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creativity, and distributed creativity are emerging phenomena highlighted through
the experimental research carried out in ubiquitous music. The next two sections
will discuss the implications of adopting material relational properties and social
relational properties as targets for experimental work. This discussion will provide
the necessary context to defi ne a common ground for interaction aesthetics and
ubimus research methods. The last section will point to the methodological chal-
lenges faced by creativity-aware interaction aesthetics.
6.3
Material Relational Properties and Creativity Support
Metaphors: Implementation of the Metaphors
and Testing the Solutions Through User Studies
Keller et al. (
2010
) have proposed anchoring as an affordance-formation process for
supporting creative practice. Affordances are not properties of the environment or
properties of the human agents. They are relational properties that arise while activi-
ties are been carried out. Activities involve cognitive and proprioceptive processes
that engage both material resources and conceptual operations. By understanding
affordances as dynamic properties emergent from agent-object (natural or material
affordances) and agent-agent interactions (social affordances), a key aspect of the
design process emerges: how affordances are shaped. Anchoring is one of the key
mechanisms for cognition and proprioception integration (Hutchins
2005
). It may
also play an important role in affordance formation. Two examples of the applica-
tion of anchoring within the context of design are the creativity support metaphors:
time tagging (Keller et al.
2010
) and spatial tagging (Keller et al.
2011a
,
b
).
1. The
time-tagging metaphor
provides direct couplings between sonic cues and
conceptual operations making it possible to defi ne how a set of unordered virtual
elements or processes is layered onto a tagged timeline.
2. The
spatial-tagging metaphor
makes use of virtual or material visual cues -
anchors - to support creative musical activity.
Creativity support metaphors embody methodological solutions that are not
bound to technical specifi cities. Time tagging defi nes a process by which a set of
unordered virtual elements or processes is layered onto an abstract one-dimensional
structure - a tagged timeline. The time-tagging interaction metaphor is applicable to
mixing on stationary or on portable devices. It can be applied on sonic data or on
control sequences. It could also be extended to video applications. As a creativity
support metaphor, time tagging materializes relational properties that fulfi ll part of
the human and the technological demands of the mixing activity.
This metaphor was used to implement a series of prototypes grouped under the
label mixDroid fi rst generation (mixDroid1G). MixDroid1G is a compositional tool
that allows the user to record sonic performances which can be merged into com-
plete artworks. Usage consists of selecting and triggering multiple sound resources,
