Editorial

Abstract

The plethora and availability of digital tools and practices have transformed the ways art is created, perceived and disseminated. This had a distinct impact on how research is conducted across the arts and humanities as a whole from practice-led to process-focused and people-centred research. Airea's first issue "Computational tools and digital methods in creative practices" germinated from a series of research focuses that began in 2016 when the research network (sIREN) was established by PhD students in Edinburgh College of Art, the University of Edinburgh. sIREN's aim is to create a dialogue between several fields and promote new perceptions of research based on diverse methodological approaches. It seeks to form a platform of communication among arts and other disciplines, technologies and digital media, theory, practice and collaboration. For this, we organised a series seminarsworkshops during the academic year 2016-2017 that brought together invited speakers from the University of Edinburgh (across Edinburgh College of Art, School of Education, School of Informatics, Edinburgh Centre for Robotics and School of Geosciences), the University of Warwick (Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies), the University of Newcastle (School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape) and the National Library of Scotland, followed by an international conference in May 2017, which included an interactive format of hands-on workshops, papers and a performance session."Computational tools and digital methods in creative practices" issue was developed as a highlight of the sIREN Conference 2017: Arts and Digital Practices, which set out to explore digital practices and their impact in contemporary artistic contexts. This issue investigates creative practices at the intersection of art and digital technology, and the role of the artist in blurring this discursive entanglement, by examining emergent forms of such practices. The selected papers in this issue reflect on key practical and philosophical challenges that contribute to the broader discussion of what it means to use digital tools as a form of artistic inquiry. These include the themes of computation and the creative process, data analysis in art practice and the intersection of art and science.Panourgia et al. investigate the role of computer technology in forming and mediating a hybrid creative practice. Barahona Rios et al. survey artistic methods that rely upon the production or mapping of data-sets in their approach for identifying patterns in creative processes and in shaping this data into material form. Williams explores hybrid media installations and generative, participatory performance projects, which centre on embodied thought processes by creating open-ended connections among object, image, archive, digital process and textual material. Tenuta and Testa focus on how the boundaries between scientific method, artistic experimentation and creative process are increasingly interwoven in the contemporary scene. Stals examines ideas of design for devices and s...