses the thorny issue of 'Weak'
verses 'Strong' computational creativity.
2.2 On Art, Freedom and Creativity
For many years there has been discussions on the relationship between art, creativity
and freedom; a debate elegantly encapsulated in the famous German prose by Ludwig
Hevesi at the entrance of the Secession Building in Vienna:
Der Zeit ihre Kunst
Der Kunst ihre Freiheit
That is: “To Time its Art; To Art its Freedom”.
which, centuries after, resonates an earlier observation fromAristotle (384-322BCE)
[ 18 ] emphasising the importance of freedom, giving rise to further exploration of
areas otherwise left untouched (here, having “a tincture of madness”) in presenting
a creative act.
There was never a genius without a tincture of madness.
On the other hand Margaret Boden, in [ 9 ], more recently argues that creativity
has an ambiguous relationship with freedom:
A style is a (culturally favoured) space of structural possibilities: not a painting, but a way
of painting. Or a way of sculpting, or of composing fugues .. [] .. It's partly because of these
[thinking] styles that creativity has an ambiguous relationship with freedom.
Considering the many factors constituting the evaluation of what is deemed
'creative', raises core issues regarding how humans evaluate creativity; their aes-
thetic capacity and potentially that of other animals (e.g. as exhibited in, say, mate-
selection). Galanter [ 19 ] suggests that perhaps the 'computational equivalent' of a