Extending Software Engineering Collaboration towards the ...

Salah Uddin Ahmed
Extending Software Engineering
Collaboration towards the Intersection
of Software and Art
Thesis for the degree of Philosophiae Doctor
Trondheim, December 2010
Norwegian University of Science and Technology, NTNU
Faculty of Information Technology, Mathematics and Electrical Engineering
Department of Computer and Information Science

NTNU
Norwegian University of Science and Technology
Thesis for the degree of philosophiae doctor
Faculty of Information Technology, Mathematics and Electrical Engineering
Department of Computer and Information Science
© Salah Uddin Ahmed
ISBN 978-82-471-2683-7 (printed version)
ISBN 978-82-471-2684-4 (electronic version)
ISSN 1503-8181
Doctoral Theses at NTNU, 2011:77
Printed by NTNU-trykk

Abstract
The intersection between Software Engineering and Art is an interesting area which is
growing with an increasing number of artists using software technology in their artwork. As a
result, software developed by artists and for artists is emerging as new category of software
and software dependent art projects are growing in numbers, drawing the attention of
software developers and artists. Often in these projects, software engineers have to work
together with artists in order to support them with software engineering methods, tools, and
technology. But the collaboration between artists and software engineers is not always
smooth due to the fact that they come from two very different disciplines. Hence a knowledge
base at the intersection of software engineering and art is beneficial to both artists and
software engineers. From the software engineering point of view, the scope of software
engineering can be extended by considering software dependent artwork as a system. In this
way, software engineering issues can be identified in the development, maintenance and
upgrading of software dependent artwork. In this thesis, we will conceptualise the
intersection of software engineering and art, and contribute to the knowledge base at the
intersection. In this research we have identified the following research questions to
investigate the intersection of software and art:
RQ1. What is the relationship between art and software and how can we conceptualise it?
RQ2. How can we characterise the development process of software dependent artwork and
projects in terms of software development, maintenance, upgrade and usability of the
artwork?
RQ3. How can we increase collaboration between artists and software engineers and
improve the field of computing by borrowing concepts from the arts?
These queries were dealt with in two systematic reviews and a case study. The results of the
queries were obtained by qualitative analysis of information and concepts gathered from
literature reviews and case studies where the data analysis is predominantly hermeneutics and
phenomenological. The main contributions of the research work are:
C1. Identification of the research issues at the intersection of software and art.
C2. Conceptual framework of different entities and themes at the intersection of software
and art
C3. Identification of the issues that contribute to the success or failure of a software
dependent art project and the features that facilitates collaboration between artists and
technologists
C4. Proposals on how we can bridge software engineering and art through collaborations
and improve computing discipline by borrowing concepts and ideas from art.
These contributions add to the knowledge base at the intersection of software engineering and
art. The knowledge base identifies how software engineering can be extended and enriched
by collaborations with art. At the same time, the knowledge base can bridge the gap between
the stakeholders involved in the software and art and bring positive results and experiences
for everyone involved.
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Preface
This thesis is submitted to the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) for
partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of philosophiae doctor.
This doctoral work has been performed at the Department of Computer and Information
Science, NTNU, Trondheim, under the supervision of Professor Letizia Jaccheri as the main
supervisor, and Professor Guttorm Sindre and Professor Kristin Bergaust as co-supervisors.
This PhD thesis is financed as an integrated PhD study by an internal scholarship from the
department of Computer and Information Science and the Faculty of Information
Technology, Mathematics and Electrical Engineering at NTNU.
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Acknowledgements
First of all, I would like to thank Professor Letizia Jaccheri for her supervision and
continuous support and advice during my PhD studies. I would like to extend my thanks to
my co-supervisors, Professor Guttorm Sindre and Professor Kristin Bergaust, for their
encouraging guidance and suggestions during my time as a PhD student. Next I would like to
thank the members and participants of the SArt project who have provided valuable input for
this research. Special thanks are due to Anna Trifonova who helped me a lot at the beginning
of my studies, in addition to our project collaboration and friendly cooperation. I am also
grateful to my colleagues and teachers who shared their knowledge and experience and
provided important feedback on my work on numerous occasions in the software engineering
research group meetings.
I would like to express my gratitude to Samir Mk’admi for his wonderful collaboration and
cooperation during the project, and later on. I would also like to extend my gratitude to all
stakeholders involved in the Sonic Onyx project, especially to Ulrika Johansen from
Trondheim Municipality, Håkon Grønning from HiST, Fridtjof from Blussuvoll School, and
Jarmo Röksä from Midgard Media Lab at NTNU.
I would also like to thank Alf Inge Wang, Jingyue Li, and Letizia Jaccheri for helping and
cooperating in my teaching duties during these years. I offer my gratitude to the invaluable
help and support provided by fellow researchers when needed. Gasparas Jarulaitis, Thomas
Brox Røst, Thomas Østerlie, Ilaria Canova Calori and Jose Danado deserve special mention. I
would also like to take this chance thank all my friends and colleagues who have made my
stay at NTNU memorable by sharing ideas, experiences, good times and company. It is hard
to mention everyones name here, but it is even harder not to mention a few like Alfredo
Perez, Torstein Hjelle, Gry Seland, Birgit Krogstie, Wu Bian, Shang Gao, Shi Min, Dragana
Laketic, Sundar, Gry Seland, Gunnar Øie, Audrius, Ole Alsos and Agnieszka Pokrywka.
Last, but not least, I would like to convey special thanks to my Bangladeshi friends in
Trondheim who have kept alive the taste and flavours of Bangladesh even in this northern
part of the world. Finally, I would like to thank my family in Bangladesh for providing
inspiration and love and enduring support during all these years.
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Table of Contents
ABSTRACT .........................................................................................................................................................II
PREFACE ...........................................................................................................................................................IV
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...............................................................................................................................VI
LIST OF FIGURES..........................................................................................................................................XII
LIST OF TABLES...........................................................................................................................................XIV
ABBREVIATIONS..........................................................................................................................................XVI
1 INTRODUCTION.......................................................................................................................................1
1.1 Problem Outline.........................................................................................................1
1.2 Research Context .......................................................................................................3
1.3 Research Questions....................................................................................................4
1.4 Research Method .......................................................................................................5
1.5 Research Design.........................................................................................................5
1.5.1 Systematic Review 1........................................................................................................................5
1.5.2 Case Study ......................................................................................................................................5
1.5.3 Systematic Review 2........................................................................................................................6
1.5.4 Observation.....................................................................................................................................6
1.6 Papers.........................................................................................................................7
1.7 Contributions............................................................................................................12
1.8 Thesis Structure .......................................................................................................13
2 STATE OF THE ART ..............................................................................................................................15
2.1 Software Engineering...............................................................................................15
2.2 Software Engineering Evolution..............................................................................17
2.3 Software Dependent Artworks.................................................................................19
2.4 Collaboration............................................................................................................19
2.5 Intersection of Software and Art..............................................................................21
2.6 Technologists ...........................................................................................................22
2.7 Software Developers................................................................................................22
2.8 Software Engineer....................................................................................................23
2.9 State of Practice .......................................................................................................24
2.10 Research Methods in Software Engineering............................................................27
3 RESEARCH METHOD ...........................................................................................................................29
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3.1 Research Methods - the Big Picture.........................................................................29
3.1.1 Positivist Approach.......................................................................................................................30
3.1.2 Constructivism or Interpretivism ..................................................................................................30
3.1.3 Critical Research ..........................................................................................................................30
3.2 Which Methods to Choose.......................................................................................32
3.3 Research Method .....................................................................................................33
3.3.1 Systematic Literature Review........................................................................................................33
3.3.1.1 Planning ..............................................................................................................................................34
3.3.1.2 Conducting Review.............................................................................................................................34
3.3.1.3 Reporting ............................................................................................................................................35
3.3.1.4 Strength and Weakness of Systematic Review ...................................................................................35
3.3.2 Case Study ....................................................................................................................................36
3.3.2.1 Strengths and Weaknesses ..................................................................................................................37
3.4 Data Analysis...........................................................................................................37
3.4.1 Stages in Analysis .........................................................................................................................38
4 RESEARCH DESIGN ..............................................................................................................................41
4.1 Study 1 – Systematic Literature Review 1...............................................................41
4.1.1 Planning the Review .....................................................................................................................42
4.1.2 Search Strategy.............................................................................................................................42
4.1.2.1 Keyword Search in Electronic Databases ...........................................................................................42
4.1.2.2 Thorough Search in Selected Relevant Journals and Conferences......................................................43
4.1.2.3 Finding Articles from the References of Reviewed Papers.................................................................43
4.1.2.4 Other Resources..................................................................................................................................43
4.1.3 Selection Criteria..........................................................................................................................44
4.1.4 Selection Process ..........................................................................................................................44
4.1.5 Data Extraction ............................................................................................................................44
4.1.6 Statistics Generation and Synthesis ..............................................................................................44
4.2 Study 2 – the Case Study .........................................................................................44
4.2.1 Case Study Steps...........................................................................................................................45
4.2.2 Data Analysis................................................................................................................................47
4.3 Study 3 – Systematic Literature Review2................................................................48
4.3.1 Planning the Review .....................................................................................................................48
4.3.2 Search Strategy.............................................................................................................................49
4.3.3 Selection Criteria: ........................................................................................................................50
4.3.4 Selection Process ..........................................................................................................................50
4.3.5 Data Extraction ............................................................................................................................50
4.3.6 Analysis.........................................................................................................................................51
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5 RESULTS ..................................................................................................................................................53
5.1 Identification of Research Issues at the Intersection of Software and Art...............54
5.1.1 Software Development Issues .......................................................................................................56
5.1.2 Educational Issues........................................................................................................................57
5.1.3 Aesthetics Issues ...........................................................................................................................58
5.1.4 Social and Cultural Implications of Software/Technology on Art ................................................59
5.2 Conceptual Framework of the Entities at the Intersection.......................................60
5.2.1 Who (are the Roles Involved in This Domain)..............................................................................60
5.2.2 Why (Art and Software Disciplines Interact)................................................................................61
5.2.3 Where (the Intersection Happens) ................................................................................................63
5.2.4 What (Software Tools Are Used in this Domain)..........................................................................64
5.2.5 Summary .......................................................................................................................................66
5.3 Identification of Factors that contribute to the Success/Failure of SDA Project.....67
5.3.1 The Context of the SDA Project: Sonic Onyx ...............................................................................67
5.3.2 Lessons Learned- Issues and Challenges for SDA Projects .........................................................69
5.3.3 Factors that Influence the Success/Failure of Collaboration .......................................................70
5.4 Proposals on How Computing Can Benefit from Art Collaboration.......................71
6 EVALUATION AND DISCUSSION OF RESULTS .............................................................................73
6.1 Evaluation of Research Questions ...........................................................................73
6.2 Evaluation of Contributions.....................................................................................74
6.3 Evaluation of Validity..............................................................................................77
6.3.1 Internal Validity............................................................................................................................79
6.3.2 External Validity...........................................................................................................................80
6.3.3 Construct and Conclusion Validity...............................................................................................82
7 CONCLUSION..........................................................................................................................................83
7.1 Contributions............................................................................................................83
7.2 Limitations and Future Work...................................................................................85
7.3 Concluding Remarks................................................................................................86
8 REFERENCES..........................................................................................................................................87
9 APPENDIX A: SELECTED PAPERS ....................................................................................................95
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List of Figures
Figure 1. Studies and their contributions connected with research questions and publications 7
Figure 2. Assistant model, full partner model and partnership model with artist control .......20
Figure 3. The intersection of software, art and SE ..................................................................21
Figure 4. Sound installation Flyndre........................................................................................25
Figure 5. Sonic Onyx at day time ............................................................................................26
Figure 6. Open Wall displaying an animation of a bunny .......................................................27
Figure 7. Process of conducting literature review 1 ................................................................41
Figure 8. Process of conducting literature review 2 ................................................................49
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xiii

List of Tables
Table 1. Link between the research questions, contributions and papers................................13
Table 2. Meta-theoretical assumptions about positivism and interpretivism ..........................31
Table 3. Relevant situation for different research strategies....................................................32
Table 4. List of keywords ........................................................................................................42
Table 5. List of journals and conferences ................................................................................43
Table 6. Connection between the research studies and research contributions .......................53
Table 7. Issues at the intersection of software and art .............................................................55
Table 8. ‘Who’ dimension lists the people at the intersection.................................................61
Table 9. Tools at the intersection of software and art..............................................................65
Table 10. Where, who and why dimension of the intersection of software and art.................66
Table 11.Validation technique in SE .......................................................................................78
xiv

Abbreviations
ACM Association for Computing Machinery
CMM Capability Maturity Model
COSTART COmputer SupporT for ARTists project
COTS Commercial, off-the-shelf
CS Computer Science
HCI Human Computer Interaction
HiST Høgskolen i Sør-Trøndelag (Sør-Trøndelag University College )
IS
Information Systems
ISO International Organization for Standardization
IT Information Technology
LED Light Emitting Diode
MIT Massachusetts Institute of Technology
NATO North American Treaty Organization
NTNU Norwegian University of Science and Technology
OSS Open Source Software
RQ Research Question
SArt Software and Art Project
SDA Software Dependent Artwork
SE Software Engineering
SIGGRAPH Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques
SWEBOK Software Engineering Body of Knowledge
UI User Interface
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1 Introduction
This thesis is a collection of papers consisting of eight papers (P1-P8). This chapter outlines
the context and motivation for the research presented in this thesis. It provides a brief
overview of the reported research including the research questions and our claimed
contributions. Finally it introduces the structure of the thesis.
1.1 Problem Outline
Recent developments in art includes many terms involving technology such as digital art,
computer art, net art, software art, interactive art and so on. What it implies is that with the
advancement of technology and software, the field of art has been highly influenced by
software. Software technology has evolved from simple command prompt based input and
output programs to current sophisticated and feature-rich graphical user interfaces. For artists,
this advancement has opened many new dimensions which range from utilising software for
creating artwork to using the software itself as an artwork. As a result the relation between art
and software brings two disciplines together which are largely considered to be separate by
the traditional educational system (Snow 1964). Software engineering is a field of expertise
which is mainly focussed on the development, use and maintenance of software. On the other
hand, art is a field which focuses on products or processes that affect emotions or senses.
Artists scrutinise and criticise every aspect of life, and since software and computing
technology is a part and parcel of today’s life it is not surprising that software technology gets
increasing attention from the artists’ community.
The fact that they come from very different cultures and backgrounds, poise some problems
in the collaboration between artists and software developers. The literature reveals that the
collaboration between artist and technologist is not very smooth (Meyer et al. 1998a; Biswas
et al. 2006; Biswas and Singh 2006). Ken Knowlton, who was a former programmer at Bell
Labs, discussed his personal experiences of collaborating with artists in an ACM SIGGRAPH
(Association for Computing Machinery's Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics and
Interactive Techniques) Computer Graphics article which he titled, “On frustrations of
collaborating with artists” (Knowlton and Machover 2001). He mentioned that, during the
collaboration, things can go quite wrong to an extent that leads the collaborators to come to a
realisation that they really have a profound disagreement about motivation, purpose and goal.
Software engineers who have worked with artists strive to make technology more accessible
to the artists (Machin 2002b). They have also recognised the need for SE (Software
Engineering) processes and methods that do not inhibit the artistic process (Machin 2002b).
On the other hand, artists who have worked with software, such as Bencina an artist and a
self taught programmer who has also gained traditional SE knowledge, contended that
software development methods that are used in the business world are likely to create
problems for creative software development by artists-cum-developers (Bencina 2006).
Whilst artists like Bencina do exist, who will learn the technology themselves, in most cases
artists are ill equipped to work with technologies which incline them into collaborations with
technologists as a necessary means for realising their intentions of developing contemporary
art using technology (Jones 2005b). Even when the artist masters the tools and creates artistic
software by him/herself, problems can arise later due to the lack of SE knowledge of the
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Chapter 1. Introduction
artist, as was seen in the case of the artist Øyvind Brandtsegg’s algorithmic composition
software Improsculpt (Trifonova et al. 2008a) . So while in the literature and in recent art
trends a great interest is seen in the artist community about using software to develop
artwork, at the same time their struggling with the development and maintenance of artwork
due to a lack of SE knowledge is also visible. Traditional SE has not addressed this area
before and there is a scope that SE can play in an important role in helping the artist
community with SE knowledge in their use and development of software and software
dependent artwork. The approach of expanding the SE view to include artists’ involvement
with software is relatively new and there is no knowledge base at the intersection of SE and
art. However, there is a lot of evidence in literature that there is a growing interest in the
interdisciplinary research between art and technology. For example, a necessity to understand
the collaboration between artists and technologists in projects of common interest is
discussed in Harris (1999). The strengthening of the collaboration between these two
communities was also an aim in more recent events such as the ACM Conference on Human
Factors in Computing Systems (CHI) 2006, and the slogan for CHI 2008 was chosen as “art
science balance.”
Many of the software dependent art projects can be considered as a software system which
has an artistic purpose in addition to its system functionalities. For example, interactive art
installations can be compared to a computing system with an input, output and processing as
the core functionalities of the system. Disregarding the case of whether or not the artist
knows the tools and technology, an artist is not supposed to have formal knowledge of SE.
This can lead to two scenarios. In the first, the artist creates the product him/herself but later
it requires some SE intervention to solve the problems that might occur due to lack of
following correct SE methods and processes. In the second, the artist chooses to develop the
product with the help of software engineers from the beginning. Software engineers in this
case face challenges to develop the product by following SE process with an artist who is not
very familiar with the engineering processes and to ensure at the same time that the SE
process does not inhibit the artistic and creative processes. In the first case, software
engineers have to solve the problem related to the product that is going to be developed, and
in the second case they have to care for the working process, collaboration and mutual
understanding that facilitates achieving a shared goal for the project. Unfortunately not much
research has been done to determine artists’ needs for software, their interests and their role
in collaboration with software developers and SE related problems in software applications or
artwork made by artists. In order to remove the gap between artists and software engineers,
artists and software engineers need to understand each other and learn more about each
other’s views and common interests. In other words, it means that as software engineers we
should have a good conceptual understanding of the intersection between software and art,
where and how art and software meet, what kind of help and support artists require and how
we can collaborate successfully with artists by taking care of both SE processes and artistic or
creative processes. Since in traditional educational systems art and technology are separated
by discipline, these understandings can only be improved by interdisciplinary research
initiatives. Because of artists’ nature of using technology in a wilful manner and focussing
mostly on the artistic purpose or artistic value of the artwork, the software engineers have to
come forward to identify and establish the SE issues at the intersection of software and art.
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Chapter 1. Introduction
1.2 Research Context
The research has been conducted under the SArt project inside the Software Engineering
group at the department of Computer and Information Science at the Norwegian University
of Science and Technology (NTNU) (SArt 2007). The focus of the project has been the
exploration of research issues at the intersection between SE and art. The main objective was
to propose, assess and improve the methods, models and tools for software development in
the artistic context while facilitating collaboration with artists. Particular attention was paid to
art-influenced software development. Special focus had been given to the development of
software dependent interactive art installation projects. One of the objectives was to create a
knowledge base at the intersection of software and art from where the SE research agenda
could be extended to include software dependent artwork through the following activities:
1. Develop knowledge on the interdisciplinary nature of software production in which
the SE process interacts with the artistic process.
2. Create and participate in software dependent art projects that increase collaboration
and reduce the gap between artists and software engineers leading to mutual benefits
for both groups.
3. Educate competent practitioners and researchers in the interdisciplinary field of
software and art, and for transfer of knowledge to the software industry and artist
communities.
SArt has considered software developed in the context of art as a subject for SE research and
thus extended the scope of SE research to include research issues found at the intersection of
software and art. As part of SArt, we have taken part in several interdisciplinary projects
involving artists and software engineers such as Flyndre 1 , Sonic Onyx (Onyx 2007) and Open
Wall 2 . From our participation in these software dependent art projects, we recognised that
software dependent artwork is not simply a piece of art. It can be considered as a software
application and the development, maintenance, upgrading and usability of these systems is of
interest for SE investigations. Our participation in the art projects and collaboration with
artists made us interested in conducting both theoretical and practical investigations on the
interaction of software engineers and artists leading us to the objective of creating a
knowledge base at the intersection of art and SE.
As interdisciplinary research, it has been conducted in collaboration with Kristin Bergaust,
Professor in Applied Aesthetics at Oslo University College 3 . The research has also benefited
from the interdisciplinary courses and projects that the SArt group had been participating in
and implementing in the SE group at NTNU. Besides, SArt group members’ active
participation in several art and technology matchmaking festivals both at local and
international level such as Piksel 4 , Trondheim Matchmaking 5 , Ars Electronica 6 and
1 http://www.flyndresang.no
2 http://mediawiki.idi.ntnu.no/wiki/sart/index.php/main_Page
3 http://www.hio.no
4 http://www.piksel.no
5 http://www.matchmaking.no
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Chapter 1. Introduction
interaction with experts from different disciplines including artists has played an important
role in our research.
1.3 Research Questions
The main objective of this work is to extend the research agenda of SE to include software
developed in the context of art and to reduce the gap between software engineers and artists
by increasing collaboration between them. In this thesis we have mainly followed three
themes to achieve this; i) increasing understanding of each other, ii) identifying the features
that influence an artist-software developer collaboration, iii) seeking ways to increase
collaboration by having common projects such as interactive art installations. Thus we have
identified the following three main research questions which are further divided into subquestions
as listed below:
RQ1. What is the relationship between art and software and how can we conceptualise it?
This question can be broken down into the following sub-questions:
a. When, where and how do software engineers and artists become involved with
each other?
b. What are the concepts, issues and entities that exist at the intersection of software
and art?
c. What tools and technologies are used in this intersection of the two domains?
RQ2. How can we characterise the development process of software dependent artwork
(SDA) projects?
a. What are the specific features of a SDA project?
b. What are the issues and challenges that software engineers should consider in a
SDA project?
c. What are the features and criteria that make the collaboration between software
engineers and artists in an interdisciplinary project successful in a particular
context?
RQ3. How can we increase collaboration between artists and software engineers and improve
the field of computing by borrowing concepts from the arts?
a. How can we make use of art and artwork in the computing discipline and involve
software engineers?
b. How can we bridge the field of art and computing and improve the field of
computing by borrowing knowledge and concepts from the arts?
6 http://www.aec.at
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Chapter 1. Introduction
1.4 Research Method
The work done in this thesis is aimed towards building a knowledge base at the intersection
of SE and art. It is driven by the quest of obtaining a deeper understanding of this
interdisciplinary domain. Thus this research does not have a strong hypothesis and is
exploratory in nature. According to Baroudi and Orlikowski (1991) research in Information
Systems (IS) can be divided into three categories based on the underlying research
epistemology: positivist, interpretive and critical. Our research falls in the group interpretive
which, when applied in IS, aims, “at producing an understanding of the context of the
information system and the process whereby the information system influences and is
influenced by the context” (Walsham 1993).
The specific research methods that have been used in this thesis are case study and systematic
reviews. The case study was exploratory in nature and had been conducted by following the
case study strategy defined by Yin (1989). The systematic literature review was done by
following the methods prescribed by Briony Oates (2006b) as closely as possible with some
small variations. Research methods are described in detail in chapter 3.
1.5 Research Design
The study of an interdisciplinary area like SE and art is hard to define since it is relatively
new. Besides, SE itself is complex due to many issues involved in the field such as technical
issues, human issues in development and the interface between humans and systems.
The field of SE has been dominated so far by concept analysis and proof of concepts (Glass
et al. 2004). Our research is a preliminary effort to build a knowledge base at the intersection
of SE and art; hence it is conducted by qualitative analysis of concepts gathered from
literature review and case studies. Figure 1 shows the studies that were conducted in this
research. There were three main studies: Systematic Review 1, Case Study, and Systematic
Review 2, along with a minor fourth study Observation. The studies are presented in the
following sections. These studies are described in detail in chapter 4. However the fourth
study is not described in detail since it is trivial in nature.
1.5.1 Systematic Review 1
The goal of this study is to understand the intersection between SE and art. More specifically
to gain an overview of the area of interest and research and collaboration issues between SE
and art. This study is aimed at answering the research question RQ1.
1.5.2 Case Study
A case study is a powerful and flexible empirical method which is used primarily for
exploratory investigations that attempt to understand and explain phenomenon or construct a
theory. We chose a SDA project called Sonic Onyx as our case for this study. The goal of this
study is to understand the characteristics of development of a SDA project in a particular
context. The focus of the study was to identify the issues and challenges of developing Sonic
Onyx and the features that affected the collaboration between software engineers and the
artist on the project. Thus the objective of the case study is linked with seeking answers to
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Chapter 1. Introduction
research questions RQ2 and RQ3. The study was conducted by participating in the project as
passive observers and by access to the project documents and process related documentation.
1.5.3 Systematic Review 2
This is the second review. The goal of this study was to identify where and how aesthetics
has been addressed by Human Computer Interaction (HCI) researchers. Aesthetics in HCI
can be a common interest that involves both artists and technologists. The objective of this
study was to find out which sectors in HCI offer possibilities of collaboration between art and
software technology. This study is aimed at answering the research question RQ3 that seeks
out ways to involve art in the computing discipline.
1.5.4 Observation
Apart from the case study project Sonic Onyx, we also took part in another SDA, Open Wall.
We closely observed the development process of Open Wall. We collected data on the artist
and software engineers’ collaboration for the implementation of the artwork Glimps on Open
Wall. As part of the SArt project we followed the development of Open Wall and other
students’ projects based on other artistic expressions on the wall through project documents
and the Open Wall wiki site. But since these studies were not organised as case studies with
definitive goals of data collection and seeking answers to predefined research questions, we
consider it as a secondary study. Besides Open Wall, we collected data on another project
called Flyndre. Other members from the SArt group supervised and observed students’
projects based on Flyndre and data collected from these projects were used in this research.
Thus collected data from these projects have provided us with great insight into software
developers’ and artists’ collaboration and practical knowledge and experiences on SDAs. Our
experience and knowledge gained from this study contributed to finding answers to research
question RQ3. Data obtained from this study were also used for papers seeking answers to
research question RQ1.
Figure 1 shows the interconnection between the studies, contributions, papers and research
questions. Papers are listed in section 1.6 and the contributions are listed in section 1.7. A
link between RQ-n (Research Question) and P-n (Paper) indicates that research question RQn
was addressed in paper P-n. A link between Study A and paper P-n indicates that paper P-n
is a contribution from Study A. Contribution is represented as a circle C. The collections of
papers that contribute to a particular contribution C-m are positioned next to the circle C-m.
Sometimes one study was influenced by another study. This is represented by a link from the
influencing study to the influenced study.
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Chapter 1. Introduction
Figure 1. Studies and their contributions connected with research questions and publications
1.6 Papers
This section gives a short summery of the 8 papers included in this thesis. Together they
describe the three main studies that we build our results on. The papers are numbered (P1, P2,
… P8), and are presented chronologically based on their time of writing. The abstracts of the
papers are presented here. The full papers can be found in Appendix A and they are available
from the Software Engineering group’s web page: http://www.idi.ntnu.no/grupper/SU-grp.
Their relevance to the thesis is also briefly described, and my contribution is identified.
P1 Anna Trifonova, Salah U. Ahmed and Letizia Jaccheri. SArt: Towards Innovation at
the Intersection of Software Engineering and Art, In: C. Barry, M. Lang, W. Wojtkowski,
G. Wojtkowski, S. Wrycza, and J. Zupancic (Eds.): "The Inter-Networked World: ISD
Theory, Practice, and Education - Post-Proc. 16th International Conference on
Information Systems Development (ISD'07)," August 29-31, 2007, Galway, Ireland.
Springer Science and Business Media, ISBN 978-0-3873-0403-8, Oct. 2008, 18 pp.
Abstract: Computer science and art have been in contact since the 60´s. Our hypothesis
is that software engineering can benefit from multidisciplinary research at the intersection
with art for the purpose of increasing innovation and creativity. To do so, we have
designed and planned a literature review in order to identify the existing knowledge base
in this interdisciplinary field. A preliminary analysis of both results of our review and
7

Chapter 1. Introduction
observations of software development projects with artist participation, reveals four main
issues. These are software development issues, which include the requirement for
management, tools, development and business models; educational issues, with a focus on
multidisciplinary education; aesthetics of both code and user interface, and the social and
cultural implications of software and art. The issues identified and associated literature
should help researchers design research projects at the intersection of software
engineering and art. Moreover, they should help artists increase awareness about software
engineering methods and tools when conceiving and implementing their software based
artworks.
Relevance to this thesis: This work presents our preliminary efforts to understand the
intersection of software and art and identify the research issues that exist in this
interdisciplinary area. We identified several research issues and presented the process of
literature review in this article. The literature review was continued, which later yielded a
conceptual framework of the intersection (P4). Thus this work is related to the thesis by
making an effort to answer research question RQ1.
My Contributions: This work is based on a study of the state of the art literature in the
intersection of software and art and our experience from working with artists. I was coresponsible
for designing the review process and performing the review. I was also
responsible for writing parts of the article along with the main author.
P2 Salah Uddin Ahmed and Anna Trifonova. Software Engineering Processes Under the
Influence of Aesthetics and Art Projects, In: S. Morasca (Ed.): "Proc. 2nd International
Doctoral Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering, September 19 2007," Madrid,
Spain, 7 pp.
Abstract: The main focus of the study was to investigate the interdisciplinary domain of
art and software engineering for the purpose of understanding the different issues, ideas
and concepts that are worth investigating for the software engineering discipline in order
to promote technology to the artists as well as enriching the discipline with the experience
gathered from the art discipline. For this study, we have identified four main research
questions and designed four empirical studies to investigate the questions identified. In
this paper we present the questions in detail and the study design and arrangements that
we have planned to implement for investigating each of the question.
Relevance to this thesis: This article is a doctoral consortium paper which describes the
research design and methodology. This paper presents the planned research to the experts
and fellow researchers in order to get their reviews and thus seeks a way to justify the
validity and plausibility of the intended research. Consequently this paper is relevant to
this thesis.
My Contributions: I was the main author of this article and was responsible for most of
the writing and the design of the studies. The second author helped me in designing the
studies and in reviewing the article.
8

Chapter 1. Introduction
P3 Salah Uddin Ahmed. Achieving pervasive awareness through artwork, In: "3rd ACM
International Conference on Digital Interactive Media in Entertainment and Arts DIMEA
2008," ACM Press 2008, ISBN 978-1-60558-248-1.
Abstract: Aesthetics and ludic aspects of pervasive awareness applications make the
awareness system more attractive and aesthetically pleasing to its users. The same
objective can be achieved by adding pervasive awareness features to an aesthetic object
such as an artwork. In this article we describe how an artwork can be transformed into a
pervasive awareness application by adding awareness features into the artwork.
Relevance to this thesis: This work is based on one of the artworks that we own and
have observed its development from a close distance. This article describes how an
artwork can be used for serving other purposes besides being aesthetically pleasant. This
is an example that shows how software dependent artwork can be effectively used as an
information system and can thus utilise artwork for other purposes in the computing
discipline. This work is related to research question RQ3.
My Contributions: This work is based on the art project Open Wall that we used as a
platform for students and artists to bring out artistic ideas and works throughout
collaboration. I extended the possibilities of existing artwork to have additional features
of an awareness system or an informative system. I am the main and only author of this
work.
P4 Salah U. Ahmed, Letizia Jaccheri, Guttorm Sindre and Anna Trifonova. Conceptual
framework for the intersection of software and art, In: J. Braman, G. Vincenti, and G.
Trajkovski (Eds.): "Handbook of Research on Computational Arts and Creative
Informatics," IGI Global Publishing, May 2009, ISBN 978-1-60566-352-4, 500 p., ch. 2,
pp. 26-44.
Abstract: The interaction between art and technology, especially computing technology,
is an increasing trend over recent years. The number of artists participating in multimedia
software or games development projects is continuously increasing and so is the number
of software engineers participating in art projects like interactive art installations. As this
intersection of art and technology grows, it involves people from different disciplines
with varying interests creating a milieu of interdisciplinary collaborations. In this context,
at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, we explore the intersection of
software and art to understand the different entities that are involved in the intersection.
This is done by literature review and inspired by our previous experiences from
participation in art projects. The objective is to conceptualise the framework of the
intersection between software and art and develop a knowledge base for this
interdisciplinary domain.
Relevance to this thesis: This work contributes to RQ1. It proposes a conceptual
framework for the intersection of software and art based on the literature review.
9

Chapter 1. Introduction
My Contributions: This work is the result of literature review. I performed the
qualitative analysis of the articles and proposed the framework. I took part in the review
process and performed the major parts of it. I was the main author for this article.
P5 Salah U. Ahmed, Cristoforo Camerano, Luigi Fortuna, Mattia Frasca, and Letizia
Jaccheri. Information technology and art: Concepts and state of the practice, In: B. Furht
(Ed.): "Handbook of Multimedia for Digital Entertainment and Arts," Springer
Science+Business Media B.V., 2009, 769 p., ISBN 978-0-387-89023-4, ch. 4, pp. 567-
592.
Abstract: The intersection of information technology (IT) and art involves people from
different disciplines with varying interests creating a milieu of interdisciplinary
collaborations. In this context we explore the intersection of IT and art to understand the
different entities that are involved in the intersection. We do this by reviewing literature
and reflecting and comparing our experiences from participation in five art projects from
Norway and Italy. The objective is to develop a knowledge base at this interdisciplinary
domain based on the interplay of the theoretical framework and our practical experience.
Relevance to this thesis: This work compares the previously written conceptual
framework of the intersection of software and art (P4) with the real world and represents
the validity and applicability of the theory in five real world projects, which also include
the projects from the second and fourth studies, case study and observation. The result
from this paper contributes to RQ 1.
My Contributions: This work is based on my previous work, the conceptual framework
of the intersection of software and art. This was a collaborated work with researchers
from the University of Catania. This work compares the projects with the theory. I was
the leading author of the work and was responsible for writing the parts related to the
projects from Norway.
P6 Salah Uddin Ahmed, Abdullah Al Mahmud, and Kristin Bergaust. Aesthetics in
Human-Computer Interaction: Views and Reviews, In: J. A. Julie (Ed.): "Proc. 30th
International Conference on HCI - New Trends in Human-Computer Interaction, San
Diego, CA, USA, July 19-24, 2009," Springer Verlag LNCS 5610, ISSN 0302-9743,
ISBN 978-3-642-02573-0, 913 p., part 4, pp. 559-568. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-02574-7.
Abstract: There is a growing interest in aesthetics issues in Human Computer Interaction
(HCI) over recent years. In this article we present our literature review where we
investigate where and how aesthetics has been addressed by the HCI researchers. Our
objective is to discover the sectors in HCI where aesthetics has a role to play. Aesthetics
in HCI can be the common interest that involves both art and technology in HCI research
with a view to assist each other in the form of mutual interaction.
Relevance to this thesis: One of the objectives of this research is to find out the sectors
of common interest where both artists and software engineers can work together and learn
from each other. HCI is one of the main areas where aesthetics plays a significant role.
10

Chapter 1. Introduction
This work investigates how aesthetics is used, understood and evaluated in HCI, and thus
makes an effort to illuminate the possibilities of bonding art and computing technology
with aesthetics as a bridge between the two. This work is relevant to the purpose of the
thesis and it answers research question RQ3.
My Contributions: This work is based on literature review. I designed the process of the
review and performed the major part of the review. I was also the main author of the
work.
P7 Salah Uddin Ahmed, Letizia Jaccheri and Samir M'kadmi. Sonic Onyx: Case Study
of an Interactive Artwork, In: F. Huang and R.-C. Wang (Eds.): "Proc. First International
Conference on Arts and Technology (ArtsIT 2009) - Revised Selected Papers, Yi-Lan,
Taiwan, Sept. 24-25, 2009, " Springer Verlag LNICST (Lecture Notes of the Institute for
Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering), Vol. 30,
292 p., ISBN 978-3-642-11576-9, ISSN 1867-8211, DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-11577-6,
(http://www.springer.com/series/8197), pp. 40-47.
Abstract: Software supported art projects are increasing in numbers in recent years as
artists are exploring how computing can be used to create new forms of live art.
Interactive sound installation is one kind of art in this genre. In this article we present the
development process and functional description of Sonic Onyx, an interactive sound
installation. The objective is to show, through the life cycle of Sonic Onyx, how a
software dependent interactive artwork involves its users and raises issues related to its
interaction and functionalities.
Relevance to this thesis: This work presents how an artwork is similar to a computer
application and how it raises different SE issues during its development and post
development maintenance phase. It shows how an interactive artwork requires upgrading
and maintenance even after the development is completed. The need for upgrading due to
interactivity and user feedback and maintenance due to the use of computing technology
and software is evident in software dependent artwork. Thus this work contributes by
identifying the need of SE in SDA projects.
My Contributions: This work is based on our case study of the art project Sonic Onyx. I
took part in the project as an observer and collected data for the case study through
interviews and questionnaires as well as by assessing project documents. I was also
responsible for designing questionnaires and carrying out interviews. I was the main
author of this work.
P8 Salah Uddin Ahmed. Developing software dependent artwork in collaboration with
students, Submitted to "Leonardo Transactions" on 23 rd June 2010.
Abstract: Software dependent art projects are increasing in numbers in recent years. As
the use of technology is growing in every sector of our life, artists find ways to use more
technology and software in their work. Often contemporary artists who work with
technology learn how to use the tools themselves. However, it is more usual that they
11

Chapter 1. Introduction
seek help from technologists in order to get their artworks realised. This creates an
opportunity for collaboration between artists and technologists where they can work
together with people who have different background knowledge and skills and different
ways of seeing the world.
The collaboration is interesting in the sense that both artists and technologists have to
understand each other, and work for a common goal in the project. In this article we
present a case study of a project where the artist works with a group of technology
students. The objective of this study is to understand the nature of artists and
technologists’ collaboration in a real world setting, especially in the context where the
technologists of the group are represented by students.
Relevance to this thesis: This work presents the characteristics of a SDA project and
how they are different from traditional art projects. We have identified the factors that are
critical for projects when collaborating with students and the factors that affect the
success and failure of the project. This paper addresses the research question RQ2 and is
thus relevant to this thesis.
My Contributions: This work is based on the case study of Sonic Onyx. I took part in
the case study as an observer and collected and analysed data. I was also the main author
of the work.
1.7 Contributions
As a result of this research, we have indentified the following three main contributions. In
this section we briefly describe them. They are described in more detail in chapter 5.
C1. Identification of the research issues at the intersection of software and art.
C2. Conceptual framework of different entities and themes at the intersection of software
and art
C3. Identification of the features/issues that contribute to the success or failure of a SDA
project, and the features that facilitate collaboration between artists and technologists
C4. Proposals on how can we bring together SE and art through collaboration and
improve the computing discipline by borrowing concepts and ideas from art.
C1. Identification of the research issues at the intersection of software and art
This is the preliminary result of the literature Review 1. We have identified the research
issues at the intersection of art and software. This work gives a good understanding into the
directions in which research is going in this interdisciplinary field.
C2. Conceptual framework of different entities and themes at the intersection of
software and art
This is the result of the literature review. Art and software intersect in many ways but there is
no knowledge base for this interdisciplinary domain. The literature review gives a detailed
description of the intersection of art and software in terms of the actors involved, reasons
12

Chapter 1. Introduction
behind their involvement and the context of the intersection. It also gives a brief description
of the tools used in the intersection.
C3. Identification of the features/issues that contribute to the success or failure of a SDA
project and the features that facilitate smooth collaboration between artists and
technologists in the context of student technologist collaboration
Through the case study of a SDA project, we have identified the factors that affect the
project, both positively and negatively. We have analysed the factors that are critical for a
student project, and what should be taken care of for the successful implementation of the
project.
C4. Proposals on how can we bridge SE and art through collaboration and improve the
computing discipline by borrowing concepts and ideas from art
Software dependent artwork can be used innovatively in the field of computing to serve other
purposes apart from artistic ones, such as ubiquitous computing, informative systems,
pervasive awareness, etc. Through some examples of artwork we have shown how it is
possible to include artwork to achieve these purposes. Based on our experience in art projects
we propose the manner in which artwork can act as a subject to inspire the general people to
playfully and innovatively involve themselves with technology.
Table 1 shows the connection between research questions, papers and contributions.
Research questions Contributions Papers Focus
RQ1.a C1 P1 Research issues in SArt
RQ1.b C2 P4, P5 Conceptual framework
RQ1.c C2 P4 Conceptual framework
RQ2.a C3 P8 Collaboration in art projects
RQ2.b C3 P7, P1 Collaboration in art projects
RQ2.c C3 P7, P8 Collaboration in art projects
RQ3.a C4 P3 Involvement with art
RQ3.b C4 P6 Involvement with art
Table 1. Link between the research questions, contributions and papers
1.8 Thesis Structure
The structure of the rest of the thesis is as follows:
13

Chapter 1. Introduction
Chapter 2: State of the Art
In this chapter we briefly describe the field of SE, software dependent artwork, the
intersection of software and art, collaboration and SE issues at the intersection. We also give
an overview of the research methods used in SE and in social science. We also present the
research methods used in this thesis and evaluate their suitability in comparison to the
methods in SE.
Chapter 3: Research Method
Here we describe the big picture of the research methods, the ontological and epistemological
views, and describe the research strategies chosen for our study from high level down to the
specifics. Theoretical aspects of the specific research methods are then briefly described
along with the data analysis process.
Chapter 4: Research Design
Here we present our studies. We discuss the process of the studies showing how research
methods are applied and briefly mention the data analysis process.
Chapter 5: Results
We present the main results of our studies. Results are organised and described following the
contributions C1 to C4.
Chapter 6: Evaluation and Discussion of Results
Here we evaluate and discuss the research results with respect to the research questions,
claimed contributions, and the state of the art literature. In addition we discuss the validity of
the research.
Chapter 7: Conclusion
In this chapter we sum up the main findings from the discussion, present the limitations of
our work and outline possible future work as a continuation of this research in the
interdisciplinary field of SE and art
Appendix A: In this section we present the eight papers that have been submitted or
published in conferences and journals as part of this research. These papers contain the
material on which this thesis is based.
14

2 State of the Art
This chapter provides a background for the topics discussed in this thesis. We present the
previous research and studies that have been implemented in this area. In addition we
describe the main keywords contained in the title of the study, such as software engineering
(SE), collaboration, and intersection of software and art in order to make the readers
understand the context of the thesis. In our study and in the published papers we have
frequently used terms such as technologists, software engineers and software developers
interchangeably. Here we define these terms and explain what we really mean when we refer
to them. We also briefly mention our state of practice: the SDA projects that we have
participated in and observed. These projects provided important practical knowledge about
software dependent artwork. Finally a brief note on research methods in SE is presented that
will help the reader step into the next chapter and make a connection with the research
methods described there.
2.1 Software Engineering
Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary 7 defines engineering as “the application of science and
mathematics by which the properties of matter and the sources of energy in nature are made
useful to people” or “the design and manufacture of a complex product” in the case of SE.
For SE the first definition can be adapted as “the application of science and mathematics by
which the properties of software are made useful to people”. The term software engineering
was first used in a NATO conference in 1968 and the IEEE Computer Society first published
its Transactions on Software Engineering in 1972 (Bourque et al. 2004). Later in 1976, a
committee within the IEEE Computer Society was established for developing SE standards.
IEEE and ACM formed a joint committee in 1993 that had a mission “to establish the
appropriate sets(s) of criteria and norms for professional practice of software engineering
upon which industrial decisions, professional certification, and educational curricula can be
based” (Bourque et al. 2004). SE is an evolving discipline (Finkelstein and Kramer 2000)
and therefore as an evolving phenomena it is inherently problematic to define.
While analysing the field of computing by examining computing research in order to better
understand where the field has been and where it may be going, Glass et al. (2004) divided
the computing field into its three most common academic subfields: Computer Science (CS),
Software Engineering (SE) and Information Systems (IS). They selected a set of
representative, well-recognized journals from each of the three computing fields, and
classified a selection of papers from those journals for their review to find out how different
the subfields were based on the topics upon which they did research. They contrasted their
findings for the three fields in the following way:
CS is predominantly concerned with topics related to computer concepts at technical levels of
analysis. SE examines topics related to systems/software concepts at technical levels of
analysis. It is similar to CS in that both CS and SE are related to concepts at a technical level.
But SE is different from CS in the way that CS formulates processes/methods/algorithms
7 http://www.merriam-webster.com/
15

Chapter 2. State of the Art
mostly using mathematically-based conceptual analysis, whereas SE does so using nonmathematically-based
conceptual analysis. IS is predominantly concerned with topics related
to organisational issues primarily at a behavioural level of analysis. Like SE it also explores
systems/software topics, but again at a behavioural level of analysis. Thus SE resides
between CS and IS, like IS it explores systems related topics, but like CS it follows a
technical level of analysis.
Drawing upon SE’s focus on systems and software specific topics Finkelstein and Kramer
(2000) proposed that SE can be considered a subfield of systems engineering. Systems
engineering is concerned with the whole system including both software and hardware. Thus
besides SE, it is also concerned with hardware development, policy and process design
(Sommerville 2001). On the other hand, like systems engineering, SE is also concerned with
the specification, development, implementation and maintenance of a system (Østerlie 2010).
Peter Henderson tired to identify what SE is from the educational curriculum viewpoint and
discovered that SE is often considered as a subfield of Computer Science (Henderson 2008).
The core subjects that make an undergraduate SE curriculum are: Mathematical Foundations,
Computing Foundations, Engineering Foundations, Modelling, Professional Practice,
Software Requirements, Software Design, Software Construction, Software Verification and
Validation, Software Evolution, Software Process, Software Quality, and Software
Management. According to Finkelstein and Kramer (2000), SE is the branch of systems
engineering concerned with the development of large and complex software intensive
systems which focuses on:
“the real-world goals for, services provided by, and constraints on such systems; the
precise specification of system structure and behaviour, and the implementation of
these specifications; the activities required in order to develop an assurance that the
specifications and real-world goals have been met; the evolution of such systems over
time and across system families. It is also concerned with the processes, methods and
tools for the development of software intensive systems in an economic and timely
manner.”
There is a debate going on about whether SE is really engineering. There are researchers on
both sides of the argument. At the 2 nd Asia Pacific Software Engineering Conference held in
Australia in 1995, there was panel session on this debate (Xia 1998). While some panellists
considered SE an engineering field, others argued that to be called an engineering field it
needed scientific theory to help the development of software. Xia (1998) cites their
viewpoint, “when the theory cannot well guide practice, the engineering is still at the craft
stage”. The disagreement arises because in SE we do not have theoretic foundations like
other engineering disciplines such as mechanical, electrical or civil engineering. On the other
hand, craftsmanship of software development is also recognised by researchers. Referring to
the craft nature’s survival, Freeman J. Dyson states:
"In spite of the rise of Microsoft and other giant producers, software remains in large
part a craft industry. Because of the enormous variety of specialized applications, there
will always be room for individuals to write software based on their unique knowledge.
There will always be niche markets to keep small software companies alive. The craft of
writing software will not become obsolete." (Dyson 1998)
16

Chapter 2. State of the Art
The debate on whether SE is art, science or engineering is a long, unresolved debate
(McConnell 1998). Panel sessions held at the 19th Conference on Object-Oriented
Programming, Systems, Languages and Application 2004 (OOPSLA ‘04), also had similar
debate on the topic, “Software development: arts & crafts or math & science?” (Haungs et
al. 2004). Since these debates are long and inconclusive, in the next section we present the
evolution of the field over the recent decades to see how software development was
professionalised as a result of the movement of industry and academic actors.
2.2 Software Engineering Evolution
In this section we present how the field of SE has changed over time, starting from the 1950s
up till now. The information about the history of the field is taken mainly from Barry
Boehm’s A View of 20th and 21st Century Software Engineering (Boehm 2006).
First of all, SE is a rapidly expanding field and there are numerous types: “large or small,
commodity or custom, embedded or user-intensive, greenfield or legacy/COTS/reuse-driven,
homebrew, outsourced or both, casual use or mission critical. Secondly, unlike the
engineering of electrons, materials, or chemicals, the basic software elements we engineers
tend to change significantly from one decade to the next” (Boehm 2006).
The trends and characteristics of the SE field have changed over the decades. For example, in
the 50s the prevailing thesis in SE was “software engineering is similar to hardware
engineering.” People worked with software with as much caution and precision as they did
with hardware. People practiced such hardware precepts as “Measure twice, cut once” before
running their code on the computer (Boehm 2006). This trend was also consistent with the
high cost of computing resources at that time.
The scenery changed during the 60s. One of the reasons for the changes was because
software was much easier to modify compared to hardware and it did not require expensive
production lines to make product copies. Ease of modification of software led many people
and organisations to adopt a “code and fix” approach to software development as compared
to the 50s trend of fixing all errors before running the code on a computer. Besides the
difference between software and hardware maintenance and reliability also became
prominent. Software has many more states, modes and paths to test which makes its
specifications much more difficult. Boehm pointed out another reason for the code and fix
approach of the 60’s, which was the hiring of a lot of non-engineering people into software
development positions for business, government and services data processing. These people
were much more comfortable with the code and fix approach. Apart from the code and fix
approach, other important trends in this decade worth mentioning were:
• Generally manageable small applications, although those often resulted in hard-tomaintain
spaghetti code.
• An increasing number of large, mission-oriented applications. Some were successful,
but many more were unsuccessful, requiring near complete rework to get an adequate
system.
• Larger gaps between the needs of these systems and the capabilities for realizing
them.
17

Chapter 2. State of the Art
• Software applications became more people intensive than hardware intensive. Human
computer interaction issues also became more prominent during the 1960s.
(Boehm 2006)
This situation led the NATO Science Committee to organise two landmark “Software
Engineering” conferences in 1968 and 1969, in order to get a baseline of understanding of the
SE state of practice that government organisations and industry could use “as a basis for
determining and developing improvements” (Boehm 2006). The necessity for better
organised methods and more disciplined practices were realised to meet the scale-up
complexities of increasingly large projects and products.
The main reaction to the code-and-fix approach of the 60s was the involvement of processes
in the 70s where coding was more carefully organised. Design was applied before coding,
moreover design was preceded by requirements engineering. Formal methods focussed on
program correctness and the waterfall process was in focus during the 70s, support was given
to quantitative analysis, software reliability estimation models, quantitative approaches to
software quality, software cost and schedule estimation models, etc. Another significant
contribution in the 70s was the in-depth analysis of people factors. But at the end of the
decade, problems were cropping up with the formality and sequential waterfall process.
“Formal methods had difficulties with scalability and usability by the majority of less expert
programmers. The sequential waterfall model was heavily document-intensive, slow paced
and expensive to use” (Boehm 2006).
The trend of the 80s was to improve productivity and scalability. Major emphasis was on
integrating tools into support environments. Computer-Aided Software Engineering (CASE)
tools, very high level languages, object orientation, powerful workstations and visual
programming were introduced. Then in the 90s the shift was away from the sequential model
to models emphasising concurrent engineering. Requirements, design, and code of product,
process, software and systems were done concurrently instead of a sequential process.
Another major emphasis was on increased usability of software products by nonprogrammers.
Open source software development was another strong form of concurrent
engineering in this period with milestones like Linux, World Wide Web, Apache, TCL,
Python, Perl and Mozilla.
The trends of the 2000s can be identified as rapid change and the need for agility; increased
emphasis on usability and value; software criticality and the need for dependability;
increasing needs for COTS, reuse and legacy software integration; and the increasing
integration of software and systems engineering. In the 2010s, globalisation and outsourcing
are the trends of software development that brings into light both new bases for synergetic
collaboration and challenges in synchronising activities (Boehm 2006).
From the evolution of SE from the 1950 to 2010 it is seen that SE has changed over time. At
the beginning it was very much like strict engineering, but later in 60s more and more people
from other disciplines started programming and the code and fix approach was popular. This
lead to chaos in software development and a SE body of knowledge was required. However,
overly strict rules and the sequential nature of development also appeared as a burden to the
development process, and concurrent, iterative, agile processes were welcomed as a remedy.
18

Chapter 2. State of the Art
SE shifted from hardware-centred to people-centred development with an increased focus on
collaboration and process.
2.3 Software Dependent Artworks
We have used the term software dependent art projects many times in this thesis. We now
define this term to the readers. By SDA (Software Dependent Art/Artwork) we mean any
artwork which largely depends on software for its functioning. It can be any kind of artwork,
video, graphics, sound or image. The main factor is that a part of its system or the whole
system depends on software for the desired artistic expression. In a static artwork it can be
that the artwork was developed by using software. The artwork involves software either in its
creation phase or display phase, i.e. it was created by using software and/or runs on software
for its artistic functionalities and expressions. Our focus here is the end product which is
exhibited to the audience as an artwork. We call it software dependent if it depends on
software for any phase of its creation and display. SDAs can be of many types. The most
common types are, for example, interactive artworks, multimedia installations, animation,
software art, computer art, software generated sound installations, etc.
2.4 Collaboration
Recently, collaboration in art and technology has got lots of attention. In the panel discussion
on Artists and Technologists Working Together held as part of UIST ’98, panellists from
both art and science backgrounds discussed pitfalls and issues of collaboration (Meyer et al.
1998b). They pointed out that communication problems occurred quite often because of the
varying culture of the collaborators. Based on their own experiences, they encouraged the
research community to look for ways to integrate art and artists in their own programs by
starting artist-in-residence activities, introducing courses on art and design into CS curricula,
or inviting artists to participate in projects. Candy and Edmonds (2002b) have identified
factors that facilitate creative collaborations. These factors were identified and evaluated
against seven case studies of artists-in-residence which were conducted by the COSTART8
(COmputer SupporT for ARTists) project.
Candy and Edmonds (2002b) have derived three models of co-creativity based on artists’ and
technologists’ participation in the three main activities: creative conceptualisation (the ideas
and motivations of the work), construction (implementation or making) and evaluation (of the
outcomes whether product or process). The aim is to model the roles played by each party in
the creative process. Figure 2 depicts the three models of collaboration. In the figure, A stands
for Artists and T for Technologists and a dark cell represents active participation or control in
the process, a light cell represents participation with a limit and white represents no
significant participation.
8 http://www.creativityandcognition.com/costart/cowords.html
19

Chapter 2. State of the Art
Assistant model
Full partner
model
Partnership
model with
artist control
A T A T A T
Concept
Construction
Evaluation
Figure 2. Assistant model, full partner model and partnership model with artist control
In the assistant model, technologists are working only in the construction phase to realise the
artwork; they have no contribution in the concept and evaluation phase. On the other hand
artists do not have any contribution in the construction phase. In the second model, the full
partner model, artists also join and contribute in the construction phase and technologists take
part in the evaluation. The concept of the artwork is contributed to by both artists and
technologists. The third model is almost same as the full partner model except that
technologists do not take part in the evaluation phase. Marchese (2006) looked into the
collaboration from the software process viewpoint. From the experience gained from the
interactive art installation called Trigger, he claims that agile methods, specifically the
Adaptive Software Development (ASD) method, are useful in artists-software developers’
collaboration as it minimises the management infrastructure and focuses on communication
to foster collaborative problem solving.
The collaboration between artists and technologists is often desirable for innovation and
creativity (Harris 1999). Collaboration can happen in many forms and in many contexts. As
the technology is advancing and the interaction between art and technology is becoming more
frequent, artists and technologists collaborate in research, in schools, in the entertainment and
creative media industry and in projects of common interest. Besides collaborating with
technologists, artists also communicate with other artists. The digital arts site Rhizome 9 is
recognised for the crucial role it plays in enabling exchange and collaboration among artists
through the network. In this thesis, by collaboration we mean the collaboration that happens
mainly between artists and technologists, more specifically software developers or software
engineers. It should be noted here that software engineers are just one type of technologists
and apart from software engineers, artists communicate with other technologists as well,
where the technologist might be an electrical engineer, a genetic engineer, a biologist a
physicist, and so on.
9 http://rhizome.org/
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Chapter 2. State of the Art
2.5 Intersection of Software and Art
We have used the word Intersection of Software and Art in many places in this thesis
including the title.
Figure 3. The intersection of software, art and SE
The intersection between software and art dates back to the early seventies (Sedelow 1970).
The advancement of technology has inspired many artists to use technology in their artworks.
In his book Information Arts - Intersections of Art, Science and Technology, Stephen Wilson
(2001) has provided a brief description of the intersection of art, science and technology.
“The literature is rife with examples of artists applying mathematics, technology, and most
recently, computing for the creation of art” (Fishwick 2006). With the increased use of
software in every sphere of our life, many new terms and new concepts like internet art,
digital art, software art, new media art, demoscene, algorithm art, interactive art, and so on,
have evolved and appeared in the intersection of software and art. The intersection between
software, art, and SE has been pictorially depicted in figure 3. From the figure we see that the
area X represents the intersection between software and art and it is bigger than Y which
represents the intersection between SE and art. Since the field SE is very specific and the
research at the intersection is very new, we start our investigation by focussing on the bigger
research area X, the intersection of software and art and try to figure out the desired smaller
area Y, the intersection of SE and art. By intersection between software and art, we mean
when software and art interacts or meets each other. This interaction can be in the form of an
artist using software in his work, or a software engineer using art theory or writing software
for an artist, or a group of artists and software engineers working together for a common
project or a common goal. Since art is a very broad term that includes many forms, genres,
media and styles, by intersection of art we only refer to a part of the art where software
technology is significantly used and which is visible in research and in artists’ activities. This
includes a set of different kinds of arts which are collectively called New Media Art. As it is
mentioned in Wikipedia 10 , “New Media concerns are often derived from the
telecommunications, mass media and digital modes of delivery the artworks involve, with
practices ranging from conceptual to virtual art, performance to installation and it involves
interaction between artist and observer”.
10 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/new_media_art
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Chapter 2. State of the Art
2.6 Technologists
The word technologist is often used in the literature when referring to the collaboration
between artists and technologists. ‘Technologists’ in the context of collaboration is used as a
general term to mean a wide range of roles. Thus it could mean a sound engineer, a
mechanical engineer, a software developer or programmer, an electrical engineer and so on.
Artists are using many different kinds of technology. As mentioned by Wilson, technologies
used by artists can cover a wide range of subjects such as biology, ecology, medicine,
nanotechnology, physics, nonlinear systems, astronomy, global positing system, cosmology,
algorithms, mathematics, fractals, genetics, artificial life, kinetics, acoustics, robotics,
telecommunications, computers, and surveillance technology (Wilson 2001). Thus the word
technologist can refer to a person who is expert in any of a wide range of subjects. In general
it refers to the person or the persons who have the knowledge about the tools and the
technology that is used in the artwork. In artist-technologist collaboration, there are two
major roles. One is the artist who has the vision of creating the artwork and the other is the
technologist, who helps the artist to realise the artwork by using the technology irrespective
of the type of tools or technology. The artist is generally assumed to have no or limited
technical knowledge and on the other hand the technologist is in general, not responsible for
any of the artistic decisions or evaluation of the artwork. In our thesis we have followed these
notions of the terms; when we have referred to technologist, we have referred to someone
with the knowledge of technology without referring to the specific subject area of the
technology. In a specific context, where we know that the technologist is a software
developer, then the word technologist alternatively refers to the software developer.
2.7 Software Developers
Software developer, programmer and software engineer are often confusing to use because
they are used to refer to the same person or similar roles whereas in other cases, they refer to
roles with different tasks and responsibilities. There is no unique definition for these terms
and in the IT industry they are used differently in different companies. In small companies
most people wear several hats, whereas in a big company there are more specialists (Sink
2003). In his weblog, Eric Sink introduces himself as a software developer as well as a
software programmer at the same time, while on his business card he refers to himself as a
software craftsman. From the current usage of the terms it is understood that, in general, a
programmer means a person who writes codes. Software developers have to involve
themselves in other tasks besides coding, such as specification documents, configuration
management, code reviews, testing, automated tests, documentation and solving tough
customer problems (Sink 2003). It seems that a programmer is a person who learns the basics
of programming in some language, but not the big picture of software development in a team.
Referring to the tasks that software developers do besides coding Eric Sink says, “Using my
terminology, these things are the difference between a programmer and a developer. The
developer has a much larger perspective and an ability to see the bigger picture.”
Wikipedia 11 mentions that,
“The term programmer can be used to refer to a software developer, software engineer,
computer scientist, or software analyst. However, members of these (latter) professions
11 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/programmer
22

Chapter 2. State of the Art
typically possess other software engineering skills, beyond programming; for this
reason, the term programmer is sometimes considered an insulting or derogatory
oversimplification of these other professions. This has sparked much debate amongst
developers, analysts, computer scientists, programmers, and outsiders who continue to
be puzzled at the subtle differences in these occupations.”
On one hand this debate raises confusion about SE roles; on the other hand it can distinguish
properly ‘artist-programmer’ from ‘artist’ with SE skills. For example, an artist who has
learned programming and uses programming skills to create art can be called an ‘artistprogrammer’
assuming that he has not obtained SE knowledge. In the thesis we have used the
term programmer to refer to a person who can write code, irrespective of his/her knowledge
of SE. On the other hand a software developer is a person who knows more about software
development than just writing code, in other words someone who has gone through formal
education on software development. Software engineer and software developer are used
alternatively without assuming any big differences between the two.
One last thing to mention here is that there are no accepted definitions of these terms. The
long debate on the discussion forum on the webpage of Joel Spolsky 12 (Joel on Software) is
full of different viewpoints on the use of the terms programmer vs. software developer vs.
software engineer, leading to no fixed conclusion (joelonsoftware 2005). Our objective of
defining the terms is not to take a particular view in the debate or to assert our view to the
readers; it is only to clarify to the reader how we have used the term in this thesis so that the
readers can understand what we mean when we refer to them.
2.8 Software Engineer
Wikipedia defines software engineer as follows: “A software engineer is a person who
applies the principles of software engineering to the design, development, testing, and
evaluation of the software and systems that make computers or anything containing software,
such as computer chips, work.” As already mentioned previously in section 2.7, the
controversial viewpoints on the terms programmer, software developer and software engineer
reveals the fact that the label software engineer is used very liberally in the corporate world.
Moreover, in academia, there is also a mismatch with the background education and the name
of the degree. According to the ACM “most people who now function in the U.S. as serious
software engineers have degrees in computer science, not in software engineering”(ACM).
What is understood is that, to become a true software engineer one should have sufficient
knowledge on SE. IEEE has developed the Software Engineering Body of Knowledge
(SWEBOK), which has now become the ISO standard describing the body of knowledge a
software engineer should cover. The SWEBOK defines ten knowledge areas as below
(Bourque et al. 2004):
• Software requirements
• Software design
• Software construction
12 http://www.joelonsoftware.com/
23

Chapter 2. State of the Art
• Software testing
• Software maintenance
• Software configuration management
• SE management
• SE process
• SE tools and methods
• Software quality
Thus a software engineer should have sufficient knowledge in these areas, and in an ideal
world would have an engineering degree covering these areas from an accredited university.
In our thesis we have used the term to refer to a person who has a university degree in
computer science and has sufficient knowledge on programming and software development
covering at least some of the knowledge areas listed in the SWEBOK.
2.9 State of Practice
In the previous sections, we have defined and described several terms related to the thesis and
the state of the art in relation to the terms; here we present the state of our practice. As
already mentioned, this research has been conducted under the SArt project inside the
software engineering group at the Department of Computer and Information Science at the
Norwegian University of Science and Technology (SArt 2007). As part of SArt, we have
taken part in several interdisciplinary projects involving artists and software engineers such
as Flyndre 13 , Sonic Onyx 14 , and Open Wall 15 . These projects are SDA projects, often
interactive in nature and fall in the category of interactive installation art. These projects
provided us with practical knowledge about SDA projects. Here we give a short description
of these projects, showing the problems and the challenges the participants have encountered.
Flyndre is a sculpture located in Inderøy, Norway. It has an interactive sound system that
reflects the nature around the sculpture and changes depending on parameters like the local
time, light level, temperature, moon phase, water direction, and water level. The sculpture
was made by sculptor Nils Aas (see figure 4). Sound installation was added by composer,
musician and programmer Øyvind Brandtsegg.
13 http://www.flyndresang.no/
14 http://www.soniconyx.org/
15 http://mediawiki.idi.ntnu.no/wiki/sart/index.php/main_Page
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Chapter 2. State of the Art
Figure 4. Sound installation Flyndre
The software application that generates sound is called Improsculpt. The first version of the
software was written by the artist himself and it was a single CSound 16 script file that was
hard to modify, maintain and upgrade. However, the author discovered that Improsculpt
created a lot of interest among other composers and music technology enthusiasts. In order to
improve the architecture of the software and publish it as open source software (OSS) with
the appropriate licenses, the artist sought help from SArt group. A multidisciplinary team of
NTNU students, including software developers formed as part of the “Experts in Team”
(Jaccheri and Sindre 2007) course, helped the artist to improve the architecture and published
it as Open Source. By publishing as OSS, the software attracts more developers and
composers to utilise it and to contribute to it by further improvement and/or enhancement.
Sonic Onyx is an installation project initiated by the Trondheim municipality in 2007. The
goal was to decorate a junior high school with an interactive sculpture with which people
would be able to interact. The users can send messages, images or sound files from their
Bluetooth enabled mobile phones, laptops and hand held devices using Bluetooth technology.
16 http://csounds.com/
25

Chapter 2. State of the Art
The received files are then converted into sound and played by the sculpture. The sculpture
has seven loudspeakers located in seven of its fourteen arms and a subwoofer located in the
ground at the centre making it possible to provide 3D sound effects within the space created
by the sculpture (see figure 5).
Figure 5. Sonic Onyx at day time
On top of the sculpture, there is a big light dome/sphere which changes colour based on a
programmable controller. The technical part of the artwork was developed by a team of
Electrical and Computer Engineering students from Sør-Trøndelag University College
(HiST 17 ).
Open Wall embellishes a white wall at NTNU with a number of main boards with LEDs
(Light Emitting Diode) on them, creating a large matrix of light pixels. The origin of the
project was when in 2005 a student of architecture, Åsmund Gamlesæter, wanted to build a
LED facade for a house. A sister LED wall was built as a result of the same project in the
student social activities building of NTNU and there were many LED cards left over. Later in
2008, some students from NTNU mounted the cards on the wall in a meeting room in the IT
building of NTNU as part of an interdisciplinary course project (see figure 6). This project is
called Open Wall.
17 http://www.hist.no
26

Chapter 2. State of the Art
The main artistic idea behind the wall was to make an accessible display screen for all who
wish to participate. Users can access the canvas from the internet via a wall image editor and
use the canvas to draw and display whatever they want. Later on several student projects
were conducted where students from NTNU collaborated with artists and art students to
display different artistic expressions on the wall.
Figure 6. Open Wall displaying an animation of a bunny
2.10 Research Methods in Software Engineering
Bødker (1990) (as cited in (Svanæs 1999)) has pointed out that computer science has always
been multidisciplinary in that it has borrowed from other fields. In the early days of
computing, the main research problems were concerned with how to make the computer work
in a purely technical sense. Computer science at that time borrowed mainly from formal
disciplines like logic, mathematics and linguistics. But that approach has shifted as a lot of
research problems that evolved later on involved human beings with bodies, minds, history,
culture, language and social relationships as computer users or as developers of the software
application (Svanæs 1999). Reviewers identify that traditional SE has focussed on coming up
with new tools and techniques without much validation beyond concept analysis and concept
implementation. In a review of the field of SE, Glass et al. (2004) found that only 13.8% of
the literature on SE could be classified as evaluative, the remaining papers being mostly
descriptive. The main research methods employed within the field were classified as
conceptual analysis and concept implementation which represented 71.2% of the papers.
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Chapter 2. State of the Art
Depending on the general process for building scientific theory, Xia (1998) found two serious
methodological problems in SE research. First, there is a lack of attention towards the
understanding aspect of theory; second, there is almost no controlled testing or no testing at
all to verify hypotheses. Zelkowitz and Wallace (1998) also report a similar critique,
“Software engineering researchers have criticized common practice in the field for failing to
collect, analyze, and report experimental measurements in research reports”. This is reflected
in the review that only a small portion of articles on SE could be classified as evaluative
(Glass et al. 2004). In recent years the field of empirical software has gained lots of attention
in an effort to remedy the critiques for lack of rigour in previous works. Empirical research is
based on the scientific paradigm of observation, reflection and experimentation as a vehicle
for the advancement of knowledge (Endres and Rombach 2003). It involves obtaining and
interpreting evidence, for example by experimentation, systematic observation, interviews or
surveys, or by the careful examination of documents or artefacts (Sjoberg et al. 2007).
Empirical research can incorporate both qualitative and quantitative methods for collecting
and analysing data. Besides which research can be divided into two categories based on the
type of data collected: i) Primary Research that involves the collection and analysis of
original data and ii) Secondary Research that uses data from previously published studies for
the purpose of research synthesis. Here we consider the most common research methods in
SE for both primary and secondary research that were mentioned by Sjoberg et al. (2007). In
primary research, the most common methods are: i) experimentation, ii) surveys, iii) case
studies, and iv) action research. Secondary research uses data collected from primary or other
research and conduct synthesis. Synthesis is the collective term for a family of methods for
summarising, integrating and, where possible, combining the findings of different studies on
a topic or research question ((Cooper and Hedges 1994) cited in (Sjoberg et al. 2007)).
Research synthesis is often used interchangeably with “systematic review” and “systematic
literature review.” As mentioned by (Sjoberg et al. 2007), “Systematic reviews are one of the
key building blocks of evidence-based software engineering, and the interest in conducting
such reviews within SE is clearly growing, although the coverage of SE topics by systematic
reviews is still in its infancy and very limited.”
The status of empirical research in SE is briefly mentioned here as it is presented in (Sjoberg
et al. 2007). Regarding experiments, (Glass et al. 2002) and (Zelkowitz and Wallace 1997)
reported about 3% controlled experiments. Regarding surveys as the primary research
method, the only one relevant literature review that was found was by (Glass et al. 2002)
which classified 1.6% of their 369 papers as “descriptive/explorative survey”. Case studies
were identified (Glass et al. 2002) to be about 2.2% (8 of 369) of the papers. Regarding
secondary research, literature reviews and meta-analyses were identified in 1.1% of the
papers by (Glass et al. 2002) and 3.0 % by (Zelkowitz and Wallace 1997).
Regarding empirical studies as a whole, (Sjoberg et al. 2007) observed that (Tichy 1995)
reported a proportion of 17% (15 of 87 papers), whereas (Glass et al. 2002) characterized
14% (51 of 369 papers) as “evaluative” whereas their own review work indicated a level of
12% (2% experiments, 5% or 10% case studies depending on definition, and 0% action
research).
28

3 Research Method
This chapter briefly presents the philosophical view of the research method chosen for this
research. Firstly we present the big picture of the research from ontological and
epistemological viewpoints and define our research approach at high-level. Then we move
onto specific methods and strategies for our approach chosen at high-level, and decide which
methods to apply in relation to the research questions of the thesis. The specific research
methods are then briefly described along with their strengths and weaknesses.
3.1 Research Methods - the Big Picture
“All research (whether quantitative or qualitative) is based on some underlying assumptions
about what constitutes 'valid' research and which research methods are appropriate” (Myers
1997). When we write about research methods several questions come to mind, because the
word method can mean several things. Harvey Russell Bernard (2000) states that method has
at least three different meanings,
“a) at the most general level, it can mean the study of how we know things, i.e.,
epistemology; b) in yet general level, it can mean the research strategic methods, that is
the strategic choices like whether to do a participant observation, dig up information
from archives and libraries or to do an experiment; c) at the specific level it is about
technique, such as what kind of sample to use, whether to use telephone interview or
face to face interview.....”
Tackling the problem from a high-level and downwards, that is, starting at the most general
level, and following downwards to the specific level helps to provide a careful consideration
to the taxonomy of methodological approaches (Turner 2006). I begin with my
epistemological and ontological stances, which describes the type of knowledge that this
research deals with, and then I move to the strategic approach to decide the goals of each
stage of the research and the methods used at each stage. Finally I describe the specific
methods and tools that I have used.
Ontology is a branch of philosophy that “studies the nature of the entities that exist in the
world, i.e. the building blocks of knowledge about ourselves and the world” (Shurville 2009).
The ontological aspect of knowledge can be presented by asking the following question,
“What is the form and nature of reality and, therefore, what is there that can be known about
it?” (Lincoln and Guba 1994). For example, some approaches consider the outside world and
everything in it to be objectively real while others believe that it is a social construct of our
senses and minds.
Epistemology refers to the assumptions about knowledge and how it can be obtained
(Hirschheim 1992). In epistemology several views can arise. One view for example can be
whether one should subscribe to the philosophical principle of rationalism or empiricism;
another view can be based on the scientific assumptions known as positivism and
interpretivism (Bernard 2000). Since discussing and/or defining all these methods are beyond
the scope of this thesis, we will only briefly present the methods that are relevant to this
thesis. Baroudi and Orlikowski (1991) suggest three categories of research in Information
29

Chapter 3. Research Method
Systems, based on underlying epistemological research: positivist, interpretive and critical.
We accept this classification for this research and describe them briefly in the sections below.
3.1.1 Positivist Approach
Positivism assumes that knowledge exists independently of the learner; there is an absolute
truth. “Because it is ‘out there’, it can be studied independently of the inquirer” (Donnell
1999). It implies that different observers should reach the same conclusions and it contains
general and immutable laws which operate independently of our ability. The only difference
that could arise among observers is due to the extent that they study, understand, and harness
them toward their own purposes (Donnell 1999).
3.1.2 Constructivism or Interpretivism
It is a philosophical and epistemological approach that assumes that reality is not directly
knowable, and can only be inferred or assigned by a convention or consensus (Shurville
2009). Interpretivism assumes that knowledge is constructed by the learner and therefore
truth depends on the context. Interpretive researchers begin with the assumption that “access
to reality (given or socially constructed) is only through social constructions such as
language, consciousness and shared meanings” (Myers 1997). Boland (1985), as cited in
(Myers 1997), reports that the philosophical base of interpretive research is hermeneutics and
phenomenology.
3.1.3 Critical Research
Critical research assumes that social reality is historically constituted. It holds the view that
reality is produced and reproduced by people over time. Although people can consciously act
to change their social and economic circumstances, critical researchers recognise that their
ability to do so is constrained by various forms of social, cultural and political domination
(Myers 1997).
Of these three approaches from the epistemological viewpoint we would like to name our
research methods as interpretivism. The opposite of interpretivism is called positivism. We
have found that the following table created by Jörgen Sandberg as cited in (Weber 2004)
depicts the difference between positivism and interpretivism, tackling the problem from a
high-level down to a specific analysis method. We found it very interesting and felt it
resembled our intention of showing the methods/strategy chosen at each level. We present the
table of comparison because in that way it is easy to understand our approach, not only by
defining different strategies/assumptions of interpretivism at different stages but also by
comparing them with their positivism counterpart.
30

Chapter 3. Research Method
Meta-theoretical
assumptions
about
Ontology
Epistemology
Research object
Positivism
Person (researcher) and reality are
separate.
Objective reality exists beyond
the human mind.
Research object has inherent
qualities that exist independently
of the researcher.
Interpretivism
Person (researcher) and reality are
inseparable (life-world).
Knowledge of the world is
intentionally constituted through a
person’s lived experience.
Research object is interpreted in light
of meaning-structure of person’s
(researcher’s) lived experience.
Method Statistics, content analysis. Hermeneutics, phenomenology, etc.
Validity
Reliability
Certainty: data truly measures
reality.
Replicability: research results can
be reproduced.
Defensible knowledge claims.
Interpretive awareness: researchers
recognize and address implications of
their subjectivity.
Table 2. Meta-theoretical assumptions about positivism and interpretivism
Now from the above table it will be easy to map to our research methods and different
strategies taken at different stages of our research. Since in this section we plan to give the
broader picture of research, we will not describe the specific methods and strategies here. We
will briefly describe our approach of “interpretive research” and move to later sections where
we design and describe the specific methods chosen.
Interpretive studies attempt to understand phenomena through the meanings that people
assign to them. In the context of Information Systems (IS) interpretive research studies are
"aimed at producing an understanding of the context of the information system, and the
process whereby the information system influences and is influenced by the context"
(Walsham 1993). Interpretive research does not predefine dependent and independent
variables, but focuses on the full complexity of human sense-making as the situation emerges
(Kaplan and Maxwell 1994). Thus there is no objective reality which can be discovered by
researchers and replicated by others, in contrast to the assumptions of positivist science
(Walsham 1993).
“Interpretive studies assume that people create and associate their own subjective and intersubjective
meanings as they interact with the world around them” (Baroudi and Orlikowski
1991). Organisations, groups and social systems do not exist apart from for humans, and
hence, according to Baroudi and Orlikowski (1991), cannot be apprehended, characterised or
measured in some objective or universal way.
31

Chapter 3. Research Method
3.2 Which Methods to Choose
A research design deals with four problems: what questions to study, what data are relevant,
what data to collect and how to analyse the results (Yin 1989). If we consider the questions
addressed by this thesis, then we can identify the appropriate research methods.
The three main research questions that were chosen for this research are:
RQ1. What is the relationship between art and software and how can we conceptualise it?
RQ2. How can we characterise the development process of software dependent artworks?
RQ3. How can we increase collaboration between artists and software engineers and improve
the field of computing by borrowing concepts from the arts?
Based on these questions, the research methods in this thesis are mainly qualitative. There are
different research methods and which one to use depends on the objective of the research
work in general, and on the way in which the research results are intended to be used in
particular. According to Yin (1989), there are three important conditions to be considered for
which research methods to choose: a) the type of research question posed b) the extent of
control an investigator has over actual behavioural events, and c) the degree of focus on
contemporary as opposed to historical events. The table below shows how these three
conditions are related to five major research methods in social science. The table is originally
from COSMOS Corporation and was cited in Yin (1989).
Strategy
Form of Research
Question
Requires Control
of Behavioural
Events
Experiment How, why? Yes Yes
Survey
Archival
analysis
Who, what, where,
how many, how
much?
Who, what, where,
how many, how
much?
History How, why? No No
No
No
Focus on
Contemporary
Events
Yes
Yes
Case study How, why? No Yes
Table 3. Relevant situation for different research strategies
SOURCE: COSMOS Corporation (1989)
Two main research methods that we have used are literature review and case study. The first
question RQ1 is of an exploratory nature and it is dealt with by literature review. The second
question RQ2 is also exploratory in nature but it involves contextual data. This is dealt with
by case study method. The third question RQ3 seeks some suggestive and exemplary
answers, which we have attempted to answer based on our gained knowledge and experience.
32

Chapter 3. Research Method
The research methods specific to the questions and methods of study, that is literature review
and case study, are discussed in the following section.
3.3 Research Method
A research method is a strategy of inquiry that links the underlying philosophical
assumptions to research design and data collection. In qualitative research since there are
various philosophical perspectives so are there various qualitative research methods (Myers
1997). The choice of research method influences the way in which the researcher collects
data. Here we briefly discuss some important features of the research methods that we have
used for our study namely:
• Systematic literature review
• Case study.
3.3.1 Systematic Literature Review
Systematic reviews have been gaining significant attention from SE researchers since 2004
(Babar and Zhang 2009). Babar and Zhang (2009) mention that, “Software Engineering (SE)
researchers have been conducting and reporting more and more SLRs (Systematic Literature
Reviews) on diverse topics such as agile software development, regression testing, process
modeling, variability management, cost estimation, organizational motivators for CMMbased
process improvement, and statistical power”.
Usually researchers begin with a literature review of some sort when starting a new research
project. A SLR is a means of identifying, evaluating and interpreting all available research
relevant to a particular research question, topic or area (Kitchenham 2004). One of the most
common reasons for undertaking a systematic review is to provide a framework/background
in order to appropriately position new research activities (Kitchenham and Charters 2007).
The need for a systematic review arises from the requirement of researchers to summarise all
existing information about some phenomenon in a thorough and unbiased manner. The
difference between a literature review and a systematic review is that the later is more
thorough, complete and therefore takes more time and effort. Unless a review is thorough and
fair, it is of little scientific value. Therefore a systematic review is important even though it
requires more effort than a traditional review. According to Kitchenham, the features that
distinguish a systematic review from a traditional review are as below:
• Systematic reviews start by defining a review protocol that specifies the research
question being addressed and the methods that will be used to perform the review.
• Systematic reviews are based on a defined search strategy that aims to detect as much of
the relevant literature as possible.
• Systematic reviews document their search strategy so that readers can assess its rigor
and completeness.
• Systematic reviews require explicit inclusion and exclusion criteria to assess each
potential primary study.
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Chapter 3. Research Method
• Systematic reviews specify the information to be obtained from each primary study,
including quality criteria, by which to evaluate each primary study.
• A systematic review is a prerequisite for quantitative meta-analysis.
A systematic review involves several discrete activities and different guidelines have
different suggestions for the number and order of activities. For example, guidelines for
systematic review in the medical domain have a different view from the systematic reviews
group at UC Berkeley (Kitchenham 2004). Researchers in SE have reported best practices
and experiences of conducting and reporting systematic reviews. As reported by Babar and
Zhang (2009), a large majority of the reported systematic reviews in SE has been carried out
by following the guidelines produced by Kitchenham and Charters (Kitchenham and Charters
2007), which is actually an updated version of Kitchenham’s original guidelines published in
2004 (Kitchenham 2004). Here we present the view mentioned by Kitchenham, where the
activities of the systematic review are divided into three main phases: Planning the Review,
Conducting the Review, Reporting the Review.
3.3.1.1 Planning
This includes the following activities:
• Identify the need for a systematic review
• Specifying the research question
• Developing a review protocol.
A pre-defined protocol is necessary to reduce the possibility of researcher bias. A review
protocol should include:
• Research questions that the review is intended to answer.
• Strategy that will be used to search.
• Study selection criteria.
• Selection process - The protocol should describe how the selection criteria will be
applied, e.g. how many assessors will evaluate each prospective primary study.
• Quality assessment - The researchers should develop quality checklists to assess the
individual studies.
• Data extraction - Defines how the information required from each primary study will
be obtained.
• Synthesis strategy.
• Dissemination strategy.
3.3.1.2 Conducting Review
This phase includes the following tasks:
i. Identification of research – collect as many relevant studies as possible, use different
combinations of search keywords, different sources, etc.
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Chapter 3. Research Method
ii.
iii.
iv.
Study Selection – based on selection criteria and selection process include relevant
studies and refine the set of studies. For example, at step 1, studies can be
included/excluded by reading the title and abstract to get a preliminary selected list.
At step two, studies on the preliminary selected list are read thoroughly and a final
list is obtained.
Study Quality Assessment – in addition to general inclusion and exclusion criteria,
the quality of the primary studies are documented so as to provide explanations for a
certain result or identify result patterns, or help in refining inclusion and exclusion
criteria
Data extraction – should be defined early to accurately record the information
researchers obtain from the primary studies. It should be performed by two
researchers.
v. Data synthesis – involves collating and summarising the results of the included
primary studies. Synthesis can be descriptive (non-quantitative). However, it is
sometimes possible to complement a descriptive synthesis with a quantitative
summary
3.3.1.3 Reporting
The result of the review should be disseminated. It can be published as a conference, journal
or technical report. It should ensure that the published results get peer reviewed. In the case
of a conference or journal, it is usually peer reviewed, but a technical report might not be.
The report should contain enough detail to ensure that the readers are able to evaluate the
rigor and validity of the review. One limitation with conference and journal papers might be
the size restriction; in that case review details can be made available as a separate document
or published on the web and referred to appropriately in the conference/journal paper.
3.3.1.4 Strength and Weakness of Systematic Review
Practitioners and researchers who have used SLR in SE find it useful. Babar and Zhang
(2009) report positive appreciation from the interviewed users, “it’s a very objective method,
and defines a formal process for literature reviews, then results can be comparable and
reliable”. Some practitioners say that it is only valuable if the list of papers is included. One
of the main advantages of SLRs is that they provide information about the effects of some
phenomenon across a wide range of settings and empirical methods. Since a systematic
review has a predefined search strategy and rigorous process of conducting the review, the
result is replicable and it is possible for other researchers to assess the completeness of the
search. If studies give consistent results, systematic reviews provide evidence that the
phenomenon is robust and transferable (Kitchenham 2004). A SLR in a PhD study can
prevent meandering down an already explored path by identifying the existing basis for the
research student’s work.
The major drawback is that the systematic review requires considerably more effort than a
traditional literature review. In addition studies in SE or new media art are rarely presented in
a uniform manner, and thus the combination of results from several studies can be difficult.
Another important drawback of the literature review is that in a rapidly-changing field,
literature reviews need updating in a short time.
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Chapter 3. Research Method
3.3.2 Case Study
Yin (1989) defines a case study as “an empirical inquiry that investigates contemporary
phenomenon within its real life context, especially when the boundaries between the
phenomenon and context are not clearly evident.” He mentions that a case study is an all
encompassing method – covering the logic of design, data collection techniques and specific
approaches to data analysis. Thus it is a comprehensive research strategy, but unfortunately
no comprehensive catalogue of research designs for case studies have been developed.
Case studies are carried out when the researcher deliberately wants to cover contextual
conditions. The case study inquiry copes with the technically distinctive situation in which
there will be many more variables of interest than data points. “Result of a case study relies
on multiple sources of evidence, with data needing to converge in a triangulating fashion and
benefits from the prior development of theoretical propositions to guide data collection
analysis” (Yin 1989). According to Yin (1989), for case studies there are five components of
a research design that are especially important:
i. A study’s question.
ii. Its propositions if any.
iii. Its unit of analysis.
iv. The logic linking the data to the propositions.
v. The criteria for interpreting the findings.
First of all, the nature of the question should be clarified precisely. Second, a case study
should have a proposition. The proposition tells an investigator where to look for the data.
Sometimes some studies may have a reason for not having propositions. Third, defining a
unit of analysis is often problematic or not very easy in a case study. In a classic case study,
the ‘case’ may be an individual. In other cases it can be a group of people, an organisation, a
specific policy, or an industry in the world marketplace.
For example, in a study of clinical patients, or political leaders, the unit of study is an
individual; in a study of group dynamics in different organisations or social networks, the
unit is a group. If not defined properly, the unit of analysis can often be wrongly measured,
for example as Yin (1989) mentions, “investigators frequently confused case studies of
neighbourhoods with case studies of small groups”. This happens because sometimes the unit
of analysis may have been defined in one way, even though the phenomenon being studied
calls for a different definition. In general, the unit of analysis is related to the research
question. The fourth and fifth points, that is, the logic linking the data to propositions and the
criteria for interpreting the findings is the least well developed in case studies. One promising
approach for linking data to the propositions is pattern matching, where several pieces of
information from the same case may be related to some theoretical proposition. Considering
these five components of designing case study research force the investigator to begin
constructing a preliminary theory related to the study (Yin 1989).
The difference between case studies and related methods such as ethnography and grounded
theory is that the case study requires that an investigator specify a theoretical proposition at
the beginning, whereas ethnography and grounded theory avoids having any theoretical
proposition at the start of a study. In fact, the role of theory is very important in case studies,
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Chapter 3. Research Method
whether the purpose of the case study is to develop a theory or to test a theory. However
theory development can take time and can be difficult (Eisenhardt 1989).
In some cases, existing works may provide a rich theoretical background for designing a
specific case study. In some other cases, the existing knowledge base may be poor and the
available literature cannot provide any conceptual framework or notable hypothesis. In the
latter case, the case study lacks having any theoretical statements or propositions. This type
of case study attains the characteristics of an exploratory study. For an exploratory case
study, the requirement of having a proposition is relaxed, but in that case the study should be
preceded by statements about a) what is to be explored, b) the purpose of the exploration and
c) critical criteria by which the exploration will be judged.
3.3.2.1 Strengths and Weaknesses
The strength of the case study relies on the fact that it deals with a full variety of evidence –
documents, artefacts, interviews and observations. A case study produces much more detailed
information than what is available through statistical analysis (Writing@CSU 2010). A case
study is a suitable method in exploratory and descriptive studies where contextual data
information is important.
Case studies are difficult to generalise because they are concerned with qualitative subjective
data. A case study relies on personal interpretation of data and inferences. Therefore results
“may not be generalisable, are difficult to test for validity, and rarely offer a problem-solving
prescription” (Writing@CSU 2010). Case studies can involve learning more about the
subjects being tested than what most researchers would care to know, for example subjects’
educational background, emotional background, perceptions of themselves and their
surroundings, their likes, dislikes, and so on. Case studies can be expensive and time
consuming as they are concerned with detailed data about the subjects.
3.4 Data Analysis
Thorne (2000) states that data analysis is the most complex phase of a qualitative project, but
unfortunately it receives the least thoughtful discussion in the literature. Thorne suggests that
in order to generate findings and knowledge from raw data, a qualitative researcher must
engage in active and demanding analytic processes throughout all phases of the research.
It is hard to make a clear distinction between data collecting and data analysis in qualitative
research while it is commonly distinguished in case of quantitative research (Myers 1997).
Since the researcher’s presupposition affects the data collection, the questions that are posed
mostly determine what kind of results the researcher will get. Therefore Myer suggests that it
is more appropriate to call it “modes of analysis” rather than “data analysis”. There are many
different kinds of analysis or “modes of analysis”. It is hard to limit oneself to a particular
mode of analysis, so we have tried the following analyses:
• Hermeneutics.
• Phenomenology.
Hermeneutics mainly focuses on texts as the source of research data. Texts can be generated
in various ways such as through stories, interviews, participant observations, literature, and
other relevant documents. Usually one or more approaches are used on the collected data to
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Chapter 3. Research Method
identify meaningful pieces of information, which in turn are used to generate themes or
categories from a group of texts. These themes or categories communicate findings and
reflect knowledge about the phenomenon under investigation (Byrne 2001). When
hermeneutic analysis is used in IS, the objective of interpretive effort attempts to make sense
of the organisation as a text-analogue. In an organisation, different stakeholders can have
confused, incomplete, cloudy and contradictory views on many issues and the hermeneutic
analysis tries to make sense of the whole, and the relationship between people, the
organisation, and information technology (Myers 1997).
Phenomenology focuses on a person's lived experience and elicits commonalties and shared
meanings, whereas hermeneutics refers to an interpretation of textual language (Byrne 2001).
Phenomenological research has overlaps with other qualitative approaches including
ethnography and hermeneutics. Edmund Husserl’s, the founder of phenomenology, definition
in Logical Investigations (cited in (Lester 1999)) states that pure phenomenological research
seeks essentially to describe rather than explain, and to start from a perspective free from
hypotheses or preconceptions. These methods are particularly effective at bringing out the
experiences and perceptions of individuals from their own perspectives. Phenomenological
research can generate a large quantity of data from different sources such as interview notes,
tape recordings, jottings, etc. One way to analyse this large amount of disorganised data is to
go through all the data and identify some theme/points and organise the data according to
those themes. Data analysis of phenomenological research using this method was prescribed
by Hycner (1985). In the following section we describe a similar method by Pope et al.
(2000), which is adapted for both a hermeneutics and phenomenology approach
3.4.1 Stages in Analysis
In most qualitative research, the analysis of data often takes place alongside data collection as
it would allow ongoing data collection to be shaped, questions to be refined and new avenues
of inquiry to develop. The research methods that we have used are mostly aimed at
exploratory enquiry with pre-set aims and objectives, but with no strong preconceptions or
hypothesis. Thus we followed the following stages of data analysis defined in the framework
approach as it is mentioned by (Pope et al. 2000):
• Familiarization – the first step is to go through the raw data in order to list key ideas and
recurrent themes.
• Identifying a thematic framework – the second step is to identify all the key issues,
concepts and themes by which the data can be examined and referenced. This is carried
out by drawing on a priori issues and questions derived from the aims and objectives of
the study, as well as issues raised by the respondents themselves and views or
experiences that recur in the data.
• Indexing – the thematic framework or index is then systematically applied to all the
data in textual form by annotating the transcripts with numerical codes from the index.
• Charting – in this step, data are rearranged according to the appropriate part of the
thematic framework to which they relate and thus charts are created. For example, there
is likely to be a chart for each key subject area or theme with entries from several
respondents.
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Chapter 3. Research Method
• Mapping and interpretation – the charts are used to define concepts, map the range and
nature of the phenomena, create typologies and find associations between themes with a
view to providing explanations for the findings. The process of mapping and
interpretation is influenced by the original research objectives as well as by the themes
that have emerged from the data themselves.
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40
Chapter 3. Research Method

4 Research Design
In this section we describe how we designed our studies based on the chosen research
methods. When compared with chapter 3 where we discussed the standard process of the
selected research methods, here we outline how these selected research methods were applied
in our studies. The connections between the studies and the research questions are also
revisited. The data analysis process is briefly mentioned and the results of the studies are
presented in the next chapter.
4.1 Study 1 – Systematic Literature Review 1
Systematic literature review 1 was conducted to address the research question RQ1, “what is
the relationship between art and software and how can we conceptualise it?” This question
was designed to investigate the intersection of SE and art. However SE is pretty much a
specific area and somewhat narrow for a consideration of all the facets of a relationship
between art and software where SE can play a role. Therefore we chose to investigate the
intersection of art and software instead. As already mentioned in section 3.3.1, the review
was implemented following the advice, guidelines and suggestions by Kitchenham (2004)
and Hart (1998). The procedure adopted is depicted in figure 7.
Figure 7. Process of conducting literature review 1
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Chapter 4. Research Design
4.1.1 Planning the Review
In the planning phase we identified the search strategies, including a list of searchable
databases of scientific publications and a preliminary list of keywords. We also determined
the selection criteria. A review protocol including the process depicted in Figure 7 was also
developed. In the conducting phase we updated the selection criteria, search strategies and
keywords iteratively.
As is depicted in the figure 7, the first step begins with a keyword search conducted on a list
of databases. This generates a list of papers A, resulting from an automatic search of the
keywords. A thorough search, that is searching all articles of a particular year, is conducted
on a list of selected relevant journals. This provides a list of relevant papers B. Then the title
and abstract of all the articles from both lists of relevant papers are read. These articles are
matched with matching criteria 1. If an article matches then it is selected for reading in full by
at least two reviewers. Then both match it with matching criteria 2 which are more specific
criteria derived from matching criteria 1, and are refined over time as our knowledge matures.
If it matches with criteria 2 then the paper is added into the review for summarising. Lists of
databases, journals, and keywords are updated from the information gathered from the
accepted and summarised paper. Also, important relevant papers that appear as cited in the
accepted paper are collected to read in full, bypassing the search procedure. Apart from the
search we also accept papers that we may get from other sources such as those suggested by a
friend, or colleague.
4.1.2 Search Strategy
During the planning phase we identified the following search strategies for finding relevant
articles so as to aim at completeness for our literature review:
4.1.2.1 Keyword Search in Electronic Databases
We identified a starting list of searchable electronic databases (e.g. IEEE Xplorer, ACM
Digital Library and Google Scholar) and an initial list of keywords. The search was
implemented by using each keyword from the art related terms individually, and SE terms in
combination with keywords from art related terms. It was performed on each of the electronic
databases. In most cases no limitation on the published year was applied. In those cases when
the search resulted in over 100 entries the search was limited to the last 10 years of
publication. Initial lists of search engines and keywords used were updated with new entries
that appeared relevant during the literature review.
SE related terms
software engineering; software
development;
requirements;
collaboration
Art related terms
Table 4. List of keywords
art; software art; media art; digital art;
blog art; net art; generative art; art
installation; artist; artwork; aesthetics;
creativity
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Chapter 4. Research Design
4.1.2.2 Thorough Search in Selected Relevant Journals and Conferences
We identified a list of relevant journals and conferences at the beginning of the review which
had a high probability of containing a large number of interesting/important articles. These
journals and conferences are mainly focussed on interdisciplinary research in software and
art. The titles and abstracts of the papers from each of these journals and conferences from
the past 10 years were examined/read.
Journal/Conference
MIT Press Leonardo – Online Journal on Art, Science and Technology, 40 years of
publications (http://www.leonardo.info/)
IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications – A journal on theory and practice of
computer graphics (www.computer.org/cga)
Read_Me conference – The proceedings from years 2002-2004 are published in
“READ_ME: Software Art & Cultures”, by Olga Goriunova & Alexei Shulgin (eds.),
Aarhus University Press (December 2004)
Convergence - The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies,
since 1995 (http://convergence.beds.ac.uk/)
ACM Siggraph - publications in Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques
(http://www.siggraph.org/publications)
Proceeding books of ARS Electronica – festival for art, technology and society
(http://www.aec.at/en/global/publications.asp)
Table 5. List of journals and conferences
4.1.2.3 Finding Articles from the References of Reviewed Papers
During the review process, while reading a relevant article we discovered that many relevant
and interesting papers were found in the citations. We included them directly into the list of
related papers to be reviewed in full, in order to gain a deeper understanding of the field. At
the initial stage the list of papers obtained from references was empty, but it grew as the
review process proceeded.
4.1.2.4 Other Resources
We have included in the review process the possibility of obtaining relevant articles from
other sources. Some papers were, for example, referred to us by colleagues and friends.
Others were collected by looking at the publication lists of well-known researchers in the
field and/or from institutions working in this area. Here we also included the articles and
books that we already knew and that had motivated our work, like Software Creativity (Glass
1995), Internet Art (World of Art) (Greene et al. 2004), Art and innovation: the Xerox PARC
Artist-in-Residence program (Harris 1999) and Sedelow (1970).
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Chapter 4. Research Design
4.1.3 Selection Criteria
Articles that addressed one or more of the following issues were selected:
• Artists’ requirements for software and/or habits in utilising it.
• Software development processes and/or methodologies used for software developed
with artist’s participation. This might include software created for artistic purposes (e.g.
digital art, art installations, etc.), artists programming/producing software (e.g. software
art) or participation in the development of software by other means.
• Collaboration between artists and software developers or computer scientists.
• Research questions at the intersection between art and software (posed and/or
answered).
• The influence of software and digital culture on art and/or the influence of art on
software development.
4.1.4 Selection Process
The inclusion/exclusion of the articles was carried out in two steps. Initially, the selection
criteria (i.e. the list previously given) were interpreted liberally, so that unless the articles
identified by the electronic and manual searches could be clearly excluded based on titles and
abstracts, full copies were obtained. The selected articles were independently reviewed (i.e.
read fully) by two or more individuals. Then each article was matched more specifically
against the selection criteria and matched with our objectives. All reviewers consent was
taken on including/excluding an article. This process is depicted in figure 7 as matching
criteria 2.
4.1.5 Data Extraction
When fully reading the articles the authors analyse its content and summarise it in a table.
The inclusion/exclusion in the review was discussed until an agreement was reached. The
authors also produced annotations about the content.
4.1.6 Statistics Generation and Synthesis
The table produced containing annotations and summaries on the articles allowed for easy
generation of certain statistical data (year of publication; conferences in which relevant
articles occur more regularly; authors actively working in the field, etc.). The review was
conducted in an iterative process in which the initial lists of keywords, relevant journals and
books were updated when new entries were found in articles reviewed. The results of the
review were reported in one conference paper (P1) and in a book chapter (P4). Both the
papers were peer reviewed.
4.2 Study 2 – the Case Study
The second study is the case study of Sonic Onyx. It is a software dependent interactive
artwork that was developed by a group of students of electrical and computer engineering.
The objective of the case study was to seek answers to research questions RQ2, “How can we
characterize the development process of software dependent artwork (SDA) projects?” The
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Chapter 4. Research Design
main objective behind our participation in this study was to identify critical success factors
and SE issues in a SDA project. In other words the objectives were to:
i. characterise how the software development process was used,
ii. characterise the collaboration between the artists and technologists,
iii. identify activities and processes that contributed to the success of the project, and
iv. identify how software maintenance and upgrading was implemented.
We have followed the case study research strategy defined by Oates (2006b) and Yin (1989).
The type of the case study can be defined as exploratory or descriptive. We have used several
data collection methods in order to get a wide range of data. The following data collection
methods were used:
Interviews: Interviews were conducted on the developers, the sponsor and the artist of the
project. A set of questions were designed before the interview. All of the interviews were
semi-structured. Artists and developers were interviewed more than once and all these
interviews generated a lot of data.
Documents: A lot of information about the project was collected from several documents
created by the project members. Documents included a pre-project report, weekly reports,
meeting minutes and the final project report. The developers of the project created a status
report every two weeks. They also produced meeting minutes on each meeting, which they
sent to all members involved in the project including the researchers from SArt via email.
Questionnaires: A set of questionnaires was designed to collect background information
about the skills and expertise of the artist and the developers.
Observation: Project activities were closely observed by taking part in the project meetings.
At least one member from the SArt group was present at all meetings of the Sonic Onyx
project. As a member in the meeting, we took notes on the meeting and occasionally
interacted with the project members when needed.
4.2.1 Case Study Steps
The case study has been carried out with the following steps:
i. Participating in the team meetings of the project.
ii. Design a questionnaire for the artist.
iii. Conducting unstructured interviews during the project meetings and outside project
meetings.
iv. Analysing the final report made by the group.
v. Interviewing artist and the developers on the phone.
vi. Interviewing the sponsor.
vii. Follow up with the artist.
viii. Follow up with the developers.
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Chapter 4. Research Design
ix. Publishing the report.
i. Participating in the team meetings of the project: The project group had team
meetings every second week, with a total of eight meetings. In these meetings the
group reported on their work to the project instructor and to the client, who in this
case was the artist. At least one of the researchers from the SArt group was present in
all of these group meetings to get a close view of the development process and
understand the features of the project. Members from the SArt group took part in the
group meetings and received copies of all documentation produced during the
development.
ii. Design questionnaire for artist: A set of questionnaires were designed for the artist,
and the developers at the start of the project. These were preliminary questions and
were aimed to address the skill and background of the artist and the developers.
iii. Unstructured interviews: Conducting unstructured interviews during the project
meetings and outside project meetings: during the project meeting our observation
was as passive as possible so that there were minimal interruptions from us. But in
case we did not understand any point that was discussed in the meeting we asked
questions to clarify it. During the meeting we got reports that were produced biweekly.
Discussion and question answering were also initiated by the points written
in these reports. We also conducted unstructured question answering sessions during
the break time and at other times outside of project meetings.
iv. Analyse the final report made by the group: We got the final report that the group
produced as part of their course assignment. The report was very detailed and
contained lots of information about the process and technical details of the project. It
also included user manuals for the application. We planned to read the report first
before interviewing the artist and the developers, so that we did not ask them
redundant questions that were already answered in the report.
v. Interviewing the artist and the developers over the phone: Based on the
preliminary question that was designed early on, and based on the information that
we gained from participation in the meeting and by reading the project report, we
created and updated a set of questions to be asked at the interview. Questions were
different for the artist and the developer as they have different roles in the project.
The questions were designed to fit with a semi-structured interview.
vi. Interviewing the sponsor: Interviewing the sponsor was not on the agenda from the
beginning. But after interviewing the artist as the project proceeded, and after some
further informal interviews with the artist it was discovered that the sponsor had an
important role and that some of the answers that we were looking for were directed to
the sponsor by the artist. The interview was semi-structured and it was a face to face
interview.
vii. Follow up with the artist: After we collected data from the interview, we showed it
to the artist for his consent. The report was also sent to the artist for his approval of
the facts that we presented in the report.
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Chapter 4. Research Design
viii. Follow up with the developers: A telephone interview was carried out with the
developers. After collecting data from the interviews, the developers were shown the
contents of their interview for their consent to publish.
ix. Follow up with sponsor: The result of the interview and the report was sent to the
sponsor.
x. Publishing the report: The result from the case study is presented in two papers, P7
and P8. P7 is already published and P8 is submitted for publication. A separate report
has been made in the form of a technical report of the case study. The reports,
questionnaires and relevant documents are published on the SArt website.
4.2.2 Data Analysis
After collecting data from the various sources we analysed it. The data analysis was mainly
qualitative. Several documents were assessed, including the pre-project report, weekly
reports, meeting minutes and the final project report. Yin (1989) mentions about three
analytical strategies for analysing case study data:
i. Relying on theoretical propositions.
ii. Rival explanations.
iii. Case descriptions.
We know that in a case study, it is important to have theoretical propositions. Propositions
shape the data collection and give priorities to relevant analytic strategies. The case study of
Sonic Onyx was exploratory, so instead of having a well defined proposition, we had research
questions. These questions shaped our data collection. Proposition helps to focus attention on
certain data and to ignore other data.
In rival explanation, the investigator tries to establish that the outcome is caused by other
interventions rather than the proposition. The investigator looks for observations that nullify
the proposition. Thus the proposition is validated by collecting rival explanations and
rejecting them.
The case descriptors strategy is used as an alternative when there is difficulty in using the
first two approaches. This approach works with case studies that are exploratory or
descriptive in nature. In some cases, this strategy is used even if the study is not exploratory,
but a descriptive approach may help to identify the appropriate causal links.
From our literature review we learned that communication between artist and technologist is
an issue in collaboration, and that an agile development method was deemed successful in the
context of collaboration presented by Marchese (2006). With the exploratory nature in mind,
we did not have a proposition defined at the beginning, but we focussed on the issues that we
learned from the literature review. Our data collection was focussed on communication
between the artist and technologists, among the technologists, the development methods used,
and SE issues – how they are addressed and implemented in the project. Thus of the three
strategies defined, our approach mainly matches with the case descriptors strategy.
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Chapter 4. Research Design
These three defined strategies are a general approach to data analysis. There are several
specific analytic strategies such as pattern matching, explanation building, time series
analysis and logic models. The main data analysis methods that we have used were pattern
matching and inductive analysis. Pattern matching compares an empirically based pattern
with a predicted one. Constant comparison techniques guides the researcher to keep
examining his or her findings, relative to information constantly obtained from different
sources (interviews, observations, etc.) and from different informants at the different research
stages. Finally, while pattern matching and inductive analysis were used to find themes and
patterns from various sources of data, our approach of analysis was influenced by
phenomenological research. The difference is that pattern matching and constant comparative
methods can permit the analyst use some pre-existing or emergent theory against which to
test all new pieces of data that are collected, whereas phenomenological approaches influence
the researcher to set aside all such preconceptions so that they can work inductively with the
data to generate entirely new descriptions and conceptualisations (Thorne 2000).
4.3 Study 3 – Systematic Literature Review2
The second systematic review was much easier compared to the first one because the topic
that we were investigating was much narrower and more specific. Another reason was that
we only had a limited number of journals and conference proceedings. But since these were
the most prominent and prestigious conferences and publications in the area, we believed to
have a quite good overview of the investigated subject. This literature review is connected
with the research question RQ3, “How can we increase collaboration between artists and
software engineers and improve the field of computing by borrowing concepts from arts?”
This literature review tried to answer RQ3 by identifying the research areas in HCI where
artists and technologists can collaborate. For the review, we considered ‘aesthetics’ as a
common interest for both artists and HCI researchers that could work as a bridge between art
and computing.
4.3.1 Planning the Review
For the review we have considered literature published in recent conference proceedings and
journals which are easily accessible from ACM, IEEE and the Springer digital library. We
started the review by following Kitchenham’s principles mentioned earlier in section 3.3.1
and adapted the process as depicted in the figure below.
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Chapter 4. Research Design
Figure 8. Process of conducting literature review 2
First of all, the list of keywords is applied on the selected databases which generated a list of
papers A. Title, abstracts and the parts of the article containing the keywords is read and
matched with the selection criteria. If it does not match then the paper is discarded, otherwise
it is accepted for reading in full by at least two reviewers. After reading the full article, it is
again matched with the selection criteria for significant matching and discussed between the
reviewers to reach an agreement on including the paper for summarising. Finally, the selected
papers are then summarised and annotated for analysis.
4.3.2 Search Strategy
The following conference proceedings were searched for the primary studies.
• Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems CHI – Years (from
2008 to 1997)
• Conference on Designing Pleasurable Products and Interfaces, DPPI –
Years (2007, 2005, 2003)
• DIS conferences – with no time limit
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Chapter 4. Research Design
• TOCHI – with no time limit
• NordiCHI and HCII – with no time limit
While there are other journals and conferences, we found that the pool of included papers
provided us with a good picture of the research works contributed to by the relevant
researchers and supported by the high quality reviewing process of the conferences.
We have searched the papers using keyword search. The keywords that we have used are
aesthetics and aesthetic. We have chosen both ‘Aesthetics’ and ‘Aesthetic’ in order not to
miss the mention of words such as ‘aesthetically’.
4.3.3 Selection Criteria:
The papers that used words such as aesthetic or aesthetically in their contents were selected at
first. Then these articles were read, especially the part that contained those words as well as
the abstract of the articles. If it is understood from the reading that the term aesthetics is an
important factor or issue in the article then the article is included in the review. The following
issues were considered when including an article:
• That any mention of aesthetics revealed the author’s viewpoint, meaning or context of
usage of the word.
• Any role, impact or effect of aesthetics were presented.
• The relationship between aesthetics and some other elements was described.
Sometimes the keywords appeared in some articles where they were mentioned just as words
without any significance, that is, without any of the issues mentioned above. Those articles
were excluded from the review.
4.3.4 Selection Process
At the beginning we selected papers by reading the title and abstracts, but later on we
modified the process as we could not find many papers by searching only the titles and
abstracts. In case of a match found, we read the abstract and the part/s of the article that
contained the keyword/s.
The inclusion/exclusion of the articles was made in two steps. Initially, the selection criteria
were interpreted liberally. Unless the articles identified by the electronic and manual searches
could be clearly excluded based on titles, abstracts and the parts containing the keywords, full
copies were obtained. The selected articles were independently reviewed (i.e. read in full) by
two individuals and compared with the selection criteria for final inclusion in the review. A
total of 67 papers were selected for the final review.
4.3.5 Data Extraction
When fully reading the articles the authors analysed its content and summarised it in a table.
The inclusion/exclusion in the review was discussed by at least two persons and actioned
when agreement was reached.
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Chapter 4. Research Design
4.3.6 Analysis
The table produced with the annotations and summaries of the articles were analysed to find
certain trends and patterns. The final list of selected articles was divided into a set of thematic
areas. The analysis was conducted following the steps and strategies described in section 3.4.
As a result of the analysis we categorised the field of HCI from the viewpoint of the use and
role of aesthetics. The results of this review were reported in a peer reviewed conference
paper (P6).
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52
Chapter 4. Research Design

5 Results
In this section we present the results of our studies. At first we present a summary of the
studies followed by the overview of the contributions. We have three studies in this PhD and
a fourth sub-study. We have four contributions as a result of these studies. The following
table shows the connection between the studies and contributions.
Studies
Contribution
Literature Review1 C1, C2
Case Study
C3
Literature Review 2 C4
Observation
C4
Table 6. Connection between the research studies and research contributions
The first study was a literature review. The goal of this study was to understand the
intersection of SE and art. The study resulted into two contributions C1 and C2. C1 identifies
the research issues at the intersection of software and art and C2 provides a conceptual
framework of the intersection in terms of the entities, roles, interests and contexts of
interaction.
The main goal of the second study, the case study of Sonic Onyx, was to characterise (i) the
software development process, (ii) artist-software engineers’ collaboration, and (iii) to
identify SE issues in a SDA project. The study is linked to contribution C3, identification of
the success and failure of SDA development factors.
The third study was a literature review, the goal of which was to identify the research areas in
HCI where aesthetics has a role to play. Aesthetics in HCI can be a common interest for both
artists and HCI researchers and bring them together for collaboration. The result from this
study contributes a part of contribution C4. As contribution C4, we present our
recommendations on how can we increase SE and art collaboration. C4 is also contributed to
from the fourth study, an observation of SDA projects, as we recommended the utilisation of
artwork in CS or SE education and achieve different computing purposes based on our
experience from this study. The results of the studies are described in terms of the main
contributions in the following sections of this chapter:
C1. Identification of the research issues at the intersection of software and art.
C2. Conceptual framework of different entities and themes at the intersection of software
and art
C3. Identification of the features/issues that contribute to the success or failure of a SDA
project and the features that facilitates collaboration between artists and technologists
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C4. Proposals on how can we bridge SE and art through collaboration and improve the
computing discipline by borrowing concepts and ideas from art.
5.1 Identification of Research Issues at the Intersection of
Software and Art
The study was exploratory in nature to gain an overview of the area of our research by
identifying the issues that exist. This study is closely linked to research question RQ1.
From the preliminary study we identified some of the issues found in the literature. We have
identified several research issues at the intersection of software and art in the preliminary
phase. Here we will summarise the research issues that we have found. The details of the
study and the findings are described in paper P1. An overview of the issues identified at the
intersection is given in table 6.
From the SE viewpoint, the most important and relevant issues that have been identified are
software development issues. We have found several sub-issues in this category, for example:
requirements, evaluation, software tools, software development methods, collaboration issues
and business model. Other important issues are educational, aesthetic, and social and cultural
issues. The issues along with the sub-issues are described briefly in the following sections.
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Main Issues Sub Issues Description
Intersection of Software and art
Software
Development
Issues
Educational
Issues
Aesthetics Issues
Requirements
Evaluation
Software tools
Software development
methods
Collaboration issues
Business model
Multidisciplinary
courses
Art in CS curricula
Computer skills in art
education
Aesthetic of the code
-what artists need from software
-modify software to meet artists’ needs
-good process to capture artists’
requirements
- understanding the artwork as a whole
system
- evaluate artwork with its users
-evaluate in respect to the artistic part and
the technical functionalities
-matching artists skills and tools
-creating intermediate tools that leverage
programming but provide greater flexibility
-tools that support artwork production,
publicity and distribution in the digital age
-tools that foster co-creativity and
collaboration
-which development method suits best
depending on a particular
context/product/collaboration
-what are the issues in collaboration
-what factors enhance/deteriorate
collaboration success
-pitfalls in collaboration
-models that sustain and cope with the
changes and advancement of technology
-design and conduct the courses
-collaboration between art and computing
students
-goals and objective
-positive/negative feedback
-the need for art in CS
-benefit of inclusion of arts knowledge
-influence of arts in different areas of CS
-artists’ need for computing skills
-design and conduct lessons
-beauty of programming
-perfectionism in programming
Social and
Cultural Issues
Aesthetic in software
art
Aesthetics in user
interfaces
Effects of technology
dependent art
-software itself is a piece of art
-software includes ugliness, beauty,
politics, pretension, etc.
-improvement of visual aspects of user
interface with the help of art discipline
-Technology changes has implication on
society and on art
Table 7. Issues at the intersection of software and art
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5.1.1 Software Development Issues
The following SE related issues were identified from the review:
a) Requirements/needs for software within the artist community: Sometimes artists use
available software in a manner that is different from its intended use (Grey 2002). Thus
they can unveil innovative ways of creating artwork using general purpose software. This
can be a research issue to find out the needs and requirements of the art community for
using software. How to capture the requirements properly in a SDA project or in a project
which is aimed at creating software for the artists is another research issue (Marchese
2006).
b) Evaluation in art projects: Developing an artwork is like developing a project where the
artist is the client. But apart from the artist, there are spectators who are the real users of
the artwork. Evaluation of an artwork, especially if it is an interactive artwork, can be
completed only after the artwork has been developed and deployed and the users have
interacted with it. For creating the software in the proper way, it is necessary to
understand how the artwork as a whole will be perceived by the spectators. Marchese
(2006) reports that the understanding of the system requirements is “the most important
part of the process” which is consistent with the SE body of knowledge SWEBOK.
c) Software tools: Already available tools do not give enough flexibility to the artists when
they desire more control over the software creation and experimentation (that requires
putting their hands on the code). Thus currently available software and tools limit their
creativity. However, artists are not always very experienced in software development and
programming. An additional software level between the artists and low-level software
development might be the way to solve the problem. Edmonds et al. (2004) suggest that
further research should be done on artists’ need for something in the middle that does not
require intensive programming but does not restrict their creativity and allows flexibility
to play around with different options. An example of bridging such a gap is shown by
Machin (2002) where a simulator and an application specific language has been
developed for the artist’s experimentation in the creation of an art installation. Machin
reports that the offered solution was well accepted by the artist and is a viable approach
for augmenting the artists’ freedom. Similarly, Biswas et al. (2006) also point out the
need for an intermediate tool to support the designers (i.e. artists) when they, together
with software developers, are creating mobile context-aware applications. Such a tool
might also facilitate collaboration in multidisciplinary projects by minimising the
“semantic gap between the designer/artist's content design artifacts and technologist's
system implementation” (Biswas et al. 2006). Besides, with the advancement of modern
technology new tools are needed to display, trade and store the artworks. Shoniregun et
al. (2004) discuss some issues in this connection such as watermarking, streaming,
encryption and conditional access for protecting the artworks.
d) Software development methods: A case study discussed by Marchese (2006) shows that
agile methods of software development, and more specifically the Adaptive Software
Development, was very suitable for the specific needs of a project in which a multimedia
art installation was created. Meanwhile, Jaimes et al. (2006) suggest that human-centred
computing is appropriate in many cases where multimedia is used, including digital art
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Chapter 5. Results
and in museums to augment exhibitions. A further study is needed in order to understand
and provide guidelines on what software development methods are appropriate when
developing software within art and in which particular cases (e.g. one method might be
appropriate for art installations, another for generative music, different methods might be
appropriate according to the artists programming experience or programmers’ specific
knowledge).
e) Collaboration issues: The necessity to understand the collaboration between artists and
software developers in projects of common interest is recognised as an issue (Harris
1999). Since the interaction between artists and software technologists is increasing with
the development of fields such as Human Computer Interaction, User Interface Design,
Game Design and Development, collaboration issues are gaining the attention of many
researchers involved in these areas. In the panel discussion of the ACM Symposium on
User Interface Software and Technology ’98, panellists from both art and science
backgrounds discussed the pitfalls and issues of collaboration (Meyer et al. 1998b). The
strengthening of the collaboration between these two communities was also an aim in
more recent events like the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
2006 (CHI 2006). The organisers mentioned that one of the gaps between the HCI
community and media artists is that the first (HCI) is a formalised discipline, while artists
prefer research-in-practice (experimentalism) (Jennings et al. 2006). Marchese (2006),
also mentioned earlier, claims that the Adaptive Software Development method is useful
in artist-scientist collaboration as it minimises the management infrastructure and focuses
on communication to foster collaborative problem solving. Candy and Edmonds (2002a)
have identified a number of factors underlying co-creative collaborations and derived
three models of co-creativity in the collaboration. A possible outcome of SE study over
collaboration issues is to provide guidelines on how to ensure successful collaboration.
Further outcomes might even include the design of tools for fostering such collaboration
(Polli 2004).
f) Business model: In recent years, more artists are exploring the internet as a medium to
reach their audience/spectators. When the internet is used as a way to transmit art, the
focus falls on an individual spectator which is different from a museum type of art
presentation (Nalder 2003). Open Source software and tools enable artists to experiment
and create low-cost artworks, at the same time they necessitate artists to learn about
licensing issues and business models if the artists want to use artwork for commercial
purposes. Besides publishing, archiving and selling artworks (for example digital
artwork) require some security and protection issues (Shoniregun et al. 2004).
5.1.2 Educational Issues
The following issues related to education were identified in the review.
a) Artists’ mastery of computer skills: The need for interaction between artists and
technology/technologists is often discussed in an educational context. Garvey (1997)
discusses the importance of including Computer Graphics courses in the fine arts
syllabus. However, maintaining the balance between the traditional fine arts skills (e.g.
drawing, painting, sculpture) and digital skills mastery is of great importance. According
to the author, the majority of the largest companies in the computer animation, film and
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game industries have a growing requirement for computer 2D and 3D modelling and
animation, but they give preference on a strong traditional art education, stating that it is
easier to teach an artist to use a computer, than programmer to create art.
b) Multidisciplinary collaboration between art and computer science students:
Multidisciplinary courses and common projects between art and science students are
gaining importance. In fact an essential part of the publications that we have found in the
literature review are experiences of such initiatives. For example, Ebert and Bailey (2000)
discuss a 3D animation course with clear and well defined educational goals. Educational
goals of, and collaboration between, art and science students is also discussed by (Morlan
1993) and (Parberry et al. 2006). Positive outcomes were reported of these
multidisciplinary courses for both artists and informatics students (Ebert and Bailey
2000), (Parberry et al. 2006). Apart from mastering one skill in their own domain, these
courses focus on the strengthening of interpersonal communication skills and the
development of project management abilities in both art and computer science students
(Morlan 1993). The course design includes practical issues that are problematic like
choice of a tool or technology, incompatible file formats, difference between art and
computer students’ skills and understanding, combining different approaches of teaching
such as lectures and hands on work (Ebert and Bailey 2000), and allowing students to
choose their project partners, or not (Morlan 1993). A further study might provide
guidelines for optimising the process of art and technology students working together in
courses or educational projects.
c) Art in CS curricula: As the importance of computer related courses is realised in the art
domain, so is the importance of art courses realised in computing discipline. Referring to
a course on Virtual Reality and its implications for computer science education,
Zimmerman and Eber (2001) says that “for the majority of the CS students, the whole
concept of artistic expression was not something they dealt with on a regular basis;
simply raising their awareness and increasing their tolerance of this very different area
was considered a successful outcome”. Fishwick, however, shows bigger expectations
about the influence of art on computer science. While describing the Digital Art and
Science (DAS) curricula provided at the University of Florida, he discusses the
importance of combining computer science and art in the educational phase and suggests
that such practices will stimulate creativity in CS students: “A human-centered focus on
experience, presence, interaction, and representation forms the core of the arts. Perhaps,
then, the arts can lead computer science in new directions” (Fishwick 2003). He suggests
the need of interaction between art and science not only at college, but also at Masters
and PhD educational levels. In another place, he suggests that experiments and the
experience of the students in aesthetic computing will “encourage students to design
entirely new human-computer interfaces for formal structures” (Fishwick 2007).
5.1.3 Aesthetics Issues
The following aesthetics related issues were identified from the review.
a) Aesthetic of the code: Bond (2005) discusses a few different aspects regarding the
beauty of the software and the software itself as a piece of as art. Firstly, he talks about
Knuth's perfectionist's view of code and programming practices (Knuth 2001). Beauty is
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Chapter 5. Results
also found in programs that do not have any utility value, like the one-line programs, but
that still show the mastery of programming. Artists however take a different direction, the
example given is a poem written in Perl where the programming language is used to
create a syntactically correct program to convey human sentiments to humans. More
recently the program itself is appreciated as an artwork, sucha as at Transmediale18,
Read_Me19 and other art festivals. Cramer and Gabriel (2001) state that software “is
inevitably at work in all art that is digitally produced and reproduced”, and discuss its part
in the aesthetics of the whole artwork. This need has led to the formation of the ‘Software
Art’ movement in the art community.
b) Aesthetic in Software Art: Although in Software Art, software itself is considered as an
artwork, it is not always about the beauty of the code, as in the previous section. Cramer
(2002) says “As a contemporary art, the aesthetics of software art includes ugliness and
monstrosity just as much as beauty, not to mention plain dysfunctionality, pretension and
political incorrectness”. Manovich (2002a), on the other hand, discusses the new
aesthetics in the artworks created by software artists using Adobe Flash and similar
programs, “Flash generation invites us to undergo a visual cleansing”. Such new
aesthetics influences the whole production of digital artefacts for the internet.
c) Aesthetics in User Interfaces (UI): Aesthetic is addressed in interface design in the area
of HCI. Bertelsen and Pold (2004) propose aesthetics interface criticism as an alternative
to the traditional assessment methods within HCI. The authors state that the interface
criticism is to be done by someone with “at least some basic knowledge in aesthetics, and
ideally some experience with art and literary criticism” and that the average systems
engineer would not be able to perform the required task without prior training. This
shows the importance of incorporating the art community in the UI design, which is
expected to lead to not only the production of better software interfaces, but also to an
expansion of the body of knowledge in UI design.
5.1.4 Social and Cultural Implications of Software/Technology on Art
Software Art, mentioned above, is concerned with the cultural and social implications of the
technology. In his influential study The Language of New Media, Manovich states that many
cultural phenomena now come to us in the form of data. Since this data is mediated by
various kinds of software, he claims that our very access to culture is mediated by software to
an increasing extent (Manovich 2002b). Nalder (2003) provides a reflection on the way
technology changes society and how this affects art. For example, with the wide use of the
internet people have become afraid of their privacy and artists explore such implications and
show them in their artwork. According to the author, NetArt treats the new information and
communications technologies and systems “not merely as the tool of communication, but as
the subject of their art”.
18 http://www.transmediale.de
19 http://readme.runme.org/
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5.2 Conceptual Framework of the Entities at the Intersection
The second outcome of the literature review is a conceptual framework of the intersection of
software and art. The framework describes the intersection of software and art in the view of
the entities that exist in the intersection, such as actors (who is involved?),
interests/viewpoints (why are the actors interested?), places (where does this involvement
takes place?), tools and technologies (what tools and technologies bind this relationship?).
The detail of the conceptual framework is published in article P4. Here we briefly present the
framework in the following section:
5.2.1 Who (are the Roles Involved in This Domain)
The ‘who’ dimension of the framework describes the roles involved at the intersection of
software and art. They can be identified as artists, designers, software developers, software
engineers, theorists, critics and researchers. The categories mentioned here are based on the
roles of the individuals involved and they are not mutually exclusive since one person can
have multiple roles at the same time (Blassnigg 2005). The list only covers the roles found in
the literature reviews, and thus does not claim to be complete or exhaustive.
a) Artists: Artists at the intersection refer to those artists who are using software for
realising some part of their artwork. This includes new media artists, photographers,
filmmakers, curators, animators and all others who utilise software to accomplish their
work. ‘Info-architect’ is coined by some of the artists to refer to the artists working with
new media technologies (Blassnigg 2005).
b) Theorists and Art Critics: The development of digital, information and communication
technologies has built a complex corpus where technology generates new promises,
problems and threats. Artists do not only use media technologies but also scrutinise and
challenge them (Kluszczynski 2005). Therefore, at the intersection, we see theorists and
art critics such as Erkki Huhtamo, Mathew Fuller, Florian Cramer, Jeffery Cox, Lev
Manovich and many more. Art critics and theorists are not exclusive role and most of the
time they occupy multiple roles; having other roles like artists, writers and teachers
besides being a theorist/art critic.
c) Software Engineers: Software engineers who are involved in the development of
artwork or artwork supporting tools fall in this group. They can be software engineers
working on a short term project with some artists or for long periods with an art institute,
or they can be students of a computing discipline working with artists. But we also
identified software engineers who do not have direct involvement with artists, but are
involved in the debate of the role of art versus science in SE. For example, the panel
discussion of OOPSLA 2004 was titled “Software Development: Arts & Crafts or Math
& Science?” which reveals the interest of general software engineers to build close
relationships with the arts. Some software engineers consider that software development
is a complex task that is a unique confluence of engineering, mathematics and artistic
insight (Wei-Lung 2002) while others finds art in the beauty and perfection of
programming (Bond 2005).
d) Researchers: Researchers from Creativity and Cognition Studios are interested and
involved in the intersection from the point of collaboration and creativity. Collaboration
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Chapter 5. Results
between artists and technologists has been of interest to many other researchers (Meyer et
al. 1998a), (Harris 1999) Marchese (2006).
The following table lists the actors at the intersection along with their characteristics and
activities.
Who Description Activities
Artists The artists who use software for
realising artwork. Includes media
artists, photographers, filmmakers,
curators, animators and ‘infoarchitects’
(artists working with new
media technologies) (Blassnigg 2005)
and so on.
Theorists and
Art Critics
Software
Engineers
Researchers
Artists who do not necessarily work
with artworks but scrutinise and
challenge the new promises, problems
and threats generated by technology
and technology dependent artworks.
Software engineers, experienced or
students, who collaborate with artists
to develop artworks or tools to
support artists or use art theories to
define or improve some concepts of
SE.
They can be software engineers
working for a short time with some
artists on an art project, long term
with an art institute, or computing
students working with artists
They are the people involved with
software and art for the purpose of
research in areas such as user
interface, collaboration, creativity and
innovation. They may come either
from art or computing disciplines,
working mostly on their own
discipline (Oates 2006a) or working
in collaboration with the other
discipline.
- use software in art
- conceptualise and take
part in the movement of
software art (Bond 2005)
(Cramer and Gabriel 2001).
- scrutinise, challenge and
criticise
- develop tools or artwork
- use art theory in
computing
- involved in science vs.
arts debate on SE as a
creative field (Wei-Lung
2002)
- talk about arts while
searching for perfectionism
and beauty in programming
(Bond 2005).
- research on pros and cons
of collaboration
- search and promote
creativity and innovation
- bridging the two
communities
Table 8. ‘Who’ dimension lists the people at the intersection.
5.2.2 Why (Art and Software Disciplines Interact)
The ‘why’ dimension of the framework describes the reasons artists and software engineers
cooperate with each other. In this section we highlight some of the reasons that we have
found in the literature review.
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a) Artists need tools support: Even though some artists can have a sound knowledge of
technology and tools, most of them are often unprepared to work with complex
technologies. It is this factor that may incline any artist wishing to work within the
domain of contemporary art and technology and digital art towards collaboration as a
necessary means for realising their intentions (Jones 2005a). Many researchers have
addressed issues related to the creation of tools to support artists and designers for reasons
such as reducing gap between developers and artists in a collaboration and enhancing
creativity (Machin 2002a), allowing visualisation at an early stage of design (Machin
2002a), supporting individual creativity (Warr and O’Neill 2007), and the ability of
tracking progress and revisiting design decisions (Mamykina et al. 2002). The tools
developed to assist collaborative work should be able to decrease the semantic gap
between artists and technologists and assist their dialogue. Gross (2005) believes that
when it comes to building software tools for artists, pragmatics analysis (context and
behaviour) is crucial because art is heavily immersed in practice and action, and because
art is valued on its ability to communicate.
b) Software dependent art projects need software engineering: SDA projects need SE
knowledge (Machin 2002a). SE knowledge will prevent situations in which the artworks
are implemented in a limited time and budget and the maintenance and upgrading issues
are overlooked. Maintenance and upgrade of these kinds of software supported artworks
become one of the prime sectors where art projects need SE help. Projects where software
engineers work together with artists raise issues regarding collaboration between artists
and technologists (Marchese 2006), evaluation of the final piece (Candy and Edmonds
2002b), capturing artists’ requirements without hampering the artistic process, suitable
methodologies that support both artistic process (Machin 2002a) and the development
process and co-creativity (Candy and Edmonds 2002b).
c) Computing needs aesthetics: The importance of teaching aesthetics in engineering
education and the role of aesthetics in engineering is recognised by some researchers
(Adams 1995) (Fishwick 2005). Aesthetic Computing is a term that is coined by Paul
Fishwick to refer to a new area of study which is concerned with the impact and effects of
aesthetics on the field of computing. Fishwick et al. (2005) have shown that by
transforming discrete models to geometric models, visual and interactive models
students’ understanding and perception on complex structures was improved. Fishwick
states that Information Visualisation and Software Visualisation are some of the fields
that can benefit from bringing art/aesthetics into computing (Fishwick 2007).
d) Technology changes art’s medium, audience and business: The advancement of
technology has changed the nature of creating, displaying and distributing artworks as
well as the user experience of the audience and spectators (Manovich 2002b). When the
internet is used as a way to transmit artworks, the focus falls on an individual spectator
which is different from a museum type of art presentation (Nalder 2003). Open Source
Software give artists an opportunity to experiment and create low-cost artworks and
internet and web enable them to reach the target audience very easily. New business
models are being generated as a result of these advancements. Thus there arise issues
related to protection (Shoniregun et al. 2004), copyright, business models, publicity and
so on which need to be solved as a collaborative effort by the software engineers and the
artists.
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5.2.3 Where (the Intersection Happens)
The influence of technology on art has created a number of new genres of arts, such as
internet art, generative art, new media art, net art, software art and so on (Nalder 2003). Peter
Weibel coined the general term “Computer Art” to refer to any artwork that was impossible
to create without computers (Oates 2006a). Interaction between art and software that happens
during the creation of these wide ranges of Computer Arts has many forms and many
contexts. Many of these interactions that we have found in the reviewed articles have
occurred in the context of institutions or organisations. The following section presents the
places/sectors that we have identified as points where art and software meet each other.
a) In Educational Institutes: Educational institutes include both art schools and computing
schools where the interaction between art and software occurs through interdisciplinary
and/or multidisciplinary courses which may involve students from either one or both art
and computing disciplines.
1) In Art Schools: Donna (1991) asserts that computer training should be given to non
computer science majors. The importance of the inclusion of computer graphics courses
in the fine arts syllabus is recognised by art-institutes (Garvey 1997; Sardon 2006).
2) In Computing Schools: In computing schools the need of interaction is recognised in
courses such as game development (Parberry et al. 2006) (Argent et al. 2006); Virtual
Reality (Zimmerman and Eber 2001). A positive outcome is reported by many on
involving artists and art education in computing schools (Adams 1995) (Jaccheri and
Sindre 2007) (Fishwick 2003).
b) In the Software Industry: Art meets with software in the software industry in building
various entertainment and leisure related applications, games, demo-scenes, human
computer interaction, user interface design and web design. Computer based
entertainment and leisure related applications range over a wide spectrum evolving from
console based ones to augmented/mixed reality, pervasive, ubiquitous, immersive,
context aware and social computing experiences. Games are considered as a rich field for
art not only because of the design, but also because of the cultural issues and perspectives
that might be identified within the games (Blais and Ippolito 2006).
c) In Research Institutes: Research institutes also bring together artists and technologists
with the aim of enhancing innovation, creativity or elegant solutions of a complex
problem. This kind of collaboration is often done through “Artist-in-residence” programs,
for example the Xerox PARC artist-in-residence program (Harris 1999) and the
COSTART project (Candy 1999).
d) In Art Projects: Another important meeting place for art and software is SDA projects
(Blum 2007) (Candy and Edmonds 2002a). Artists sometimes learn the software tools and
develop the artwork all by themselves, while sometimes they collaborate with software
developers and other technologists to realise the piece.
e) In Art Centres and Festivals: Art is promoted by many festivals where artists get the
chance to exhibit their works to the audience, communicating ideas and concepts, and
evaluating and/or criticising artworks. Many art festivals that have a focus on new media
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art are good places for art and software interaction. Arts Electronica
(http://www.aec.at/de/index.asp), PixelACHE (http://www.pixelache.ac/), Read_me
(http://readme.runme.org/), Transmediale (http://www.transmediale.de), Piksel
(http://www.piksel.no/), Make Art (http://makeart.goto10.org/2007/), Trondheim
Matchmaking (http://matchmaking.teks.no/) and Meta.morf (http://teks.no/) are some of
the most well known festivals promoting such interaction.
5.2.4 What (Software Tools Are Used in this Domain)
The ‘what’ dimension of the framework represents the tools that bind the relationship
between software and art. Artists tend to use software for different purposes and the software
is of different types and comes from different sources: customised, commercial or open
source. They also twist the use of software to match their creative needs, in a way that was
not intended by the creator of the software (Grey 2002). Therefore to gain some idea as to
what kind of software and tools artists use gives us an idea of their skill level and their
software needs. We named the software and tools that are used by the artists for creating
artworks as “Artistic software/Artwork support tools”. Artistic software/Artwork support
tools, i.e. tools used to develop artistic expression which specialise on some tasks such as
visualisation, sound manipulation or animation. In the following table we present different
kinds of artistic software/tools that were identified in the review.
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Category Software Name Referenced in
1. Graphics
Manipulation
2. Multimedia
Authoring
3. 3D graphics Manipulation
4.Sound
Manipulation
5. Video
Manipulation
6. Other Applications
7. Programming
languages /API
Illustrator, CorelDraw (Vector based drawing, editing)
Freehand (Layouts and illustrations for print/web)
Photoshop (A graphics editor software)
Painter 6.0 (Painting tool )
Flash (Animation and interactivity)
Director (Creating interactive content)
SoftImage 3D (3D animation)
3DStudio Max (3D modelling, rendering, animation)
MiniCAD, AutoCAD (Computer Aided Design for
2D/3D)
Alias /Wavefront (3D graphics software)
WorldUp (Development environment for 3D/VR
applications)
Maya (High end 3D computer graphics software)
Breve swarm simulation (A package for building 3D
simulations of multi-agent systems and artificial life)
Pure Data (Tool for creating interactive computer music
and multimedia works)
Max/MSP (A graphical programming environment for
music and multimedia)
GigaStudio 160 (Software for music and sound effects)
SoftVNS video toolkit (A real time video processing and
tracking software for MAX/MSP)
Jitter (Extends MAX/MSP to support real time
manipulation of video data)
Korsakov (Interactive documentary software)
ELE (Control Lighting for a virtual environment)
Mobile Bristol toolkit (create & share mobile, location–
based media)
Mobile Experience Engine (create context-aware and
media-rich experiences for mobile devices)
Sculpture simulator(simulator)
Particle dynamics (simulates natural phenomena)
Datareader (A Max/MSP object to read text data and
convert them into sound)
VRML (Virtual Reality Modelling language), OpenGL,
General purpose programming languages such as python,
C++, Java etc.
(Garvey 1997)
(Grey 2002)
Table 9. Tools at the intersection of software and art
(Sung-dae et al. 2006)
(Sardon 2006) (Marchese
2006) (Garvey 1997)
(Machin 2002a)
(Jennings et al. 2006)
(Garvey 1997)
(Strömberg et al. 2002)
(Zimmerman and Eber
2001) (Steinkamp 2001)
(Boyd et al. 2004)
(Jennings et al. 2006)
(Marchese 2006)
(Edmonds et al. 2004)
(Strömberg et al. 2002)
(Edmonds et al. 2004)
(Polli 2004)
(Blassnigg 2005)
(Gross 2005; Biswas and
Singh 2006)
(Machin 2002a)
(Steinkamp 2001)
(Polli 2004)
(Nalder 2003)
(Fels et al. 2005)
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Domain specific programming language is preferred by the artists compared to the general
purpose programming languages, due to the steep learning curve associated with learning
programming. However, a number of general purpose languages were also found in the
review which were used to realise artworks or some artistic software, for example C++,
ActionScript, UML and 2D OpenGL (row 7 in the table above). Besides artists trend of
moving towards using open source technology is also visible not only because of low cost
solutions but also because many artists believe in the open source ideology.
Secondary Tools. Apart from artistic software/tools, there are other tools and software that
artists use for supporting other activities such as communication, publicity, or sharing works
and ideas. Web sites, blogs, forums, etc., falls in this category. Walden, in his review on the
book Net_Condition: Art and Global Media, states, “The digital arts site Rhizome is
recognized for the crucial role it plays in enabling exchange and collaboration among artists
through the network” (Walden 2002).
5.2.5 Summary
In the earlier sections we have presented the framework of the intersection in terms of
different entities, i.e. people and views, place and tools. Here the framework is presented
through a table. In the table, the rows represent where (software and art meet) and the
columns represent who (are the actors), the entry in each cell represents the reason why the
actors participate in a given place. The ‘why’ part included here is an elaboration of the Why
art and software need interaction of section 5.2.2 and it is elaborated in respect to each of the
actors and places, whereas in the previous section it was described only based on the need of
the two disciplines.
Where
Who
Educational Institutes
(Computing and Art
Schools)
Artists
Software
Engineers
Researchers
/ Educators
4, 5, 10 5 1, 2, 3 X
Research Institutes 3, 17 3,6, 17 3, 18, 17 X
Theorists
Art Critics
&
Software Industry 8,9 7, 8, 9 7 X
Public Art, Art Projects 10 11, 12 18 16
Festivals 13, 14, 15 12, 15 17 16
Table 10. Where, who and why dimension of the intersection of software and art.
Here we present the list of reasons (Why):
1. Design and conduct interdisciplinary courses
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2. Conduct research and disseminate knowledge of conducting interdisciplinary courses
3. Foster innovation and creativity
4. Learn technology
5. Learn to work in multidisciplinary projects
6. Apply aesthetics in computing
7. Conduct research and development of products
8. Design user interface and enhance/improve human computer interaction
9. Enhance user experience
10. Use technology in artworks
11. Realise the artwork through software
12. Provide tools and technology support
13. Share and exchange knowledge
14. Exhibit artwork in public
15. Extend collaboration between artists and software engineers
16. Follow the changes of art and their social and cultural effects
17. Present research works
18. Conduct research on artists-technologists collaboration and reduce the gap between
them
5.3 Identification of Factors that contribute to the Success/Failure
of SDA Project
The case study of Sonic Onyx gave us insights into the collaboration between software
engineers and artists. The result is dependent on the context of project. In the case of Sonic
Onyx, the collaboration was between a professional artist and a group of five students of
electrical and computer engineering. The study was targeted at bringing out the issues and
challenges that software engineers had to tackle to implement SDA projects. We have
identified the factors that played an important role in the success/failure of the project. Thus
we have identified the following results from the case study.
a. Identification of the context of an SDA project
b. A set of lessons learned from our participation in the project
c. Factors that influence the success or failure of artists - software engineers’
collaboration.
5.3.1 The Context of the SDA Project: Sonic Onyx
a) Development process: The project group did not choose any development method, but
their working process closely fits with that of rapid development method or agile method.
b) Type of collaboration model: Referring to the models of co-creativity in art and
technology collaboration from (Candy and Edmonds 2002b) presented in section 2.4, the
collaboration in Sonic Onyx can be identified as a partnership model with the artist in
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control. Even though the main concept of the artwork was initiated by the artist, the
technologists were equally active in the conceptualisation phase.
c) Requirement changes: As like many other art projects, the requirement of Sonic Onyx
changed frequently. The requirement specification was not detailed and the final
specification of the artwork went through several modifications and additions on the
original ideas. The functionalities of the system was defined, modified and changed
through exploration. The artist wanted to explore many possibilities before finally
discarding or accepting a set of functions. This process continued throughout the project
until the middle of the project or at least to the time when the development group realised
that it would be too late to implement new changes in the system.
d) Copyright issues: SDA projects utilise some of the newest technologies and tools that
are available. The use of these technologies and its effects on the socio cultural
environment can bring issues that are new and need to be dealt with carefully. For
example, in Sonic Onyx, it raised the issue of playing copyrighted audio files. The artistic
objective of Sonic Onyx is to promote contemporary art musicians by playing their music
through the sculpture. The interactive sound processing part of the sculpture allows users
to send any file through Bluetooth enabled handheld devices. Then the question arose
whether it is legal to receive, store, process and play the copyrighted files sent by the
users in a public space. From the artist’s point of view, the sculpture has to be seen as an
instrument. When a sound file is sent, the instrument gets activated and it is the sender’s
responsibility if it is a copyrighted file.
e) Limitation of time: There are some merits and demerits of student projects. For example,
the project was done as part of a student project which has a time limitation. Project
duration cannot be extended even if it is required. Once the school project period is over,
the student group is broken. So when choosing a project with students, consideration must
be given to the fact that it has to be completed within the time limit of the project.
f) Lack of maintenance: In a student project, after the project is finished the students are
no longer available. Students may not be even be traceable, nor are they responsible for
continuing support and maintenance of the system (unless it is done by agreement). So
afterwards the maintenance and support is an important factor that should be considered
when an art project is planned to be implemented by students.
g) Reasons for selecting student projects: Artist chose Sonic Onyx to implement with
student developers for two reasons: firstly, it was assumed to be cheaper to complete the
project with students instead of professional programmers, secondly, it was new for the
artist to work with students, and he wanted to use it as an experiment. Later from the
interviews with the artist we identified that student projects can be tempting to the artists
for reasons like, i) it offers cheap solution and ii) it offers experimentation that is develop
system through a trial and error basis.
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5.3.2 Lessons Learned- Issues and Challenges for SDA Projects
i. Inherent risk: The biggest risk of developing a project with students is that one does not
know if the project will deliver a working system or not. According to the artist, “The
main difference between doing a project with students and professional developers, if we
disregard professional efficiency, is the insecurity. You are not sure if you will end up
with a fully functional system as you do not know whether the students will be able to or
have the capability to implement the whole system”.
ii. Maintenance support: Another issue is after-development support and maintenance. It
is not reasonable to expect technical support from the students after the project is
completed, and the student group will not be traceable or able to continue providing
support and maintenance of the system.
iii. Familiarity of the technology: With a student project, the artist must be aware of the
worst possible outcome and be prepared for failure of the project. The artist or the
developers or any other resources in the project group should have enough understanding
about the technology to enable the project to be implemented.
iv. Time spent on experimentation: Using new tools and technology is always a challenge,
especially for a student group without much work experience. Experimenting with
alternative solutions also takes time. In fact, much time can be wasted on learning and
searching for a suitable solution if the group is inexperienced. Therefore, guidance from
experienced professionals is important in a student project, and the earlier this can be
arranged, the better it is for the project.
v. Need of good supervision/management: A student group consists of members with
different levels of skill and motivation. Good supervision is needed to enable all
members to work to their highest potential.
vi. Good communication: Good communication between the artist and the developers is
important, and the artists’ knowledge of technology and ability to communicate with the
technologists is a plus in aiding communication.
vii. Frequent communication: Frequent communication and the use of a partnership model
where both artist and technologist are involved and influence each other’s work are two
positive factors.
viii. Importance of having an agreement: An agreement is important to clarify how long
and how much support will be provided by the student group.
ix. Model of co-creativity: A partnership model is better as it gives some sort of ownership
feeling to the software developers. Also taking part in the creative process motivates the
students. “This project was unique in that way that we were a part of the creative process
and had the opportunity to influence how the sculpture should interact with the public”
(Asphaug et al. 2007).
x. Development process: A development process that supports frequent communication
with the customer and rapid development is more suitable as the artist wants to see part
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of the artwork and then redefine and modify it iteratively until it finally matches the
artistic intentions and desired output level.
xi. Awareness of the sponsors: Software dependent or in general technology dependent
artwork is different from traditional artwork in the way that it requires maintenance and
upgrading over time. Thus the sponsor should keep this in mind while deciding the
budget of the artwork.
xii. After deployment supervision: Unlike traditional artwork, a SDA needs someone to
take care of it after the development and deployment. In the case of installing the artwork
in a public place, there should be a person who takes care of the artwork.
xiii. Timely backup: SDA should be backed up in a timely manner as the system can break
down at times. A back up helps to restart the system.
5.3.3 Factors that Influence the Success/Failure of Collaboration
The following are the factors that we have identified as important in creating fruitful artiststudent
developers collaboration:
Positive Factors
1. Artist’s know how and understanding of the technology
2. Availability of technically skilled persons as a resource to the development team
3. Good communication between the developers of the team
4. Good communication between the software developers and the artist/s
5. Frequent meetings with the artist, demonstration of prototypes and reporting of
progress
6. Pair programming
7. Good project management
8. Agile Development Method/ Rapid Development Method
Negative Factors
1. Lack of agreement between the stakeholders of the project
2. Lack of awareness of the sponsors about subsequent maintenance
3. Lack of responsible authority to take care of the artwork
4. Lack of communication between artist and developers
5. Not considering deployment of artwork as an important phase
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5.4 Proposals on How Computing Can Benefit from Art
Collaboration
Here we present a set of example and proposal that shows how we can improve the discipline
of computing by utilising theories and products from the art discipline. Our objective was to
investigate the intersection of art and software to find out the contexts in which SE can play a
role in art as well as where the field of computing can gain positive effects by learning from
and collaborating with art/artists. We have participated in some art and SE collaboration
projects and investigated the intersection of the two disciplines. From these experiences, we
present how we have identified that this collaboration provides positive feedback that can
help us improve and enhance our field of computing. By enhancement and improvement of
computing we mean improvement in the ways of developing software dependent systems, in
learning computing related education, and in utilising technology and information systems.
1. Utilising artwork to achieve computing purposes such as pervasive awareness and
informative artwork.
Informative art is a term used by (Redström 2000) to refer to a type of computer applications
which borrow their appearance from well-known artistic styles to dynamically visualise
updated information. Various kinds of data such as e-mail traffic, current weather conditions
around the world, earthquake data and the activity level in a room were used for visualisation
in styles inspired by painters (Skog et al. 2002). In the Open Wall project presented in paper
P3, we have described how the Open Wall placed inside of a workplace can work as an
informative artwork and achieve pervasive awareness. By displaying information about the
workplace such as meetings, colleagues’ birthdays or events, the Open Wall can act as an
informative artwork. In the meantime, since it is placed in a meeting room, it does not require
any one’s imperative attention and acts as a pervasive awareness system. Pervasive
awareness, ubiquitous computing and connectedness are some of the emerging fields inside
computing. Artworks have a special advantage of being installed in different places where
people gather such as public places, open spaces and workplaces. Thus artworks, by
incorporating computing and bringing it close to the people, can play important role in the
fields of pervasive awareness and ubiquitous computing.
The Open Wall is a media or tool for artistic expression where both the system and the
artistic expression are kept open. Several art expressions were implemented on this wall such
as the animation of a bunny, display of texts and display of heart signals. We proposed that
by appending some environmental information in the artwork, such as the presence of people
in the building or in a meeting room, or an announcement about a news or social event, we
can make the artwork dynamic and interactive. By providing information about their
workplace it acts as a pervasive awareness system while playing the role of an artwork placed
inside the workplace. Our example artwork was located inside workplace, but we argue that
the same is possible for any place of interest by properly selecting the artwork, its contents,
message or information, and the context and the location of the artwork and its visitors’
attitude, mood and need. Art Installations have a special advantage of supporting ubiquitous
computing along with provision for sensuous aesthetics and pleasant experience for its users.
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2. Utilising software dependent artwork in computer education
Software dependent artworks can be used in SE education, this gives the opportunity to the
students of SE to have interdisciplinary experience and interact with a client from a different
domain. Art projects also make the students think creatively and probably make them more
innovative and allow them to see things from a different angle.
3. Identifying common areas for collaboration with artists/art in HCI and the benefits of
incorporating art in HCI
The second literature review was conducted with the objective to understand the meaning of
aesthetics, remove confusion and understand the use, applications and possibilities of
aesthetics in the context of Human Computer Interaction.
It was conducted in order to find the sectors of common interest between artists and
technologists and improve collaboration between them with a view to learn from each other’s
background knowledge and skills. While the role of aesthetics, mainly visual aesthetics, was
not recognised by all researchers and some researcher considered it as a drawback in
achieving usability, with the availability of high performance hardware it has been possible to
allow extra room for aesthetic components in the user interface. Later, studies showed that
these aesthetic elements actually have a positive effect on user experience. From the review
we have categorized HCI into different thematic areas where aesthetics was addressed by
researchers. Inside HCI, some of these thematic areas we identified to benefit from
collaborating with art are: Artefacts design, Attractiveness and the look and feel of user
interface, Interaction with a system, Usability and user experience.
4. Understanding aesthetics – removing misconception
We have seen from the review that the most common use of aesthetics in HCI refers to visual
aesthetics or expressive aesthetics. However, aesthetics in humanities does not refer only to
visual aesthetics. The Merriam Webster dictionary defines aesthetics as, 1) a branch of
philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty, art and taste and with the creation and
appreciation of beauty, 2) a particular theory or conception of beauty or art: a particular taste
for or approach to what is pleasing to the senses and especially sight and 3) a pleasing
appearance or effect. A stress on appearance is clear from the definition, but the sense of
pleasure is not only limited to sight. In HCI, there is a debate on the conflicting impact of
usability and aesthetics in HCI (Norman 1998). Many professionals see aesthetics as
inversely proportional to ease of use or usability (Karvonen 2000), in other words the more
aesthetic elements added the less usable it gets. However this is because by aesthetics we
usually mean visual and expressive aesthetics. But if we see aesthetics as a pleasing effect,
the aesthetics of interaction is then the pleasure of interaction with the system. In that case the
more usable the interaction, the more pleasant the experience. Thus aesthetics is always
positive in human computer interaction but the focus should shift from the aesthetics of the
user interface to the aesthetics of user interaction.
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6 Evaluation and Discussion of Results
This chapter revisits and justifies our choice of the research questions (section 6.1), evaluates
the contributions (section 6.2), and examines the issues related to internal, external, construct
and conclusion validity (section 6.3).
6.1 Evaluation of Research Questions
In this section we revisit the research questions and justify why we have chosen the particular
questions. The first question is, “What is the relationship between art and software and how
can we conceptualise it?”
The question starts with ‘What’ and it is an exploratory question. Usually exploratory
questions are asked in the early stages of a research program. Through exploratory questions
we attempt to understand the phenomena, and identify useful distinctions that clarify our
understanding. In that sense the first question is reasonable for addressing the research
themes and exploring the various interesting issues that lie within the themes. A literature
review has been chosen as a research method to address this question. This is deemed to be
appropriate since suitable research methods for exploratory questions are supposed to be
those that offer rich, qualitative data.
It should be noticed that we have not investigated the relationship between SE and art. Rather
we have addressed a wider area, i.e. software and art. This has been done on purpose since
SE is a specific field and thus the intersection between SE and art could miss out many
interesting relations and issues. We also argue that since addressing the relationship between
SE and art is new and since there is not much relevant literature regarding it, it would be
better to get a wider view in order to identify where in that wider picture SE can play a role.
Easterbrook et al. (2008) state that a question that makes assumptions about the phenomenon
to be studied is considered to be a vague question. Our question does not make any
assumptions about the relationship.
The second question is, “How can we characterise the development process of software
dependent artworks and projects?” This question starts with the question word ‘How’. Even
though the question starts with ‘how’, it can also be alternatively expressed as “What are the
characteristics of software dependent artworks and projects?” But in that case it would sound
as if some obvious and distinct characteristics already exist that are universal or general for
all SDA projects or artworks. Since we have used case studies of only one project we do not
claim that these characteristics are universal to all art projects. In that sense using the
question “How can we characterise …” fits more appropriately with our scope and work
contribution.
The third question is, “How can we increase collaboration between artists and software
engineers and improve the field of computing by borrowing concepts from arts?” The
answers to this question are some examples and proposals that reveal how we can increase
collaboration with art and artists. The question is very similar to design science questions of
the form “what is an effective way to achieve X?” or “How can we achieve X?” In the case of
a design science research a new artefact is designed and then it is used and evaluated to
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compare whether it has achieved the purpose. In our case, we proposed some example cases
and proposals on how to increase collaboration. Thus considering the way the question is
addressed it is a design science question and presents somewhat dogmatic solutions. But the
difference with design science is that here we have not used any evaluation. Thus the answers
to this question do not represent some validated solutions, rather some exemplary solutions.
Now to reflect on whether the contributions addressed by the questions completely satisfy the
issues addressed by the title, we identify the following questions that spring to mind from the
title of the thesis Extending Software Engineering Collaboration towards the Intersection of
Software and Art:
a. What is the intersection of software and art?
b. What is SE collaboration or, the relationship between SE and the intersection of
software and art?
c. Why is the extension required?
d. How can SE collaboration be extended?
By mapping these questions to our research questions we can check the completeness and
coherence of the research questions and judge how much the results of the research have
achieved compared to our claim. We see that question a. is already covered in research
question RQ1. Question b. is about the relationship between SE and the intersection of
software and art. On the other hand, RQ1a addresses the relation between software engineers
and artists in the context of the intersection of software and art. Thus b. is covered by RQ1a.
Question c. is not addressed by any of the research questions. Rather it is addressed by the
problem statement and the state of the art literature which motivates our research.
Question d., how SE collaboration could be extended to include the intersection of software
and art, is a big question. In order to know how the collaboration can be extended we need to
know the answers to the following questions:
• What is ‘collaboration’ between artists and software engineers?
• What is the need of collaboration and what kind of roles and scopes exist for
collaboration?
• What are the factors and issues that enhance or degrade the success of collaboration?
The first two questions are addressed in RQ1, and the last question is addressed by RQ2.
Finally, based on the knowledge gained from these questions, RQ3 attempts to present some
ways in which the collaboration can be extended while at the same time benefitting from the
collaboration. Thus all the questions derived from the thesis title are addressed by the
selected research questions.
6.2 Evaluation of Contributions
In this section we would like to evaluate our own contribution with respect to the state of the
art. Our focus is to evaluate how novel our contribution is and what impact it has in this area
of research. We have mainly three contributions from this research. We will describe them
one by one in the section below.
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Chapter 6. Evaluation and Discussion of Results
The first contribution is identification of the research issues at the intersection of software
and art. In respect to the state of the art, we have not seen any similar work about the
intersection so far. We have identified SE issues at the intersection which were later applied
in identifying SE issues for a specific type of artwork, interactive art installations (Trifonova
et al. 2008b). SArt group’s investigation of Improsculpt, the software that is used in the art
installation Flyndre, also reveals the presence of SE issues during its development and
maintenance phases (Trifonova et al. 2008a).
The second contribution is a conceptual framework of the intersection of software and art.
In respect to the state of the art, this is the first conceptual framework describing the
intersection of software and art. The only similar work that we have discovered is Wilson’s
study Information Arts - Intersections of Art, Science and Technology (Wilson 2001) which
covers a wider area of the intersection between art, science and technology. Besides it does
not provide a framework of the entities at the intersection. Our work is about a more specific
field, the intersection between software and art. The increasing interest by many actors in the
interdisciplinary domain of software and art deserve a conceptual framework at the
intersection. A knowledge base at the intersection will be beneficial for everyone involved
and interested in it.
The third contribution is a set of characteristics that positively affect the software
development in the context of art projects. Through the case study of a SDA project, we have
identified the factors that positively and negatively affect the project. We have analysed the
factors that are critical for a student project and what should be taken care of for the
successful implementation of the project.
Factors that affect an art and technology collaboration have also been investigated by some
other researchers. For example, Biswas et al. (2006) has mentioned some characteristics of
such collaboration projects. He reports that, (i) system requirements are not clear or well
understood at the beginning of the project, and (ii) artists iteratively and intuitively generate
creative ideas and evolve their design based on their perception and experience. From the
case study we have also noticed these features and we believe that due to these natures of the
project an iterative method with frequent meetings and client communication work as
positive factors.
Similar case study projects include the COSTRART project where the investigators surveyed
many artists who participated in artist-in-residence programs as part of the project (Candy
and Edmonds 2002b). The survey consisted of 140 questions and 250 responses were
collected from the artists participating. The questions were targeted to get information on
various subjects such as the types of tools, applications, devices and media that play a role in
the artistic process, the contributions and constraints of computer technology in artistic work,
support requirements for computer technology use and the use of computer technology in the
context of artistic goals and working practices.
During the artist-in-residency programs, they conducted interviews and observations which
were mostly focussed on the creative process of development, such as the importance of
supporting the creative process, the significance of communication with others and
conceptual work versus physical object manipulation (Candy and Edmonds 2002b). The
authors provided some desirable characteristics for the artists and technologists to promote
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collaborative creativity. For example, they identified that technologists should (i) have
communication skills as well as technical skills, (ii) develop the ability to listen and learn
from listening, and (iii) avoid suggesting courses of action based on technical feasibility. On
the other hand, artists should have (i) access to high end facilities, (ii) a network of resources
for a broad range of needs, (iii) an ability to reflect and learn from other experts, and iv)
access to appropriate expertise. The criteria that they have identified as important for having
a sound and productive partnership were (Candy and Edmonds 2002b):
• Devising a shared language
• Developing a common understanding of the artistic intentions and vision
• Engaging in extensive discussions and “what if?” sessions
• Allowing time to establish a relationship and recover from mistakes.
The difference between our contribution and the case study results from the COSTART
project is that the collaborations in the COSTART project were selected for a particular
purpose, where the artists were chosen based on some criteria. On the other hand, our case
study represents a real-life collaboration between artist and technologist, where they are not
invited nor selected for some purpose. Another difference with the COSTART project is that
COSTART was mainly focussed on creativity issues in the collaboration whereas our focus
was on successful collaboration.
Our findings match with the findings from the COSTART project. We have identified artists’
knowledge and know-how of technology as a positive success factor which matches with the
first criteria, devising a shared language. The second and fourth criteria from the COSTART
project are about common understanding and spending time to establish a relationship, which
is in line with our finding that an iterative method with frequent communication between the
artist and technologist is identified as a positive feature by both artist and the technologist.
Finally, the third criteria, engaging in extensive discussions, refers us back to the situation of
our project where the artist did not have a clear idea about the end product and he wanted to
try out several options and ideas to get to the final product. We have identified it as one of the
reasons for selecting students as developers of the project which allowed the artist to work on
an experimental basis. It might be a common choice for artists to work in a way that allows
trial and experimentation.
Apart from the COSTART project, most other collaboration issues that we have found in the
literature were from researchers conducting multidisciplinary collaboration courses in art and
computing schools. Morlan and Rosalee mentioned the following elements as essential for
successful collaboration from their experience of conducting an interdisciplinary course
involving art and science students (Morlan 1993):
• Identification of commonalities between the disciplines for the purpose of opening the
avenues of communication
• Familiarity with the terminology of both fields
• A sensitivity to the challenges and difficulties posed by each discipline and a respect for
individual's abilities
The first two points pronounce the importance of communication and a shared language,
which was also discussed by the COSTART researchers. Our contribution also acknowledges
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Chapter 6. Evaluation and Discussion of Results
these elements. In addition, we have identified lessons learned from the project that affected
the development of the project positively or negatively which we have not found to be
addressed by others before.
The fourth contribution is a set of proposals that work as an example on how the
collaboration can be extended and bring mutual benefits to both art and SE. The suggested
proposals were based on our knowledge gained from literature and from experiences of
participating in art projects. Utilising artwork for different computing purposes is one way to
extend collaboration with artists. This is not something new, other researchers have utilised
artworks for many purposes. What is new about our contribution is the identification of the
usage as ways of extending SE collaboration. Use of theory from art and aesthetics in
different disciplines is also not a new idea. Many researchers have already identified different
areas in the computing discipline for the application of art theory. In HCI the importance of
visual aesthetics has already been recognised by some researchers. Our contribution was to
collect all the views and reviews about the positive and negative effects of visual aesthetics in
HCI. Besides, we divided the field into different segments where visual aesthetics have
important roles to play. There is evidence that art and science collaboration can promote
creativity and innovation. Multidisciplinary courses found in the literature also documented
positive effects. Thus our suggestion of including SDAs in SE education is based on
empirical evidence both from our own experience and the state of the art.
6.3 Evaluation of Validity
Mary Shaw (2002) suggests that good research should have clear and convincing evidence so
that the result is sound. This evidence should be based on experience or systematic analysis,
not simply persuasive argument or textbook examples. In this section we discuss the validity
of our research and the ways we have minimised the threats toward validity. First of all we
position the overall validity of our research and then discuss the relevant threats one by one.
Mary Shaw, while discussing What Makes Good Research in Software Engineering?,
identified a set of validation techniques in SE (Shaw 2002) which is presented in the
following table:
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Chapter 6. Evaluation and Discussion of Results
Type of
Validation
Analysis
Example
I have analysed my result and find it satisfactory through ... (formal analysis)
… rigorous derivation and proof (empirical model)
… data on controlled use (controlled …carefully designed statistical experiment)
experiment
Experience My result has been used on real examples by someone other than
me, and the evidence of its correctness / usefulness / effectiveness
is … (qualitative model) … narrative (empirical model, … data,
usually statistical, in practice
(notation, tool) … comparison of this with similar results in
technique) actual use
Example Here’s an example of how it works on
(toy example) … a toy example, perhaps motivated by reality
(slice of life) …a system that I have been developing
Evaluation Given the stated criteria, my result ...
(descriptive model) …adequately describes the phenomena of interest …
(qualitative model) … accounts for the phenomena of interest…
(empirical model) … is able to predict … because …,
or … gives results that fit real data …
Includes feasibility studies, pilot projects
Persuasion
I thought hard about this, and I believe...
(technique) … if you do it the following way, …
(system) … a system constructed like this would …
(model) … this model seems reasonable
Note that if the original question was about feasibility, a working
system, even without analysis, can be persuasive
Blatant
assertion
No serious attempt to evaluate result
Table 11.Validation technique in SE
From the table we can see that, in the Analysis technique, the result is validated either by
rigorous derivation and proof, or in a controlled and carefully designed statistical experiment.
In Experience, the result is validated by experience, such as when someone other than the
author has used the result and the evidence of its correctness/usefulness/effectiveness is clear
from their use. In the case of Evaluation, the result is a descriptive model that adequately
describes the phenomena of interest, a qualitative model that accounts for the phenomena of
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Chapter 6. Evaluation and Discussion of Results
interest, or an empirical model with results that fit real data. It often includes feasibility
studies or pilot projects. In Example, the author presents an example to show how the
claimed result works on it. It can be a toy example or a slice of life, or a system that the
author has been developing. According to Persuasion, validity depends on the belief of the
author. It can be a system, technique or a model which the author believes to be better,
effective, or reasonable and therefore persuade others to follow the technique/system/model.
The last technique, Blatant Assertion, does not make any serious attempt to evaluate the
result.
From the above classification, we claim that our research follows the category Evaluation.
We have presented some features based on models of collaboration and a conceptual
framework based on empirical data. However, part of our third contribution is based on
Persuasion.
Johnson (1997) states that validity has traditionally been attached to the quantitative research
tradition. He mentions that while some qualitative researchers suggest that the concept of
validity is not relevant to qualitative research due to the fact that basic epistemological and
ontological assumptions of qualitative and quantitative research are incompatible, most
qualitative researchers hold a more moderate viewpoint and they consider that validity makes
qualitative research better than others that do not have the concept. When referring to
research validity, qualitative researchers usually refer to qualitative research that is plausible,
credible, trustworthy and, therefore, defensible.
Researchers have developed several strategies to maximise validity in qualitative research.
Some of the strategies are for example, extended fieldwork, low inference descriptors,
triangulation, data triangulation, participant feedback and peer review (Johnson 1997). In our
research we have used several of these strategies in order to increase the validity of our
research. In this work, we have used two research methods which are systematic review and
case study. We will discuss the four types of validity in terms of these two types of studies.
6.3.1 Internal Validity
Internal validity focuses on cause and effect relationships. The notion of one thing leading to
another is applicable here, such as event A leads to event B. Internal validity addresses the
"true" causes of the outcomes that you observe in your study. In experimentation and
quantitative research, strong internal validity means that independent and dependent variables
are reliably measured and there is a strong justification that causally links independent
variables to dependent variables. Since in qualitative research, there is no dependent and
independent variable, the internal validity in qualitative research is measured by the quality
and trustworthiness of the study. The issues of reliability, trustworthiness, rigor and quality
differentiates good research from a bad one, and therefore testing and increasing these values
is important in any research, be it quantitative or qualitative. Lincoln and Guba (1985)
suggest that instead of internal validity in intrepretivist research, we should use the alternative
criteria credibility, which determines whether the research inquiry was accurately identified
and described. Credibility can be achieved by several techniques such as research
triangulation, prolonged engagement with the problem situation, checking by informants and
respondents checking their interpretations (Oates 2006b).
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Chapter 6. Evaluation and Discussion of Results
Systematic Review
For most of the research work, we worked with data over time. The first literature review was
conducted over a year by three people. Results from the review were presented with
references to the literature. Keywords were updated and modified in order to gather more
relevant articles. Relevant articles from other search results were allowed as alternative
sources and searching from the references cited in the relevant articles offered multiple data
sources. The interpretation bias or subjectivity was removed by having two people read an
article before including it for review. The second literature review was done by two
researchers over a period of six months. Except for the fact that this review was small in
comparison to the first review, the strategies followed in the first review were also followed
here.
Case Study
For the case study, threat to internal validity is not applicable to descriptive or exploratory
studies as these studies do not claim any causal relationships (Yin 1989). However, we have
used data triangulation, extended fieldwork and participant feedback to ensure the quality and
trustworthiness of the study.
6.3.2 External Validity
External validity is related to generalising. External validity is the degree to which the results
can be generalised to other populations and settings, i.e. that the conclusions in a study would
hold for other persons in other places and at other times. Generalisation depends on four
elements, time, people, place and setting. There are differences between the interpretivist and
positivist way of defining the validities. In positivist research, generalising a sample to a
population or getting similar results from replication of the same study strengthens the degree
of generalisability and thus external validity. But interpretivist research consider that the truth
out there is socially constructed, short lived and changing (Oates 2006b). Besides, some
qualitative researchers are more interested in documenting particularistic findings than
universalistic findings (Johnson 1997). However, there are also some qualitative researchers
such as Yin and Stake as mentioned by (Johnson 1997), who argue that qualitative research
can be also generalised to some extent. Following (Cook and Campbell 1979), Yin (1989)
suggests that by using replication logic just like in the case of experimental research, the
more times a research finding is shown to be true with different sets of people, the more
confidence we can place in the finding and in the conclusions that the finding generalises
beyond the people in the original research study.
Systematic review
Dybå and Dingsøyr suggest that in the context of a systematic review, external validity is
concerned with whether or not the study is asking an appropriate research question. They also
say that the assessment depends on the purpose for which the study is to be used. External
validity is closely connected with the generalisability or applicability of a study’s findings
(Dybå and Dingsøyr 2008).
Lincoln and Guba (1985) suggest that instead of speaking about external validity in
interpretivist research we should use transferability. Since intrerpretivists accept the
uniqueness of contexts, individuals and individual constructions, thereby making identical
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Chapter 6. Evaluation and Discussion of Results
findings in other contexts less likely, the researcher should give a sufficiently detailed
description so that the readers can judge whether their own situation of interest has similar
features so that the findings may also be relevant there (Oates 2006b).
From our systematic review we have derived a conceptual framework (Section 5.2). This
conceptual framework was later applied in the practical world to see how it is applicable to
real life projects at the intersection of software and art. It was applied to art projects
conducted in two different countries; Norway and Italy.
The quality and worth of a review depends on the extent to which scientific review methods
have been used to minimise error and bias. Thus the trustworthiness and credibility, i.e. the
internal validity, of a systematic review plays an important role in how much confidence a
user can place in the conclusions and recommendations arising from such a review.
Both our literature reviews have been described in detail in the research method section. In
addition the articles that were included in the review have been extracted into an Excel file
from where the readers can obtain the list of articles and the conclusion that is derived from
them and make a relation to our interpretation. The list of articles and other relevant data are
published on the SArt website. However, one drawback of doing literature review replication
that should be kept in mind is that searching on internet databases is not reliable. The same
search keywords may generate different sets of results at different times, in addition to the
fact that the database is always being changed and updated.
Case study
There are criticisms about single cases offering a poor basis for generalisation. However such
critics implicitly contrast the situation to survey research (Yin 1989). In survey research a
sample is generalised to a larger universe. Yin (1989) suggests that the analogy to samples
and universe is incorrect when dealing with case studies because survey research relies on
statistical generalisations whereas case studies rely on analytical generalisation. In analytical
generalisation, a particular set of results is generalised to some broader theory. A common
complaint about the case study is that it is difficult to generalise from one case to another.
Thus analysts fall into the trap of trying to select a representative case or set of cases. But Yin
says that even a large set of cases do not remove the complaint, rather the focus of the notion
of generalisation should be changed. He suggests that instead of generalising to other cases, a
case study should aim to generalise the findings to theory, analogous to experimental results
generalised to theory.
Although multiple case studies give more opportunity for generalisation, we often choose a
single case study. Yin (1989) has suggested five reasons for why people choose single case
studies: if the case is a) a critical case, b) an extreme or unique case, c) a representative or
typical case, d) a revelatory case and e) a longitudinal case. Our reason for choosing a single
case study was the third reason. The case of Sonic Onyx is a representative case of artist and
student technologists’ collaboration. The reason we call this case a representative one is
because i) Sonic Onyx is a typical instance of an interactive art installation, ii) the project
involves collaboration of artist and technologists, iii) technologists are representative
computer engineering students, and iv) the artist is a representative professional artist with
previous experience of installation arts involving technology.
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Chapter 6. Evaluation and Discussion of Results
Our experiences from the art projects that led us to certain knowledge about the intersection
of art and SE has happened in the environment of Norway. We should bear in mind that the
Norwegian way of project management and collaboration in a project might be different to
that of other countries, and especially when organisations have a flat management system
than compared to the United States where it is more hierarchical. When considering the
students and artist collaboration, it should be also kept in mind that Norwegian students
might have differences in the cultural approach of collaboration. Finally we believe that the
generalisability of the study can be increased by using replication logic as advocated by Yin
(1989) and Cook and Campbell (1979).
6.3.3 Construct and Conclusion Validity
Since this study is mainly explorative and interpretivist in nature, there is no experiment
involved here and that is why construct validity is not applicable here.
Conclusion validity is concerned about whether or not the right conclusions are drawn based
on the data collected. In experiments and qualitative analysis, conclusion validity deals with
the statistical significance of the relationship between treatment and outcome. The qualitative
data that we have collected have been used to explore and describe a phenomenon rather than
to test causal relationships. Therefore, statistical conclusion validity is not relevant in our
case of study.
82

7 Conclusion
In conclusion we would like to say that based on the empirical data that we have gathered it is
worth considering the idea that SE collaboration towards SDA development can bring a
positive influence to both art and the SE discipline. Especially in SE education, where it is
often hard to get real industrial projects and real customers for students to work with, artwork
can be an alternative project where the students can get the experience of working with real
life projects and real customers. On the other hand, artists who work with software often
create the software or the artwork in a way which software engineers consider as
craftsmanship. As long as the software or the artwork is small and is not upgraded or evolved
with time, it can work perfectly and there is no problem with the craftsmanship nature of its
development. But when the artwork is large or complex and is upgraded and changed over
time, then its development matters and following SE guidance removes many problems that
may occur during the lifetime of the artwork system.
From the state of the art we have seen that SE has changed over the years. During the 1960s
when code and fix was popular and many small scale software applications were built, the
result was often spaghetti code that was hard to maintain and modify. This scenario can be
compared to today’s situation in SDA projects. With increased interest from artist
communities to use software in their artwork many SDAs are being developed. Some of these
applications and artworks are small scale and the need of maintenance and upgrading might
not be very visible in many cases. But with time when these artworks strive to survive and
evolve, the lack of proper SE knowledge and practices during the development of these
artworks can lead to the spaghetti style hard to manage code that happened during the 60s in
mainstream SE. Our work in this interdisciplinary domain was to raise these issues and reveal
the need and importance of SE in SDA projects. Through literature review, a case study, and
knowledge gained from participating and collaborating with artists in different art projects,
we have identified scopes of extending collaboration between SE and art that yields mutual
benefits to both disciplines.
7.1 Contributions
We have presented four contributions in this thesis. As a new interdisciplinary research area,
it is important for a researcher to get a good understanding of the research area and locate
his/her research in respect to the state of the art. Since our research is about collaboration and
intersection, it was important to find out the entities involved in the collaboration and the
intersection. Our first contribution is in identifying the research issues at the intersection of
software and art and the second contribution, the conceptual framework finds out the entities
involved at the intersection. Thus the first and the second contribution together give us a
basic body of knowledge from where we can continue research in this area. The identified
issues and associated literature would help researchers design research projects at the
intersection of SE and art. Moreover, they should help artists to increase awareness about SE
methods and tools when conceiving and implementing their software based artworks.
In the third contribution, we have identified the issues and challenges in a real life art and
software collaboration project. Lessons learned from this case study would be beneficial for
future collaborators, i.e. software engineers and artists, as well as researchers in this
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Chapter 7. Conclusion
interdisciplinary domain. The final contribution, where we persuasively propose some
suggestions how we can extend the collaboration, are hints for interested researchers and
collaborators to involve themselves in the collaboration.
In another way, to put together our findings in a more specific manner in tuned with our
agenda of extending software engineering collaboration towards the intersection of software
and art, we can list the following findings:
• Artists need SE help and support for SDA projects.
• For non trivial SDA projects, projects that are large, SE expertise needs to be included
in the development process.
Inclusion of software engineers in the development process requires that successful
collaboration is an important factor for the success of the project. In our goal to investigate
the characteristics of a successful artist and software developers’ collaboration we have
identified several important factors that influence the success or failure of the project.
• Common understanding or shared language is a desirable factor for smooth
collaboration
• Frequent communication between the artist and software developers, demonstration of
intermediate prototypes, and regular reporting are positive factors for success of an
SDA project.
• SDA projects require iterations during the development. Artists prefer to see
intermediate stages of the artwork and change and modify the final features and
specifications of the artwork based on the intermediate results/prototypes. Thus agile
software development method is suitable for SDA projects.
• When the developers are represented by students it implicates some specific risks and
concerns related to student projects such as need of good supervision and experienced
resources, lack of time, unequal commitment of group members and risk of failure etc.
• Collaboration between artists and software developers need to follow an agreement
from the beginning so that there arise no unclear responsibilities later in the project.
• Partnership model of collaboration is better than assistant model because it allows
software developers to contribute in concept development phase of the artwork along
with the artist. Thus it gives sort of ownership feelings to software developers.
Finally, our experience with SDA projects brings into light that,
• Software engineering research agenda can extend its scope by considering SDA as a
special domain that has specific requirements.
• SDA project is more than just a mere art project. It can be used as a project in software
engineering education. It can be also used as a research project where the objective is to
spread computing among general people and involve them with fun and entertainment.
The stakeholders who can use the result of the thesis are several people with different roles.
On the one side, it is the artists who recognise the need for software engineers not only for
developing their artworks, but also to develop their works with proper SE processes and
guidelines so that the artworks work smoothly and can evolve and survive easily with later
changes and upgrades and reflect user needs. Another stakeholder group are software
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Chapter 7. Conclusion
engineers and developers who need to learn about artists, art projects and the process of
working in an art project in order to implement the project successfully. They need to adjust
to accommodate the artistic process with their development process so that the project runs
smoothly without hampering the creativity and the artistic process in the collaboration. The
sponsor of a SDA is another important stakeholder who needs to be informed about the
differences of software and technology dependent artwork from traditional artwork.
Academics in SE and the computing discipline who want to conduct art and technology
collaborations in educational institutes can get important guidelines and knowledge about
collaboration from this research. Finally, other researchers and art critics can become
stakeholders of this research by criticising and/or evaluating our contribution.
We also believe that collaboration not only increases the scope for mutual development but
also helps in removing gaps between two cultures by developing shared meaning and
reducing misunderstanding. While working with experts from the art domain we discovered
how we have been using aesthetics with a meaning that is different compared to the meaning
applied in the arts. Some of the fields inside computing can benefit from collaborating with
artists and art domain experts, for example human computer interaction, game design, virtual
reality and so on. Both from our experiences of conducting SDA projects and also from the
literature it has been observed that collaboration can play an important role in SE education.
If we look at recent years, it is easy to see how fast information technology is changing and
bringing new tools, devices and gadgets to the market. Creativity and innovation is a major
force behind the momentum in such a fast growing and rapidly changing area. Thus
extending collaboration towards the art domain can positively affect the innovation and
creativity in the field of SE and computing in general.
7.2 Limitations and Future Work
In this section we briefly discuss the limitations of our work and then draw some outlines of
how future work can be carried out from this research.
The conceptual framework at the intersection of software and art is drawn from the literature
review where the articles were selected by using a process that allowed only scientific and
published articles. Many articles and notes that were not published by any scientific
publishers were discarded. In this way we could not take into account many anecdotal type
writings and experience-based writings by many artists, or writings on web sites, blogs or
artists’ personal websites, or project or festival websites. Nevertheless these articles represent
artists’ recent trends and experiences. On the other hand, to stick to the trustworthiness of the
review we had to discard publications not published through reliable scientific publishers.
Due to of the vastness of the review and the limited persons involved in it, some of the
articles at the later phase were annotated and read by a single person. We still discussed the
article in meetings and thus the inclusion/exclusion was done by agreement of all three or at
least two people. Besides, in the later phases of the review process each of the investigators
matured and the selection criteria of the article became much clearer. So this slight deviation
at the end did not make a big change on the selected articles and the result of the review. In
addition we wanted to carry out some statistical analysis from the collected data. This was
also not done at the end due to limitations of time and resources.
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Chapter 7. Conclusion
The conceptual framework was published as a book chapter. Later we have applied the
concepts from this framework to some real life projects and reflected on the applicability of
the framework. In order to bring the framework to a wider audience, especially to the artists,
we could have presented it at art festivals or art conferences in the form of a short article or
poster. The same could be done at some relevant information systems conferences. In this
way the framework could get some feedback from the real entities at the intersection of art
and SE, which would reveal the validity of the framework and its acceptance in the
community. It is noticeable that of our eight articles, only one was published in a pure SE
conference. This was done unintentionally due to the interdisciplinary nature of the research
that led us to believing that conferences focussing on interdisciplinary research were a better
match regarding the scope and audience of the conference.
The identified features that make collaboration successful were derived from a single case
study. This was done because of the lack of time and availability of similar projects. The case
study could be replicated to multiple cases and thus increase the validity of the findings. Also
one of the weak points to mention in this regard is that all the SDA projects that we have
participated in and the data that are collected regarding artist and software engineer
collaboration is from Norway. Data from more than one country could yield better
generalisation. In the future, similar case studies can be conducted on similar projects in the
context of other countries or with professional software engineers in place of students. We
have identified agile development methods as a good choice for artist and software engineers’
collaboration in a SDA project. Future work can include studies to prove through experiments
or case studies where one or more project/s following agile development methods will be
compared with one/more project/s following non-agile or heavyweight methods.
In the case study we have interviewed many stakeholders involved in the process, such as
artists, developers and the sponsor. After the interview the report was then shown to the
stakeholders to get their feedback on the points that we have identified. In the original plan of
the research we also planned to conduct interviews or survey the users of the artwork, namely
the students at the school. However, because of some technical problems the artwork was out
of order for a period of time and thus did not allow the students to utilise it. For these reasons
the survey was postponed. Changes and modifications to the artwork based on the feedback
of the students were also planned which could lead us to some action research. But since we
could not collect the feedback from the students, in the end it was cancelled. A user survey is
now being conducted by a masters student as part of the student’s thesis work. Results from
the survey can be used for future research where the users’ feedback can be used to modify
and upgrade the artwork to reflect users’ needs and ambitions.
7.3 Concluding Remarks
Finally we would like to say that the contributions from this research add up to the
knowledge base of an interdisciplinary research. Future researchers can get a good overview
of this area of research from our investigation and get directions of research from the
identified research issues. As Oates (2006a) looked at computer art as an information system
and proposed to extend the information systems’ research agenda to include computer art, we
believe our contribution will interest SE researchers to extend their research agenda to
include SDAs and software developed in the context of art.
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References

9 Appendix A: Selected Papers
In this appendix we have included the eight papers that have contributed the most towards the
work presented in this thesis. The papers are included in chronological order.
Paper 1: SArt: Towards Innovation at the Intersection of Software Engineering and Art
Paper 2: Software Engineering Processes under the Influence of Aesthetics and Art
Projects
Paper 3: Achieving Pervasive Awareness through Artwork
Paper 4: Conceptual Framework for the Intersection of Software and Art
Paper 5: Information Technology and Art: Concepts and State of the Practice
Paper 6: Aesthetics in Human-Computer Interaction: Views and Reviews
Paper 7: Sonic Onyx: Case Study of an Interactive Artwork
Paper 8: Developing Software Dependent Artwork in Collaboration with Students
95

96
Appendix A

Paper 1
Anna Trifonova, Salah U. Ahmed, and Letizia Jaccheri. "SArt: Towards Innovation at
the Intersection of Software Engineering and Art", In Chris Barry, Michael Lang, W.
Wojtkowski, G. Wojtkowski, S. Wrycza, and J. Zupancic (Eds.): "The Inter-Networked
World: ISD Theory, Practice, and Education - Post-Proc. 16th International Conference
on Information Systems Development (ISD'07)", August 29-31, 2007, Galway, Ireland.
Springer Science and Business Media, ISBN 978-0-3873-0403-8, Oct. 2008, 18 pp.

SArt: Towards Innovation at the Intersection
of Software Engineering and Art
Anna Trifonova, Salah U. Ahmed and Letizia Jaccheri
Department of Computer Science, Norwegian University of Science and Technology
(NTNU), {trifonova, salah, letizia}@ idi.ntnu.no
Abstract Computer science and art have been in contact since the 1960s. Our
hypothesis is that software engineering can benefit from multidisciplinary research
at the intersection with art for the purpose of increasing innovation and creativity.
To do so, we have designed and planned a literature review in order to identify the
existing knowledge base in this interdisciplinary field. A preliminary analysis of
both results of our review and observations of software development projects with
artist participation, reveals four main issues. These are software development
issues, which include requirement management, tools, development and business
models; educational issues, with focus on multidisciplinary education; aesthetics
of both code and user interface, and social and cultural implications of software
and art. The identified issues and associated literature should help researchers design
research projects at the intersection of software engineering and art. Moreover,
they should help artists to increase awareness about software engineering
methods and tools when conceiving and implementing their software-based artworks.
1 Introduction
Art finds expression in numerous products in society, where the development of
products is complex, competitive, global and intercultural in scope. Art and computer
science are in contact from the 1960s (Sedelow 1970). The advent of multimedia
technology has changed art production processes and the way both music,
video, and figurative is fruited by consumers. Our assumption is that the interaction
between software technology and art is also beneficial for the software technologists.
In this context at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU)
we have initiated the SArt project that will explore the intersection between software
engineering (SE) and art. Our first task is to answer the following questions:
How do software engineering and art intersect? How do software engineering and
C. Barry et al. (eds.), Information Systems Development: Challenges in Practice, Theory,
and Education, Vol.2, doi: 10.1007/978-0-387-78578-3_17,
© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2009
809

810 Anna Trifonova, Salah U. Ahmed and Letizia Jaccheri
art influence and can involve each other? What has been done until now in this
area by other researchers in computer science?
According to our knowledge, this is the first attempt to answer these questions,
although there has been a proposal to extend the Information Systems (IS) research
onto the art domain (Oates 2006a). There is no established knowledge base
in this interdisciplinary field and finding what research has been done previously
appears not to be a trivial task. We have initiated a literature review, the preliminary
outcomes of which had confirmed that both software engineers and artists
might profit by further research in this interdisciplinary field.
This chapter has three main goals. Firstly, we aim at promoting interest and
discussion in the interdisciplinary field between art and software engineering.
Secondly, we present our understanding of how the two areas influence on each
other and stress on the potential benefits for software engineering – innovation and
creativity (Glass and DeMarco 2006). Last but not least, we discuss the process of
making a survey of the state-of-the-art, aiming at completeness of the literature
review. We show the preliminary outcomes of it which might be a starting point
for other researchers and practitioners in the area.
Section 2 gives some more details on our project – SArt – with its objectives
and current involvements. In Section 3 we discuss research methodology issues. A
subsection is dedicated to the procedure of making the literature review in a systematic
way. Section 4 shows the preliminary results of it. Section 5 is dedicated
to a discussion and Section 6 – conclusions – is followed by references.
2 The SArt Project: Goals, Background, and Motivation
2.1 About the Project
The SArt project (http://prosjekt.idi.ntnu.no/sart/) is conducted inside the Software
Engineering group at the Department of Computer Science at the NTNU. The focus
of the project is the exploration of research issues in the intersection between
software engineering and art. Our final objective is to propose, assess, and improve
methods, models, and tools for innovation and creativity in software development.
Our activities are mainly oriented at academic research. However, we
also take part in different artistic projects.
This project confronts the interdisciplinary problem of integrating software designs
originating from different academic genre into better products for society.
The research methods will be based on empirical software engineering (Kitchenham
2004; Hevner et al. 2004; Wohlin et al. 2000) and will benefit from the interaction
with experts from different disciplines, e.g., artists.

SArt: Towards Innovation at the Intersection of Software Engineering and Art 811
2.2 Objectives
The principal objective of the SArt project is to propose, and assess, and improve
methods, models, and tools for innovation and creativity in software development.
Particular attention will be paid to art influenced software development. Subgoals
are:
G1. Develop knowledge on the interdisciplinary nature of software production
in which the software engineering process interacts with the artistic process.
G2. Develop empirically based theories, models, and tools to support creativity
and innovation in software technology development.
G3. Educate competent practitioners and researchers in the interdisciplinary
field of software innovation and transfer of knowledge to the software industry
and artist communities.
2.3 Projects
As part of SArt we are involved in three projects including both artists and software
developers. Here we give a short description of those projects, showing the
problems and the challenges the participants have encountered.
Flyndre (www.flyndresang.no) is a sculpture located in Inderøy, Norway. It
has an interactive sound system that reflects the nature around the sculpture and
changes depending on parameters like the local time, light level, temperature, water
level, etc. The first version of the software was written by the sound composer
and was a single CSound (http://csounds.com/) script file that was hard to modify,
maintain and upgrade. However, the author discovered that it created a lot of interest
among other composers and music technology enthusiasts. In order to improve
the architecture of the software and publish it as open source software
(OSS) with appropriate licenses, a multidisciplinary team, including software developers
and NTNU students (as part of the “Experts in Team” course, see Jaccheri
and Sindre 2007), was necessary. In this way (as OSS) the software attracts more
developers and composers to utilize it and further improve and/or upgrade it.
Sonic Onyx (http://prosjekt.idi.ntnu.no/sart/school.php) is an installation project
initiated by the Trondheim municipality in 2007. The goal is to decorate a junior
high school with an interactive sculpture with which the people will be able to
interact. The users will be allowed to send messages, images, or sound files from
mobile phones, laptops, and hand-held devices through Bluetooth technology. The
received files will be converted into sound and played by the sculpture. For the
development of the hardware and the software sound subsystems a team of students
from Hist (www.hist.no) is created and is working in collaboration with the
artist (i.e. the sculpture designer). The members of the project use open source
technology, like PureData (http://puredata.org/), Apache (http://www.apache.org/),
Python (http://www.python.org/), due to availability of free software that allows

812 Anna Trifonova, Salah U. Ahmed and Letizia Jaccheri
development of low-cost software and community support for maintenance and
upgrade.
Open Digital Canvas (http://veggidi.opentheweb.org/) is a project which aims
to embellish a white wall at NTNU with a number of main boards with LEDs on
them, creating a big matrix of light pixels. We wish to push the concept of openness
a step further by keeping the hardware, software, and behavior as open as possible.
In the project the artist, the student, and members of the computer science department
work together to create a platform that will allow freedom of artistic expression
and be a source of inspiration and reflection around interdisciplinary education
and research.
Our experience in the described projects shows that software engineering theories
and tools can play an important role for the improvement of the development
process and the design of the software architecture. We have observed functional
requirements, software usage, development trends, and challenges that are common
or very similar for these projects. For example, the artists want to use some
of the latest technologies in their artworks (e.g., different sensors in Flyndre or
Bluetooth file interchange in Sonic Onyx sculpture), thus software developers are
often not experienced and have to learn on the fly. The developing time and
budget are limited. This might lead to neglecting the design of the software or the
planning of the development process and might have many negative consequences
(e.g., the software is created without proper architecture, thus it is difficult for
modification and upgrade; the documentation is poor or missing, thus reuse is
hard). Software evaluation, testing, and maintenance might also be problematic, as
the funding is generally limited to the artwork creation. The software engineering
perspective helps increasing the awareness in these issues. The artists seek for a
cheap way to create their artwork and the software development is performed by
students that are even less experienced. The software requirements are often not
well defined and might change frequently. The artists would like to have a Web
site in addition to the main software that will present details about the artwork itself
and provide a user-friendly interface to observe and/or control the system.
Common interest of using Open Source software is also visible from all three projects.
Interestingly, there is also a desire to provide the created software as an open
source. However, we observe difficulties in the choice of proper OSS licenses.
3 Methodological Issues
The following section explains our research approach. We use the Information
System Research framework developed by Hevner et al. (2004) to reflect about
the SArt research framework (Fig. 1).
• Knowledge base: There is an established knowledge base of foundations and
methodologies in software engineering (e.g., SWEBOK; Bourque and Dupuis
2004). For the field of software engineering and art there is no established

SArt: Towards Innovation at the Intersection of Software Engineering and Art 813
knowledge base. The first step to establish such knowledge base is to perform a
literature review (Oates 2006b).
• Environment: Our experience in collaborating with local artists, observing artistic
projects available on the Web, participation to art festivals, tell us that artistic
projects that involve both software engineers and artist exist and pose
needs to our research. Moreover, we observe that the game industry (e.g., funcom.com
in Norway) employs artists as part of their developing teams.
• Research: Our task as researchers in this multidisciplinary field is that of contributing
to establishing the knowledge base at the intersection of art and software
engineering. In this phase of our research process we focus on literature
review and projects observation. The next step will be that of developing new
theories and artifacts that we will evaluate by means of empirical studies,
having in mind our goals as introduced in Section 2.
Fig. 1. Information Systems Research Framework (Hevner et al. 2004)
3.1 Literature Review
A review of the available literature at the intersection between software engineering
and art is necessary to answer the question posed above: What has been done
until now in this area by other researchers in computer science? The goal of the
review is to establish our knowledge base, as discussed above. It will, hopefully,
reveal research gaps and open questions in the field.

814 Anna Trifonova, Salah U. Ahmed and Letizia Jaccheri
Performing an interdisciplinary review poses a set of challenges. One of them
is to find the proper keywords to search for relevant articles. The keyword “art” is
problematic to use as part of a search in the computer science world as the combination
“state of the art” is used in almost all papers. This made the keyword search
difficult. Another challenge is to define the criteria according to which to treat the
article as relevant or irrelevant.
We have defined a process (Fig. 2) according to which to perform this literature
review in a systematic way, following the advices, guidelines, and suggestions
of Hart (1998) and Kitchenham (2004). The procedure includes a three steps
process: (1) planning the review; (2) conducting the review; and (3) reporting the
review. We have adopted this procedure in the following way.
Fig. 2. SArt process of conducting the literature review
3.2 Planning the Review
During the planning phase we have set in advance and agreed on common relevance
criteria for inclusion/exclusion of articles in the literature review. We have
also identified the search strategies, including a list of searchable electronic databases
of scientific publications and a starting list of keywords.

SArt: Towards Innovation at the Intersection of Software Engineering and Art 815
The selection criteria based on which to consider an article relevant or not
were cleared and polished in several iterations at the beginning of the literature review.
Relevant articles are those that address one or more of the following issues:
• Artists’ requirements for software and/or habits in utilizing it.
• Software development processes and/or methodologies used for the software
developed with artist’s participation. This might include software created for
artistic purposes (e.g., digital art, art installations, etc.), artists programming/producing
software (e.g., software art), or participation in the development
of software by other means.
• Collaboration between artists and software developers or computer scientists
• Research questions at the intersection between art and software (pose and/or
answer).
• The influence of software and digital culture on art and/or the influence of art
on software development.
During the planning phase we have identified the following search strategies
for finding relevant articles, to aim at completeness of our literature review:
• Keyword search in electronic databases: We have identified a starting list of
searchable electronic databases (e.g., IEEE Xplorer, ACM Digital Library,
Google Scholar) and an initial list of keywords (see Table 1). Searches with
each keyword (from the art-related terms) and combination of keywords should
be performed in each of the electronic databases. In most of the cases no limitation
on the published year was applied. In those cases when the search resulted
to over 100 entries the search was limited to the last 10 years of publication.
Both initial lists (i.e., the search engines used and the keywords) are being continuously
extended with new entries that appeared relevant during the literature
review.
Table 1. Initial list of keywords
Software Engineering-related terms
Software engineering; software development;
requirements; collaboration
Art-related terms
Art; software art; media art; digital art; blog
art; net art; generative art; art installation;
artist; artwork; aesthetics; creativity
• Thoroughly search the papers published in selected relevant journals and conferences:
We have identified a list of relevant journals and conferences (see
Table 2) that, according to our previous experience or to their Web site description
have a high probability of containing a large number of relevant articles.
These journals and conferences are mainly focused to interdisciplinary research
in software and art. We have planned to thoroughly examine/read the titles and
abstracts of the papers from each of these journals and conferences for the past
10 years. New entries are continuously being appended to this list during the
review process.

816 Anna Trifonova, Salah U. Ahmed and Letizia Jaccheri
Table 2. Initial list of journals and conferences
Journal/Conference
MIT Press Leonardo – Online Journal on Art, Science and Technology, 40 years of publications
(http://www.leonardo.info/)
IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications – A journal on theory and practice of computer
graphics (www.computer.org/cga)
Read_Me conference – The proceedings from years 2002-2004 are published in “READ_ME:
Software Art & Cultures”, by Olga Goriunova and Alexei Shulgin (eds.), Aarhus University
Press (December 2004)
Convergence - The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, since
1995 (http://convergence.beds.ac.uk/)
ACM Siggraph - publications in Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques
(http://www.siggraph.org/publications)
Proceeding books of ARS Electronica – festival for art, technology and society
(http://www.aec.at/en/global/publications.asp)
• Finding articles from the references of papers that are reviewed: On the initial
step this list of papers from reference is empty and is filled on a later stage of
the process. It is when we are reviewing, i.e., reading fully the relevant articles
selected from search strategies described above, that we can find some referenced
papers that appeared to be relevant (from the citation and title). In this
case we include them directly into the list of related papers to be reviewed/read
in full, in order to gain deeper understanding of the field.
• Other resources: We have included in the review process the possibility of getting
relevant articles from other sources. Some papers might be referred to us
by colleagues and friends. Other articles we might find by looking at the publication
lists of well-known researchers in the field and/or from institutions
working in this area. The list of these papers is being continuously updated.
Here we also include the articles and books that we knew from before and that
have motivated our work, like Glass (1995), Greene (2004), Harris (1999) and
Sedelow (1970).
3.3 Conducting the Review
Articles Selection: The inclusion/exclusion of the articles is made in two steps. Initially,
the selection criteria (i.e., the first list given above) are interpreted liberally,
so that unless the articles identified by the electronic and manual searches could
be clearly excluded based on titles and abstracts, full copies were obtained. The
selected articles were independently reviewed (i.e., read fully) by two or more of
the authors of this paper.
Data extraction: When fully reading the articles the authors analyze its content
and summarize it in a table. The inclusion/exclusion in the review was discussed

SArt: Towards Innovation at the Intersection of Software Engineering and Art 817
until agreement is reached. The authors also produced annotations about the
content.
Statistics generation and synthesis: The produced table with articles’ annotations
and summaries allows easy generation of certain statistical data (years of
publication; conferences in which relevant articles occur more regularly; authors
actively working in the area, etc.).
The conducting of the review is an iterative process in which the initial lists of
keywords, relevant journals, and books is being updated with new entries found in
other/previous articles.
3.4 Reporting the Review
We have conducted the first phase of the review. We have performed trial
searches with most of the initial keywords defined and selected a number of papers
(maximum ten from each search). In total about 50 articles have been reviewed
so far. In this first iteration we have clarified the process steps and our
relevance criteria which will allow us to decide the focus of our further study. In
this chapter we discuss the preliminary outcomes of the review. Additionally,
relevant books and the observation of a number of Web sites have contributed to
our understanding of the field.
4 Research Issues Found in the Literature
In this section we present some of the research work/papers we have reviewed in
our first phase of literature review and found relevant according to the selection
criteria described in Section 3. The issues presented here are neither complete nor
exhaustive; rather it is aimed to make a further contribution to the review result by
grouping the articles according to the issues that have been discussed (Oates
2006b). As certain papers discuss more than one of the issues they are referenced
more than once. This is a preliminary trial to create some classification/taxonomy
of the research in the field. We also shortly propose hints for further software engineering
research in each category.
4.1 Software Development Issues
- Requirements/needs for software and software functionality within the artist
community. Artist Jen Grey (2002) discusses her experimentation with an alternative
input mode (3D) – Surface Drawing© by Steven Schkolne – that she
evaluates as very good for producing her artworks. The author has used the

818 Anna Trifonova, Salah U. Ahmed and Letizia Jaccheri
software in “a unique way to draw live models, a purpose for which it was not
intended”. Though it is not discussed by the author, this article points us the
need for further research on the artists needs for software functionality of
the general-purpose software. Such research might include studies on how the
commercial and OSS available software match the artists needs. Meanwhile, a
separate study might be needed on how to best discover the software requirements
in projects that involve software development for art systems, like art
installations reported by Marchese (2006) and the projects we described in
Section 2.
- Evaluation in art projects. Marchese (2006) describes the software developer’s
perspective on the creation of an interactive art installation. The author reports
that the understanding of the system requirements is “the most important part
of the process”. This is consistent with the software engineering body of
knowledge. Software systems are developed according to customer requirements
(in art as in other fields). The customer (the artist in this domain) will
differ from the user of the product. The artist might want certain interactions to
be triggered when a spectator approaches the artwork. For creating the software
in the proper way, however, it is needed to understand how the artwork
as a whole will be perceived by the spectator and a special attention should be
paid on the fact that user’s evaluation or acceptance testing might appear only
after the product is released (i.e., the artwork is in the museum and the exhibition
is opened).
- Software tools. Edmonds et al. (2004) have presented their approach to building
interactive systems. Based on the collaborative work between artists and
computer scientists (the authors themselves) report that there is a need (for the
artists) for “a bridge between the use of an environment that requires programming
knowledge and the ‘closed’ application, which does not provide sufficient
flexibility”. They suggest that further research is needed in this direction.
An example of bridging such a gap is shown by Machin (2002) where a simulator
and an application specific language has been developed for the artist’s
experimentation in the creation of an art installation. Machin reports that the
offered solution was accepted very well by the artist and is a viable approach
for augmenting the artists’ freedom. Similarly, Biswas et al. (2006) also point
out the need of an intermediate tool to support the designers (i.e., artists) when,
together with software developers, are creating mobile context-aware applications.
Such tool might also facilitate collaboration in multidisciplinary projects
by minimizing the “semantic gap between the designer/artist’s content design
artifacts and technologist’s system implementation” (Biswas et al. 2006). Many
artists discuss their desire for more control over the software creation and
experimentation (require to put their hands on the code), as currently available
software and tools limit their creativity. However, they are not always very
experienced in software development and programming. An additional software
level between the artists and the low-level software development might be the way
to solve the problem. Shoniregun et al. (2004) discuss issues like watermarking,
streaming, encryption, and conditional access for protecting the artworks. The

SArt: Towards Innovation at the Intersection of Software Engineering and Art 819
authors propose a smaller granularity technique as appropriate to deal with this
problem. A software engineering study on different possibilities, provision of
guidelines, and if necessary, development of proper tools will be beneficial for
the artists.
- Software development methods. A case study discussed by Marchese (2006)
shows that agile methods of software development, and more specifically the
Adaptive Software Development, was suitable for the specific needs of a prowhen
multimedia is used, including digital art and in museums to augment ex-
ject in which a multimedia art installation was created. Meanwhile, Jaimes et al.
(2006) suggest that human-centered computing is appropriate in many cases
hibitions. A further study is needed in order to understand and provide guidelines
on what software development methods are appropriate when developing
software within art and in what particular cases (e.g., one method might be appropriate
for art installations, another for generative music; different methods
might be appropriate according to the artists programming experience or programmers’
specific knowledge).
- Collaboration issues. Biswas et al. (2006),as mentioned above, point out that
the tool they have provided (Mobile Experience Engine) is expected to also facilitate
the design transfer from artists to technologies that use it. A necessity
to understand the collaboration between artists and software developers in pro-
jects of common interest is also discussed in Harris (1999). For example, Harris
mentions that some artists might be accustomed in working in studios instead
of offices as the software developers. Different expression habits might
be foreseen (e.g., artists sketching storyboards, while developers drawing
software architectures); establishment of common language and understanding
might be problematic. In the panel discussion of ACM Symposium on User Interface
Software and Technology ’98, panelists from both art and science
background discussed the pitfalls, and issues of collaboration (Meyer and
Glassner 1998). They pointed out that miscommunications occur frequently
and due to the varying culture, collaboration is not always smooth. The strengthening
of the collaboration between these two communities is also an aim in
more recent events (e.g. ACM SIGCHI Conference 2006). The organizers
mention (Jennings et al. 2006) that one of the gaps between the HCI community
and media artists is that the first one (HCI) is a formalized discipline,
while artists prefer research-in-practice (experimentalism). Marchese (2006),
also mentioned earlier, claims that the Adaptive Software Development method
is useful in artist–scientist collaboration as it minimizes the management infrastructure
and focuses on communication to foster collaborative problem solving.
Candy and Edmonds (2002) have identified a number of factors underlying
successful collaborations. These factors were evaluated against seven collaboration
case studies which were conducted by the COSTART project (www.
creativityandcognition.com/costart). They have also derived three models of
cocreativity in the collaboration. A possible outcome of software engineering
study over collaboration issues is to provide guidelines on how to ensure successful
collaboration. Further outcome might include even the design of tools
for fostering it.

820 Anna Trifonova, Salah U. Ahmed and Letizia Jaccheri
- Business model. In the recent years more artists are exploring the Internet as a
medium to reach their audience/spectators. Nalder (2003) mentions that with
the Internet as a way to transmit art the focus falls on the individual spectator,
rather then museum type of art presentation. The OSS tools, developed in cooperative
spirit and distributed via the Internet, enable artists to experiment and
create low-cost artworks. However, not all artworks are supposed to be free of
charge – there are entities, like software{ART}space (www.softwareartspace.com)
that are providing commercially digital artworks. The proposed by Shoniregun
et al. (2004) small granularity technique for artwork protection is an example
to deal with this problem. Other approaches might be proposed by the software
engineering field to face this new business model of the digital/software art.
4.2 Educational Issues
- Artists’ mastery of computer skills. The need of interaction between artists and
technology/technologists is discussed often in educational context. Garvey
(1997) discusses the importance of the inclusion of computer graphics courses
in the fine arts syllabus. However, keeping the balance between the traditional
file arts skills (e.g., drawing, painting, sculpture) and digital skill mastery is of
a great importance. According to the author, most of the largest companies in
computer animation, film, and game industry have growing requirement for
personnel skilled in computer 2D and 3D modeling and animation, but give
preference on strong traditional art education, stating that it is easier to teach
an artist to use a computer, than a programmer to create art.
- Multidisciplinary collaboration between art and computer science students.
Multidisciplinary courses and common projects between art and science students
are gaining importance. In fact, an essential part of the publications in
between art and science report experiences of such initiatives. Ebert and Bailey
(2000) discuss a 3D animation course with clear and well-defined educational
goals of such course. The authors also report very positive outcomes: both
types of students (artists and informatics) have interacted and produced not
only interesting and nice looking animations and characters, but in some cases
plug-ins for one of the commercial products for 3D animation (i.e., Maya).
Morlan and Nerheim-Wolfe (1993) also discuss the educational goals of a
course including collaboration between art and science students. These differ
slightly for the two groups and apart from mastering certain skills in their own
domain the course had to foster “the strengthening of interpersonal communication
skills and the development of project management abilities in both art
and computer science students”. Parberry et al. (2006) describe their mainly
positive experiences from a course and projects in game programming also offered
to the two groups of students. The authors mention, however, that “there
is a significant barrier to communication between the artists and the programmers”.
They also discuss practical issues that were found problematic, like the

SArt: Towards Innovation at the Intersection of Software Engineering and Art 821
choice of game engine and incompatible file format (commercial vs. free
tools). Different approaches are taken by the educators in different courses –
combining lectures with hands-on work (Ebert and Bailey 2000), allowing the
students to choose their project colleagues (Morlan and Nerheim-Wolfe 1993)
or not. A further study might provide guidelines for optimizing the process of
art and technology students working together in courses or educational projects.
- Art in computer science curricula. Zimmerman and Eber (2001) describe a
course on Virtual Reality and its “implications for computer science education”.
The authors state that “for the majority of the computer science students,
the whole concept of artistic expression was not something they dealt with on a
regular basis; simply raising their awareness and increasing their tolerance of
this very different area was considered a successful outcome”. Fishwick, however,
shows bigger expectations about the influence of art on computer science.
In his paper (Fishwick 2003) he describes the Digital Art and Science
(DAS) curricula provided at the University of Florida. The author discusses the
importance of combining computer science and art in the educational phase
and the positive experiences obtained. The author suggests that such practices
will stimulate creativity in computer science students – “A human-centered focus
on experience, presence, interaction, and representation forms the core of
the arts. Perhaps, then, the arts can lead computer science in new directions”.
The author discusses the need of interaction between art and science not only
at College, but also in Master and PhD educational levels. Fishwick (2007)
suggests that experiments and experience of the students in the aesthetic computing
(see below) will “encourage students to design entirely new humancomputer
interfaces for formal structures”.
4.3 Aesthetics Issues
- Aesthetic of the code. Bond (2005) discusses several different aspects of the
beauty of the software and the software as art. Firstly, he talks about Knuth’s
perfectionist’s view of code and programming practices (Knuth 2001). With
time it sometimes evolves into programs that do not have any utility value, like
the one-line programs, but are still showing the mastery of programming. Artists,
however, take a different direction (the example given is a poem written in Perl) –
the programming language is used to create a syntactically correct program to
convey human sentiments to humans. More recently, the programs themselves are
appreciated as artworks (at Transmediale - www.transmediale.de, Read_Me -
http://readme.runme.org/ and other art festivals). Cramer and Gabriel (2001)
state that the software “is inevitably at work in all art that is digitally produced
and reproduced” and discuss its part in the aesthetics of the whole artwork.
This need has led to the formation of the “software art” movement in the artistic
community.

822 Anna Trifonova, Salah U. Ahmed and Letizia Jaccheri
- Aesthetic in software art. Although in Software Art the software is considered
artwork, it is not always about the beauty of the code, as in the previous section.
Cramer (2002) writes “As a contemporary art, the aesthetics of software
art includes ugliness and monstrosity just as much as beauty, not to mention
plain dysfunctionality, pretension and political incorrectness”. Manovich (2002),
on the other hand, discusses the new aesthetics in the artworks created by
software artists using Flash (see http://www.macromedia.com/software/flash/
about/) and similar programs – “Flash generation invites us to undergo a visual
cleansing”. Such new aesthetics influences on the whole production of digital
artifacts for the Internet.
- Aesthetics in user interfaces. Aesthetic is addressed in the area of human–
computer interaction considering interface design. Bertelsen and Pold (2004)
propose aesthetics interface criticism as an alternative to the traditional assessment
methods within human–computer interaction. The authors state that
the interface criticism is to be done by someone with “at least some basic
knowledge in aesthetics, and ideally some experience with art and literary
criticism”, and that the average systems engineer would not be able to perform
the needed task without prior training. This shows the importance of incorporating
art community in the user interface design, which is expected to lead to
production of better interfaces to the developed software, but also to an expansion
of the body of knowledge in user interface design.
4.4 Social and Cultural Implications of Software/Technology
on Art
- Software art, mentioned above, is concerned also with the cultural and social
implications of the technology, and software as part of it, on the society and
art. For example, Broegger (2003) discusses that one of the implications of the
use of commercial software when creating an artwork is the de facto coauthorship
with the software developers (he exemplifies Macromedia). Manovich
(2002) states that “Programming liberates art from being secondary to commercial
media”. Nalder (2003) provides a reflection on the way technology
changes the society and how this affects on art. For example, with the wide use
of Internet people have become afraid for their privacy and artists explore such
implications and show them in their artworks. According to the author, NetArt
treats the new information and communications technologies and systems “not
merely as the tool of communication, but as the subject of their art”.

SArt: Towards Innovation at the Intersection of Software Engineering and Art 823
5 Discussion
In this section we will try to summarize what we have learnt from the first iteration
of the literature review in its early stage. As we have mentioned in the beginning
we are looking at the intersection between art and software engineering and
based on the above discussed articles we answer the following question:
How do software engineering and art intersect, i.e. how do software engineering
and art influence and can involve each other?
The model we depict in Fig. 3 stems from our prior understanding of the field
of software engineering and art, the knowledge that had motivated us and pushed
us into this field. It has been refined by the knowledge we have developed during
our literature review. In addition, it has been supported by our observations on artistic
projects and web sites and participation in conferences and festivals.
Fig. 3. Relations between the fields of software engineering and art
The field between software engineering and art is interesting for theorists and
practitioners from both areas. The review shows that both computer science researchers
and contemporary artists discuss issues, experiences, and problems encountered
in this interdisciplinary field. The relationship is bidirectional, but the
points of interest might differ according to from whose perspective we look at it.
On Fig. 3 the influences of software engineering on art is shown with the arrow
(1). Contemporary artists often use digital technology in their artwork in a
wide range of ways. Computer graphics, music, and animation were already popular
in 1980s (see PRIXARS - http://prixars.aec.at/). Artists follow closely the
changes and upgrades of the technology, moving from simple digital image creation
to the production of interactive installations. With the expansion of the Internet
artists start to explore also the WWW technologies. There is a continuously
growing need for them to be familiar with the computer tools provided by software
engineers and developers to produce their artworks. This need is being incorporated
in the art education (see “Educational issues” in Section 4), providing
more and more courses for mastering skills in production of digital art (e.g., 2D
and 3D modeling, computer animation, etc.). More recently interdisciplinary
courses and projects are also offered, thus often putting informatics students and
art students to work side-by-side. The depth in which the artists submerge into

824 Anna Trifonova, Salah U. Ahmed and Letizia Jaccheri
technology depends on the required functionality for the production of the artwork
and on the availability of tools that would satisfy artists’ needs. In some cases
when such tools do not exist or impose undesired limitations, the artists learn even
to program and write their own programs (e.g., some cases in “software art”). In
other cases they turn to computer professionals for development of the specific
hardware and/or software (most of the papers described in “software development
issues” section above). This points to the need of particular attention of software
engineering research towards the specific needs of artists.
Looking from the perspective of software engineer, artists might be seen as
customers that need especially designed software. In order to support and satisfy
their requirements theories, methods and tools from software engineering might be
used.
Interestingly, there is a trend in artistic community of returning to the roots of
software, i.e., a return to programming. The “software art” movement incorporates
the idea that the artist digs into the software code for producing the artwork. Artist
community acknowledges the importance of software in art and in the community
in general. In fact, in 1999 one of the biggest Festivals on Digital Arts – Ars Electronica
(www.aec.at) gave one of its prizes to Linux. The returning of artists to
programming, however, is not always due to appreciation of the software and with
the goal to raise it as an artwork. It is sometimes due to the limitations it poses on
artwork creation, as discussed in Section 4.4. This gives us an indication that there
is a serious gap in the software support of the art production. There is a need of research
in order to understand the artists’ needs and provide them the appropriate
tools for the artwork creation, without limiting their creative processes (see “software
tools” subsection above). The research might also be directed on the processes
of software development when artists and programmers work together for
creating an artwork (like interactive installations). There is a need to understand
what the most appropriate methods are and how to foster the collaboration between
such multidisciplinary groups.
Arrow (2) on Fig. 3 shows the influences of art on software engineering. This
relation is not as obvious as (1), but from the point of view of software engineers
we are interested in it. The question is how can/is art influence on software development
and what changes in the area of software engineering are brought by the
intersection with art? This means to find out how art, artists, the collaboration with
them and/or the study over existing artistic practices might help to enrich the theories,
models and tools in software engineering.
One such possibility is suggested by Harris (1999) and was one of the main
ideas behind the Xerox PARC Artists-in-Residence Program:
PAIR is an opening into using some of the methodologies of art in scientific research,
which is a creative activity itself and therefore is always on the lookout for
new techniques to be borrowed from other professionals.
In other words, the creativity of computer scientists or software developers
might be triggered by the close interaction with artists in such a manner that to
propose innovative solution to specific problems, build novel tools, discover new
approaches to processes, original methodologies, etc. Similar expectations might

SArt: Towards Innovation at the Intersection of Software Engineering and Art 825
be seen in some cases presented in “art in computer science curricula” above (i.e.,
Fishwick 2007).
Another possibility is suggested by Briony Oates (2006a) – to explore the artists’
understanding of visual aesthetics, developed over hundreds and thousands of
years and apply it on computer artifacts. What is meant here is that when digital
visualization is involved artists might be the best judges. They might also be the
best source of practical ideas for solving concrete visualization problems and/or
propose innovative solutions. These issues are discussed in “aesthetics in user interfaces”
subsection above. Meanwhile, there are many cases that computer scientists
do not involve artists in such situations. For example, a paper presented at
IEEE/WIC International Conference on Web Intelligence 2003 (Yazhong et al.
2003) proposes an approach for music retrieval based on mood detection, together
with an innovative 3D visualization of the music in which the user should browse
and select. The authors suggest that the visual representation of the songs should
be related to some of the parameters that identify the mood of the song (e.g., the
tempo). However, their study is not related with any study on how colors and
moods are related. An inclusion of the artists’ opinion and knowledge in such
study would probably lead to much better results than the somehow confusing
ones shown in the article.
6 Conclusions
Art and software engineering intersect in a variety of ways. However, there is no
established knowledge base for this interdisciplinary domain. This field is young
and there are not established journals like in other interdisciplinary fields (e.g.,
medical informatics). Based on our projects (shortly presented in Section 2) and
our prior knowledge in this domain we have identified the need for deeper understanding
of how software engineering and art intersect and how they influence and
can help each other. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first attempt to make
a systematic review of the state-of-the-art research in between software engineering
and art.
Here we have presented the preliminary results of the literature review, showing
in which directions research is being done. We have discussed our understanding
of the intersection between art and software engineers and stressed on the possible
benefits of such interaction for the software engineering. Creativity and innovation
might be expected, together with improvements in the aesthetics direction.
We have discussed in details the process of making a systematic review of this
interdisciplinary field. Our experience is that it is not a trivial task, but it is a necessary
starting step for establishing the knowledge base. Some of the benefits of it
are to reveal the gaps that need further research, create a collection of relevant
papers and show previous positive or negative experiences and lessons learned.
Throughout the SArt project at NTNU we aim at gaining better understanding
of how software engineering and art are connected by completing the systematic
literature review described here. In our future work we will develop empirically

826 Anna Trifonova, Salah U. Ahmed and Letizia Jaccheri
based theories, models, and tools to support creativity and innovation in software
technology development, fostered by the intersection with art.
Acknowledgments Part of this work was carried out by Anna Trifonova during
the tenure of an ERCIM “Alain Bensoussan” Fellowship Programme.
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Paper 2
Salah Uddin Ahmed and Anna Trifonova. "Software Engineering Processes Under the
Influence of Aesthetics and Art Projects", In Sandro Morasca (Ed.): Proc. 2nd Int'l
Doctoral Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering, September 19, 2007, Madrid,
Spain, 7 pp.

Software Engineering Processes under the Influence of Aesthetics and Art
Projects
Salah Uddin Ahmed and Anna Trifonova
Department of Computer and Information Science, Norwegian University of Science and
Technology
Email: salah@idi.ntnu.no, trifonova@idi.ntnu.no
Abstract
The main focus of the study is to investigate the
interdisciplinary domain of art and software
engineering for the purpose of understanding the
different issues, ideas, and concepts that are worth
investigating for software engineering discipline in
order to leverage technology to the artists as well as
enriching the discipline with the experience gathered
from art discipline. For this study, we have identified
four main research questions and designed four
empirical studies to investigate the identified
questions. In this paper we present the questions in
detail and the study design and arrangements that we
have planned to implement for investigating each of
the question.
1. Introduction
With the rapid development of technology,
software is being used in almost every sector of life.
As many other fields, art has been influenced by
Information Technology. The interconnection between
art and computer science has a long history that dates
back to the early seventies [1]. The intersection of the
two fields has interested many artists, researchers and
theorists in the recent years. The literature is rife with
examples of artists applying mathematics, technology,
and most recently, computing (i.e. artificial life,
genetic algorithms, artificial intelligence etc.) to the
creation of art [2],[3]. Research institutes (e.g. MIT
Media Lab, Creativity and Cognition studios), art
festivals like Transmediale (www.transmediale.de),
Read_Me (http://readme.runme.org), ARS Electronica
(www.aec.at), Make Art (http://makeart.goto10.org),
FILE(www.file.org.br), Trondheim MatchMaking
(http://matchmaking.teks.no) and articles appearing in
the journals on art, science and technology (e.g. MIT
press Leonardo, Convergence) or found in ACM
digital library or IEEE Xplore give us the indication of
recent interest of many researchers and theorists in the
intersection of software and art. While in the literature
the influence of technology including software and
information technology on art is clearly visible, the
opposite, i.e. the influence of art theories and artistic
practices in computing technology is not as obvious
[2]. We assume that the intersection between software
and art is beneficial to both the field of software
engineering and art. Our research is an
interdisciplinary research in this intersection of
software and art.
Though lot of interest is shown towards software
from the artists and theorists comparatively little
research effort exists from the software engineering
discipline. It is acknowledged by the research
community that the science community should be
proactive to address research involving art [4]. Even
though interdisciplinary research is increasingly used
in many other fields, yet software engineers are
remarkably reluctant to look outside of own discipline
for inspiration and answers both in terms of research
and practice [5]. Glass, Ramesh and Vessey pointed
out that only 1.9% of the Software Engineering papers
use theories and models from other discipline [6].
Computer Science papers used other disciplines in
10.77% of the cases, while Information Systems
papers used other disciplines in 67.9% of the cases.
Art and software have been in contact in the recent
years in numerous ways: such as artists participating
in multimedia software projects or in the creation of
games and software engineers participating in the
creation of interactive art installations or software
dependent art projects. With the increased use of
technology the field is growing in number, size,
aspects and context each year. Through this PhD
research we would like to investigate the intersection
of art and software engineering and contribute to the

knowledge base. The intersection is quite broad and it
involves many issues. We have identified several
questions for the research, which we assume are too
many to be completed during the PhD period. We
have found difficulties in focusing on a certain
direction at this early stage. Meanwhile it will be also
good to mention the tension between our attempt to
focus more on software engineering aspects and on the
other hand, not to overlook the art aspects. We would
like to get feedback on the research questions in terms
of suitability for an interdisciplinary research
conducted by the software engineering discipline and
the feasibility in terms of completion time and
complexity.
2. Relevant Prior Works
In his book ‘Information Arts’ Stephen Wilson has a
brief description of the intersection of art, science and
technology [3]. He has presented how and where
artists and technologists work together and how artists
are using different technologies as media of art. It is a
challenge for software engineers to bring the
technology within the reach of the artists. Colin
Machin described some of the challenges that software
engineers face in an art project [7]. He mentions for
example, the technology that serves the artwork may
be simple as any other controllers for industrial
machines, but software engineers who provide the
firmware strive to make the technology more
accessible to the artists.
The application of art theories and processes to
computing is referred as aesthetic computing. Donald
Knuth showed himself to be a strong advocate of
aesthetics in programming [8]. According to Paul
Fishwick [2], the idea of aesthetics processing was
first explored in 1974 by Frieder Nake. Later,
Gelernter has provided significant justification for
aesthetics in computing [9],[10]. The design of web
pages and operating system interfaces are some of
fields of computing that use aesthetics. Paul Fishwick
recommends that significantly greater diversity and
depth of aesthetics needs to be applied to all other
areas of computing, from notations, to formal
structures. In [2], Fishwick mentions that the National
Academy study on computing recommends
considering the effects of the arts within the
computing field. Software engineering being a major
field of computing also requires the same amount of
focus of applying aesthetics in the discipline.
Apart from software supported artworks or
projects, collaboration between artists and
technologists is also wanted in other cases, for
example, industries and research institutes want it to
nurture innovation and creativity [3],[11]. But
collaboration is not always smooth and some of the
challenges appear due to the fact that the two cultures
are very different [4] . Researchers from both
software and art domain have worked to smoothen this
collaboration. Earlier research in this arena includes
case studies of practice based collaborative art
research [12], a “reflective approach” towards practice
based research by Legget [13], collaboration viewed
from the educational perspective through
interdisciplinary courses such as animation, virtual
reality [14] and many more. In [12], authors have
identified issues essential to collaborative practices
such as shared language, construction of boundary
objects, and accommodation of differing epistemic
cultures. Robert Glass mentions how creativity can be
incorporated in the software development process
[15]. Artist in residency has also been implemented by
many other industries and institutes [3], but it should
be noted that these kinds of programs need a special
industrial/research setting that is not always possible.
We have not found many research works so far that
address this artist-scientist collaboration from the view
point of project management and software
methodologies. Linda Candy describes some features
of the collaboration and investigates how co-creativity
takes place in [16]. Machin presents two models of
collaboration in [7] . The only paper that we have
found about software process so far is [17], where
Marchese has shown how agile process was used
successfully in the multimedia art installation project
Trigger. Adaptive software Development (ASD) was
used in that project. It is interesting for software
engineering community to find out how this
collaboration can be improved and adapted with the
software engineering processes without hampering the
artistic processes [7].
As part of this interdisciplinary research, we
collaborate with Trondheim Academy of Fine Arts,
Midgaard Media Lab (http://www.ntnu.no/midgard/),
and Trondheim Electronic Arts Centre (TEKS) and
have participated in different art festivals such as
Trondheim MatchMaking ’06 (an annual festival for
electronic arts and new technology) and Transmediale
’07. The main objective is to keep us updated about
the latest works and build a network with other
researchers and artists. Through this network, we will
look for relevant projects that we want to select for
conducting case study in our research. It should be
mentioned that getting an art project that match all the
criteria to be chosen for a case study is not easy as
finding an industrial project, as art projects

implementation are less in number and they have
limitations in terms of software development issues.
Following is a short description of the three projects
that we have observed as a pre-study in order to gain
better understanding for conducting a case study and
the future research.
1. Flyndre: is a sculpture with an interactive sound
system that plays music generated by a software and
changes the music dynamically based on parameters
(such as water level, temperature, time, etc.) received
from environment through some sensors. The sound
generating software was written by the sound
composer. It was a single script file, and the composer
having no software engineering knowledge later
struggled to upgrade and modify the code. Later on
Software Engineering students working in the project
helped to improve the architecture of the software and
made it available as open source for the artist so that
he can ensure utilization and improvement of the
software by the interested community of developers
and users.
2. Sculpture with Interactive 3D sound: is an
installation project that aims to decorate a junior high
school with an interactive sculpture where people can
be able to interact with the sculpture by sending
messages, images or sound files from mobile phones,
laptops and hand held devices through Bluetooth
technology. The received files will be converted into
sound and played by the sculpture. For the
development of the hardware and the software sound
sub-systems a team of students from a College
(Trondheim and Sor Trondelag University College) is
created and is working in collaboration with the artist
(i.e. the sculpture designer). The members of the
project use open source technology (e.g. PureData,
Apache, Python) due to availability of free software
that allows development of low cost software,
community support for maintenance and upgrade. The
developed software will be made accessible as open
source through the project web site at the end of the
project.
3. Open Digital Canvas: is a project which aims to
embellish a white wall at NTNU with a number of
main boards with LEDs on them, creating a big matrix
of light pixels.
Observation of the projects has provided us some
important issues; we discovered some similarities in
the projects’ requirements, development methods, etc.
such as flexible requirements, low budget, afterward
maintenance and upgrading problems. Artists’ desire
to use latest technologies, trend to use open source
technologies, attempts to attract interested users and
developers to contribute afterwards are also visible
from the projects.
3. Research Objectives and Questions
As mentioned earlier the objective of this research is
to contribute by establishing a knowledge base at the
intersection art and software engineering. This
knowledge base will later help us develop empirically
based theories, models, and tools to support creativity
and innovation in software technology development.
Given the problem description and objective of the
study, we would like to look into the following
underlying questions in detail.
1. How do software engineering and art intersect,
i.e., how do software engineering and art can
influence and involve each other?
This question can be broken down into the
following sub questions:
a) What are the areas where software engineers
and artists involve each other? When, how
and where they work together?
b) What tools and technologies are used in this
intersection of two domains?
c) What are the artists’ needs, usage for
software?
d) How the collaboration between artists and
software engineers takes place? What are the
features and characteristics that make it
successful?
As seen from the questions above, in this part, we
will cover many issues that we have found in the state
of the art (i.e. collaboration, methodologies, different
art forms etc.) and rather be focused on a broad
concept of relationship between software and art to
discover as much information as possible in order to
create the knowledge base.
2. How we can characterize the development
process for software supported artworks and
projects?
This question can be broken down into smaller,
more specific questions like:
a) How the software supported art projects
differ from other projects? What are
characteristics and features that make this
difference?
b) What are the issues and the challenges that
software developers have to tackle to
implement that kind of projects?
c) What are the features and the criteria that
make the collaboration between software
engineers and artists in an interdisciplinary
project successful in a particular context?

d) Which tool, methodology is more suitable
than the others and how and in what context
they perform better than the others in
addressing the art projects?
In our ongoing literature survey [18], we have
observed that art projects differ from other industrial
projects. The most significant differences that we have
observed are the flexibility of requirements and artists’
need for intermediate tools and artists’ nature of
pushing technologists beyond the boundary.
When the art projects differ from ordinary
industrial projects, it is assumable that the issues and
challenges that software engineers face in art projects
might differ as well. One challenge that software
engineers face is to make the software more accessible
to the artists. Machin posed some questions and future
work such as how we can seek ways out to enable
artist’s ideas without inhibiting the artistic process [7].
From our observation on the projects (i.e. sculpture
with 3D interactive sound and Flyndre), we see that
maintenance and upgrade of software is often a big
challenge in the art projects. We want to review
literature to find out what other challenges exist there.
We would also investigate this question while we
conduct case study of interdisciplinary projects in the
future.
We have found some models of collaboration in the
literature. There are also a number of researches that
focus on the different features of collaboration. What
we want to do here is to collect the different features
and characteristics of collaboration and study the
examples of some completed projects. We would like
to see from the study what features of collaboration
made a particular case successful. In other words,
what distinguishes the successful collaborations from
the less successful ones? Which model of
collaboration works better in which context?
In the fourth question we want to study what tools,
techniques and processes of software engineering are
suitable for a particular art project in a particular
context. By tools we mean tools used for the software
development, such as software requirements tools,
software engineering management tool etc. Methods
can be like Heuristic methods, formal methods, or
prototyping methods. We would like to investigate
which of them are more suitable for art projects.
3. How the software engineering discipline can
benefit from utilising experience, theories, or
concepts from the art domain?
To answer this question we need to get
understanding of art theories, concepts and processes.
Thus here we will use the knowledge gained from
results of question 1 where we explore the intersection
of art and software from both software engineering
and artists’ point of view. This question can be further
broken into following smaller questions:
a) What are the areas, tools, artefacts,
methodologies in software engineering where
aesthetics can be applied?
b) What are the art theories and or concepts that
can be applied to software engineering?
c) What are the expected results of the
application of aesthetics into software
engineering? Is it better artefacts? Theories?
With better representation and interaction or
better processes of developing software?
d) Can we use theories and experiences from art
to nurture creativity and innovation in
software engineering?
Question (3b) is about finding out the concepts of
arts and art theories. Many researchers working in the
interdisciplinary domain have tried to figure out the
art theories that can be applied in science [2]. Our
objective will be to find out the theories and concepts
from the literature and analyze their applicability to
different fields of software engineering.
We also want to investigate what outcome we
might get by applying the art theories. We would like
to look into the other fields of computing where they
have already applied aesthetics, art theories, and what
results they have achieved. Is it possible that we can
get the same results in software engineering too?
Planned study to answer this question is based on
qualitative analysis of literature. A complementary
survey to support our hypothesis, (for example,
applying aesthetics would result in better
representation of the artefacts) can be conducted in
order to justify the relevance of our hypotheses with
the opinions of the practitioners and experts. For
example, we can conduct survey and interview
software engineers.
The fourth sub-question (3d.) fruits from the results
of the earlier questions. There is evidence that
creativity and innovation can be nurtured through
flexibility of process. Many researchers think that
software development is much similar to an artwork. If
such, what theories of art can be tied with creativity in
software?
4. How can we proffer technology to the artists
through software engineering i.e., providing better
tools, processes and roles?
The question can be broken down into following
questions:
a) What are the artists’ needs, usages, and
requirements for software?

) What kind of intermediate tools the artists
need?
c) Why do artists move towards open source
software? Or what are the issues and features
of Open Source Software (OSS) which makes
it more desirable for artists?
d) What is the role of open source in art?
The third sub-question is derived from our
observation that artists are very interested in open
source software. Our attempt will be to address artists’
attitudes and needs towards software through which
we can understand how software and technology can
be made more accessible to the artists.
It will be good to define at this point what we mean
by artists as there are people who can be both a
programmer and an artist at the same time. Even
though some artists might have significant knowledge
about technology, but for our research and in general,
for large art works like interactive artworks,
sculptures, installation arts, when we say artists we do
not expect them to have sound knowledge of
technology. This is the scenario that is common in
most cases and also this is where the role of software
engineers are more pronounced.
4. Empirical Study Design and
Arrangements
For the method of our research, we use the
Information system research framework developed by
Hevner [19]. We will mainly follow literature review
and case study strategies for this research. The data
collection methods will be based on interviews,
observation, questionnaires and documents [20]. The
research in the PhD work will be based on four types
of studies.
4.1. Literature study
Goal: To understand the theories and concepts of
art and how computing fields have used aesthetics.
Result: one or more journal article (essay type) to
publish the findings from the literature on how
software engineering can be applied through the
catalysis of aesthetics.
The study will cover all the questions that come
under the research question 3.
4.2. Systematic review
Goal: To understand the intersection of software
engineering and art. More specifically to gain an
overview of the current shape of collaboration
between software engineering and art: when do they
involve each other?
Result: A journal article publishing the systematic
review. A conference paper will be also published
describing the survey strategy.
For the systematic review we have been searching
the following electronic databases: IEEE Xplore,
ACM Digital Library, Google Scholar, ScienceDirect
– Elsevier, Springer, and Convergence. The
systematic review is ongoing and the list of database is
being continuously updated. Systematic review is
being done according to the principles defined by
Kitchenham in [21].
4.3. Observation
Goal: To understand the different issues related to
art projects and the nature of collaboration.
Result: One or more article to conferences.
Our observation focus on collecting data on the
following issues:
- Artists’ and software developers’ understanding of
each other and their domains
- Common language, mode of communication and
interaction
- Issues related to art projects such as aesthetics,
budget, maintenance, upgrade, etc.
We have already started observing one art
installation project in Trondheim, Norway. We will
observe one or more projects in the future.
4.4. Case-studies
Goal: To collect and analyze data from art projects
to better understand the model of collaboration
between artists and software developers and study the
software development process to analyze how
successful it is in terms of addressing different issues
of the project and compared to other processes in
some other case studies. .
Result: Two or more conference article, one article
describing the collaboration and lessons learned from
it, the second one about the software process followed
in the project.
Context: the case for the study, which has not been
selected yet, will be chosen based on the following
context:
Size: medium to big art installation/multimedia
installation project. It will have minimum one or two
artists with six to ten software developers.
Duration: the project will be at minimum a six
months long project.

Software: the art work will be interactive and
heavily dependent on software for its functionalities
and aesthetics.
It should be noted that there is no big distinction
between in study C and D from the design point of
view. We mentioned it separately just to state that C is
a pre study and is ongoing right now whereas D will
be more detailed and focused. It should be mentioned
again that study D depends on finding a suitable
project defined in the context above. In the following
section, we describe how the research questions
mentioned in section 4 will be tackled regarding the
studies presented above.
RQ1. We will mainly use literature study and
systematic review (4.1. and 4.2.) for this part. RQ2.
Question 2 will be investigated by systematic review,
observation and case study, i.e., study B, C, and D.
Some case study examples of art projects from the
literature will be reviewed. Questions 2c will be
mainly based on reviewing literature on collaboration
in software art projects. Interviewing software
engineers, artists and observing projects are also
applicable to collect the features and criteria of
collaboration. It should be noted that to get a right
project to run case study will present different
challenges than in industrial projects. RQ3. Question 3
(a, b, c and d) will be investigated mainly through
literature study. RQ4. Question 4 will be mainly
investigated through literature study and systematic
review.
Our literature review will finish at the end of
October 2007. By that time, we plan to be able to
choose one or at most two of our main research
questions. The main investigation will start at the
beginning of 2008. By that time we will have selected
one or more concrete projects to study and one
specific research method (qualitative in depth or
quantitative in breadth) that suits the project.
Depending on the nature of the projects, the number of
developers, the nature of the code developed and the
research method chosen, we will be able to design
data collection and data analysis.
5. Conclusion
The planned research will contribute to the
knowledge base of interdisciplinary research between
the fields of software engineering and art. One of the
main goals of this research is to create the knowledge
base which does not exist at the moment. The study
has been planned mostly based on literature study and
systematic reviews. At the end of the research we
expect to have some frameworks or conceptualized
view of different issues and themes at the intersection
of software and art. As the interdisciplinary domain of
software engineering and art is relatively new and
there is no established knowledge base, it is
understandable that controlled study to validate
certain claim or theory is not planned in our research.
Rather at the early stage of research we planned to
collect important and relevant data by systematic
review and case study observation which will later
form the basement for theories and axioms. One
important threat can be biasness to certain focus while
observing projects and literature study. As in the case
of case study, we do not have much control to see the
effects of confounding factors, and due to the nature
of case study it is hard to generalize the result of the
study. Qualitative analysis therefore is preferred to
analyze the data collected from the studies and careful
design and implementation of case study is considered
to be followed in every steps.
6. References
[1] S. Y. Sedelow, "The Computer in the Humanities and
Fine Arts," ACM Comput. Surv., vol. 2, pp. 89-110, 1970.
[2] P. Fishwick, Aesthetic Computing. Cambridge: MIT
Press, 2006.
[3] S. Wilson, Information Arts: Intersections of Art,
Science, and Technology MIT Press, 2003.
[4] J. Meyer, L. Staples, S. Minneman, M. Naimark, and A.
Glassner, "Artists and technologists working together
(panel)," in Proceedings of the 11th annual ACM
symposium on User interface software and technology San
Francisco, California, United States: ACM Press, 1998.
[5] N. Mehandjiev, P. Brereton, and J. Hosking, "Second
international workshop on interdisciplinary software
engineering research (WISER)," in Proceeding of the 28th
international conference on Software engineering, ICSE06,
2006.
[6] R. L. Glass, V. Ramesh, and I. Vessey, "An analysis of
research in computing disciplines," Commun. ACM, vol. 47,
pp. 89-94, 2004.
[7] C. H. C. Machin, "Digital artworks: bridging the
technology gap," in Eurographics UK Conference, 2002.
Proceedings. The 20th, 2002, pp. 16-23.
[8] D. E. Knuth, Things a Computer Scientist Rarely Talks
About: CSLI Publications, 2001.
[9] D. Gelernter, Machine Beauty: Elegance and the Heart
of Technology. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1998.

[10] D. Gelernter, The Aesthetics of Computing. Detroit:
Phoenix Press, 1998.
[11] C. Harris, "Art and innovation: the Xerox PARC
Artist-in-Residence program," C. Harris, Ed.: MIT Press,
1999, p. 293.
[12] C. L. Salter and X. Wei, "A case study in practice
based collaborative Art Research," in ACM conference on
Creativity and cognition, 2005.
[13] M. Leggett, "Interdisciplinary collaboration and
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art and technology," in Proceedings of the 4th conference

Paper 3
Salah Uddin Ahmed. “Achieving pervasive awareness through artwork”. In 3rd ACM
International Conference on Digital Interactive Media in Entertainment and Arts DIMEA
2008. ACM Press 2008. ISBN 978-1-60558-248-1.

488 DIMEA 2008
Achieving pervasive awareness through artwork
Salah Uddin Ahmed
Department of Computer and Information Science
Norwegian University of Science and Technology
Sem Sælands vei 7-9
7491 Trondheim, Norway
salah@idi.ntnu.no
ABSTRACT
Aesthetics and ludic aspects of pervasive awareness applications
make the awareness system more attractive and aesthetically
pleasing to its users. The same objective can be achieved by
adding pervasive awareness features to an aesthetic object such as
an artwork. In this article we describe how an artwork can be
transformed to an pervasive awareness application by adding
awareness features into the artwork.
Categories and Subject Descriptors
J.5 [Computer Applications]: Arts and Humanities: Fine arts.
General Terms
Performance, Design, Human Factors.
Keywords
Pervasive Awareness, informative artwork, installation, aesthetics
1. INTRODUCTION
Art in public space such as installation arts have a good
opportunity to convey messages to its spectators apart from
providing aesthetically pleasant experience to the users. The
concept of pervasive computing promotes the idea of integrating
computing in everyday objects and activities. In this way it makes
scope for providing pervasive awareness in a certain context to its
users. New media art especially artworks using computing
technology placed in a public place can be a media to support
pervasive awareness. In this paper we would like to present Open
Digital Canvas, an artwork, placed in a working space and discuss
the possibilities to make the artwork informative for its spectators
by incorporating pervasive awareness features in it.
2. RESEARCH CONTEX
Open Digital Canvas is an art project which is part of the SArt
project conducted inside the Software Engineering group at the
Department of Computer Science in the Norwegian University of
Science and Technology. The main objective of SArt group is to
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explore research issues in the intersection between software
engineering and art. Oates looks at computer art as an information
system and proposes to extend IS research agenda to include
computer art [1].Similarly we regard the software developed in
the context of art as to be considered for software engineering
research and thus extend the scope of software engineering
research to include research issues found in the intersection of
software and art.
Since 2006, members of SArt have taken part in three
interdisciplinary projects involving both artists and software
engineers: Flyndre (http://www.flyndresang.no), Sonic Onyx
(http://www.soniconyx.org) and Open Digital Canvas
(http://mediawiki.idi.ntnu.no/wiki/sart/index.php/Main_Page). In
the first two projects the artworks are sculptures with interactive
sound systems. Flyndre takes as input parameters from the
environment such as the local time, light level, temperature, water
level and depending on these parameters creates music by
exploiting algorithmic composition techniques. Sonic Onyx takes
as input audio files and text files which are sent by users from
their handheld devices such as mobiles or PDAs through
Bluetooth technology. It converts those files into sound files
which are later played by the sculpture. The third project, Open
Digital Canvas, aims to embellish a white wall with a number of
main boards with LEDs (Light Emitting Diodes) on them,
creating a big matrix of light pixels. The project creates a
platform that allows freedom of artistic expression and holds the
concept of openness by keeping the hardware, software and
behavior as open as possible.
We have observed that the evaluation of these kinds of artworks
do not solely depend on the aesthetic evaluation or the aesthetic
experience gained by the users. Rather the evaluation is a
complex equation here which includes the social and
psychological effect of the interactive work on its users. This is an
interactive experience that involves its users/spectators with
actions and following reactions which can be integrated with
issues like social, educational, learning, awareness and personal
preferences etc. In this article we would like to present how an
artwork which was built with the intention of presenting
aesthetics by means of technology can be extended with added
layers of features to convert it into a pervasive awareness system
while maintaining the original idea of aesthetics undisturbed.
3. OPEN DIGITAL CANVAS
The history of the project starts in 2005, when an architect
student, Åsmund Gamlesæter wanted to build a LED facade for a
house. A sister LED wall was built as a result of the same project
at Samfundet, student social activities building of NTNU. Later a
first prototype at the department of computer and information was
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Pervasive Awareness applications: addressing their Aesthetic and Ludic aspects 489
built in 2007 by Nicolas Mendoza, a master’s student in this
department [2]. In 2008, students from the course expert in team
mounted the cards in a room in the IT building which is now
called as open digital canvas. The room is used for meetings,
seminars and as a lunch room in general.
The main artistic idea behind the wall is to make it an accessible
display screen for all who wish to participate. Three groups each
with six members from the course TBA4850 – Experts in Team
worked on setting up the canvas and tried some artistic
expressions to be portrayed by the canvas. The canvas itself is
media or tool for artistic expression. The idea was to keep it open
for artistic expression and keep the system open for users. Users
can access the canvas from internet and use the canvas to display
whatever they want.
The groups of students have utilized several artistic expressions,
for example one group called as group yellow, proposed peaceful,
organic imagery considering the room as a functioning space [3].
Such images were that of waves, a slowly burning fire or birds
flying around. These ideas were directed towards a sort of interior
decoration of the room, designing an integration of the display
with the room. Although this group had a lot of interesting ideas
about what to display on the canvas, due to the lack time they
could not decide what was possible or presentable on this wall.
Finally, they ended up with written words which they regarded as
one of the most powerful and lasting methods of conveying a
message. These symbols i.e., texts, create messages that can
express pretty much anything, from the tedious to that of an
intellectual spark, evoking emotions ranging from love to hate
and burning passion.
The second group, group orange, had several artistic ideas at the
beginning, but finally they created a little bunny which will
change its mood corresponding to the sound level in the room [4].
Little bunny animation can have several states such as sleeping,
wake up, jumping, stretching, flapping ears and spinning
depending on the sound level in the room. The more the sound
level in the room, the more active the bunny will be.
Figure 1. The Animation of Bunny.
The third group had an idea to create some form of interaction
between the screen and the people using the room [5]. The final
idea that they settled for was to display an ECG wave propagating
along the screen on the wall in the same manner as one would see
it on an ECG monitor.
Figure 2. The complete ECG wave after having traveled from
left to right on the screen
If the system could monitor the sound level in the room, this level
could be visualized by varying the distance between each ECG
wave. The canvas is placed in a meeting/lunch room where most
of the people attending the room are employees. The group
consists of mainly grown up people who are working most of the
time sitting in their desks and looking at the computer screen and
presumably doing less physical exercises. The group had the
concept that by watching the heart and art, with the ECG wave,
maybe some people start to think of their own heart as a concrete
thing which needs nursing and training and hopefully start to do
something to keep it healthy as long as possible
4. TOWARDS PERVASIVE AWARENESS
4.1 Different Kinds of Awareness
The concept of ‘awareness’ has come to play a central role in
Computer Supported Collaborative Work (CSCW), and from the
very beginning CSCW researchers have been exploring how
computer-based technologies might facilitate some kind of
‘awareness’ among and between cooperating actors.
CSCW researchers use the term awareness in combination with
different adjectives to mean specifically the type of awareness,
e.g., ‘general awareness’ ‘collaboration awareness’, ‘peripheral
awareness’ background awareness’ ‘passive awareness’
‘reciprocal awareness’ ‘mutual awareness’ etc [6]. In a Pervasive
awareness system the awareness information is generated from
ubiquitous devices located in a particular environment. In the
following section we describe how we can add general awareness
and perspective awareness features in the described artwork.
4.2 Adding Informative features to an
artwork
The concept of adding features to an ordinary artwork is not a
new idea. Interactive institute in Gothenburg, Sweden used the
idea of adding layers of information on artworks to make the
artwork as information displays. Redstrom et. el describe how
other kinds of information can be mapped onto the design surface
as well, making pieces of art more explicitly reflect aspects of its
environment [7]. They call this kind of art “Informative art”.
We argue that the information when carefully collected, organized
and displayed can turn an ordinary artwork to an informative art.
3rd International Conference on Digital Interactive Media in Entertainment and Arts

490 DIMEA 2008
For example, in the artwork described here, the first group
presents texts on the display that provokes some ideas in its
viewers. These texts can provide general awareness. In order to
make this artwork to convey awareness about the workplace, the
environment and the people where the artwork is located, we can
choose information relevant to the workplace.
The department has five floors and eleven research groups. The
physical divide by the floor and the activity divide by the groups
make the intercommunication between the groups hard and
limited. But the meeting and lunch room which is shared by all
employees can convey information about one group to the others.
Even though the department’s website has a page dedicated for
news and events but that needs a person’s direct attention. Besides
some information are not published there for example, group
specific or out of the department or out dated news.
Here we represent some scenarios which can convert this artwork
into an informative art and work as workspace awareness system:
1. Two more Chinese PhD students are joining in the software
engineering group in the project of Alf Inge from August 2008.
The department has many foreign students. It might happen due
to the grouping divide in the workplace a Chinese student at the
artificial intelligence group does not know the news at all until the
new students arrive here. Besides, this is a kind of information
which is not published in the department news as well.
2. Guest lecturer from Brazil will give a presentation on his
research institute in the next software engineering group meeting
dated 29 th june 2008.
This is an internal group meeting and even though the
presentation may not be relevant for many others, but some
people from other group might be interested to learn about
research institute in Brazil.
4.3 Adding Pervasive awareness features to
an artwork
The purpose of pervasive awareness is to help connected
individuals or groups to maintain a peripheral awareness of the
activities and the situation of each other, e.g., their well-being,
their availability for interactions, or an overview of their
activities. To achieve pervasive awareness we need to add data
collected from peoples current activities. The second and the third
group have used the idea to collect sound data through sensors.
With little modification second and third group’s idea can be used
to collect peripheral awareness data. For example, instead of
placing the sensor in the same room, it can be placed in another
room and then the change of bunny’s mood will reflect the level
of activity in other room. When placed in the same room it
provides redundant data as the people in the room can see the
number of people and increase of sound level and activities
directly. Apart from the room where the canvas is placed, there
are two other lunch rooms in other floors. So it might be
interesting to see what is going on those rooms. Alternatively, six
sensors can be placed in six floors and the canvas can have six
animations of bunny corresponding to each floor. In this way the
canvas can show the level of activity and people’s movement in
each floor. A webcam can capture the image of the canvas which
can be live streamed on a website. Thus all the employees can see
the status of people’s movements in different floors sitting in front
of their desks.
Each LED in the canvas can be individually programmed and
accessed from internet, so it can be used to represent an individual
employee by a LED. Thus number of LED lit can represent how
many people are present there in each floor. This gives the viewer
a feeling of connectedness or improves visibility to see each
others co-existence when they are hidden by the walls and floors
placed in between them. While part of the screen can be used for
this, the other part can be used for posting text messages. Text
message like “A and B will have a small coffee break at
lunchroom 054 at 14:00.” This message not only informs other
colleagues about the status/activities of A and B, but also is a sort
of invitation for others who want to join them for a coffee and
chat. In this way the canvas can play the role of a pervasive
awareness system in the department.
5. CONCLUSION
Art Installations has a special advantage of supporting ubiquitous
computing along with provision of aesthetics and pleasant
experience for its users. In this article we have shown how an
artwork can be configured and upgraded to support pervasive
awareness in a workplace setting. Feeling connectedness is an
important issue; the increasing popularity of social networking
applications like myspace, facebook, wayn and so on reveals
peoples need towards feeling connectedness. We believe that
implementing different prototypes of pervasive awareness
applications in workplace will reveal the importance of feeling
connectedness among the employees.
6. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks to Espen Gangvik, the artist of the project for helping the
students with the aesthetics part. Thanks to technical people at the
department of computer and Information science for helping in
the process of mounting the canvas on the Wall. Finally thanks to
all the students who have worked for the project. Thanks to
Letizia Jaccheri for supervising the projects, motivating and
supporting the students to handle the intensive load in the short
duration of the projects.
7. REFERENCES
[1] Oates, B.J., New frontiers for information systems research:
computer art as an information system. European Journal of
Information Systems, 2006. 15(6): p. 617-626
[2] Mendoza, N., Open Digital Canvas, in Department of
Computer and Information Science, Faculty of Information
Technology, Mathematics and Electrical Engineering. 2007,
Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU):
Trondheim, Norway. p. 123.
[3] Pål Grana, B.R., Lars Skjelbreia, Magnus Nordahl, Stefan
Pedersen, Christian Carlson The IDI-wall Project in
TBA4850 – Experts in Team. 2008, Norwegian University of
Science and Technology: Trondheim, Norway.
[4] Anders Frostad Pedersen, A.J.R., Finn Kristian, Jacob Berent
Knyvi, Marianne Haug Omdahl, Phoung Dan D. Tran Lux
Vitae in TBA4850 – Experts in Team. 2008, Norwegian
University of Science and Technology: Trondheim, Norway..
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Pervasive Awareness applications: addressing their Aesthetic and Ludic aspects 491
[5] Elisabeth Abrahamsen, E.T.B., Kjell Høyland, Vegard Moe
Iversen, Christina Reenberg Jensen, Chung-Eun Kim, Heart
and Software, in TBA4850 – Experts in Team. 2008,
Norwegian University of Science and Technology:
Trondheim, Norway.
[6] Schmidt, K., The Problem with `Awareness': Introductory
Remarks on `Awareness in CSCW' Computer Supported
Cooperative Work (CSCW), 2002. 11(3-4): p. 285-298.
[7] Redström, J., Skog, T., and Hallnäs, L. . Informative art:
using amplified artworks as information displays. in
Informative art: using amplified artworks as information
displays. 2000. Elsinore, Denmark: ACM, New York, NY,
103-114.
3rd International Conference on Digital Interactive Media in Entertainment and Arts

Paper 4
Salah U. Ahmed, Letizia Jaccheri, Guttorm Sindre, and Anna Trifonova. "Conceptual
framework for the intersection of software and art". In James Braman, Giovanni Vincenti,
and Göran Trajkovski (Eds.): Handbook of Research on Computational Arts and Creative
Informatics, IGI Global Publishing, May 2009, ISBN 978-1-60566-352-4, 500 pages,
chapter 2, pp. 26-44.

Intersection of Software and Art 1
Conceptual framework for the intersection of software and art
Salah Uddin Ahmed, Letizia Jaccheri, Guttorm Sindre, Anna Trifonova
Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Trondheim, Norway
{salah, letizia, guttors, trifonova @idi.ntnu.no}

Intersection of Software and Art 2
Abstract
The interaction between art and technology, especially computing technology, is an increasing trend
in the recent days. The context of this intersection is growing in numbers, size and aspects each year.
The number of artists participating in multimedia software or games development projects is
continuously increasing and so is the number of software engineers participating in art projects like
interactive art installations. As this intersection of art and technology grows, it involves people from
different disciplines with varying interests creating a milieu of interdisciplinary collaborations. In this
context at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, we explore the intersection of
software and art to understand different entities that are involved in the intersection. This is done by
literature review and inspired by our previous experiences from participation in art projects. The
objective is to conceptualize the framework of the intersection between software and art and develop a
knowledge base at this interdisciplinary domain.

Intersection of Software and Art 3
1 Introduction
Art finds expression in numerous products in society, where the development of products is complex,
competitive, global and intercultural in scope. The literature is full with examples of artists applying
mathematics, technology, and computing e.g. genetic art, algorithmic art, artificial intelligence to the
creation of art. With the rapid development of technology, software is being used in almost every
sector of life. The interconnection between art and computer science has a long history that dates back
to the early sixties (1970) and it has interested many artists, researchers, art critics and theorists in the
recent years. As the intersection is drawing attention of people from a diverse background and
growing in size and scope, it is beneficiary for people interested in software and art to know each
other’s background and interests well. In a multidisciplinary collaboration, the success depends on
how well the different actors in the project collaborate and understand each other. Both researchers
and artists report problems regarding collaboration in multidisciplinary projects involving
technologists and artists (Meyer, Staples, Minneman, Naimark, & Glassner, 1998). Thus
understanding each other’s interests and background knowledge is important for having a smooth
collaboration and successful cooperation with all actors during an interdisciplinary project. The
objective of this chapter is to provide a basic understanding of the interdisciplinary domain of
software and art through a literature review. We describe the intersection through a conceptual
framework which is represented by the different entities that we have encountered in our literature
review as part of SArt project at the intersection of software and art. The framework is described by
several entities such as who, why, where, what which stand, respectively, short for who are the people
involved, why the people are interested to the intersection, where the intersection takes place, what
tools and software are used in this intersection of software and art.
2 Background and Research Method
2.1 Background
The SArt project is conducted inside the Software Engineering group at the Department of Computer
Science in the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. The focus of the project is the
exploration of research issues in the intersection between software engineering and art. Our final
objective is to propose, assess, and improve methods, models, and tools for software development in
art context while facilitating collaboration with artists. Oates (2006) looks at computer art as an
information system and proposes to extend Information Systems research agenda to include computer
art. Similarly we regard the software developed in the context of art as to be considered for software
engineering research and thus extend the scope of software engineering research to include research
issues found in the intersection of software and art.
Since 2006, members of SArt have taken part in three interdisciplinary projects involving both artists
and software engineers: Flyndre (http://www.flyndresang.no), Sonic Onyx
(http://www.soniconyx.org) and Open Digital Canvas
(http://mediawiki.idi.ntnu.no/wiki/sart/index.php/Main_Page). In the first two projects the artworks
are sculptures with interactive sound systems. Flyndre takes as input parameters from the environment
such as the local time, light level, temperature, water level and depending on these parameters creates
music by exploiting algorithmic composition techniques. Sonic Onyx takes as input audio files and
text files which are sent by users from their handheld devices such as mobiles or PDAs through
Bluetooth technology. It converts those files into sound files which are later played by the sculpture.
The third project, Open Digital Canvas, aims to embellish a white wall with a number of main boards
with LEDs (Light Emitting Diodes) on them, creating a big matrix of light pixels. The project creates
a platform that allows freedom of artistic expression and holds the concept of openness by keeping the
hardware, software and behavior as open as possible.

Intersection of Software and Art 4
Our experience shows that software engineering can play important role in such interdisciplinary
projects. For example, often the developing time and budget are limited in an art project which might
lead to neglecting the design of the software and lead to a quick trial and error based solution. As a
consequence, the software is often created without proper architecture, thus becomes difficult for later
modification and upgrade; the documentation is poor or missing which makes software reuse hard and
complex. We believe that software engineering perspective can help increasing awareness in these
issues. We have also observed some common interests of the artists, for example they tend to use
latest technologies in their art work. For example, Bluetooth technology is used in Sonic Onyx and a
variety of sensors are used in Flyndre. Artists also want publicity of their works, in all of the
mentioned projects, artists wanted websites to publish their artworks. Common interest of using open
source software is also noticeable from the projects.
The experience gained from the projects give us insights about some of the issues in the development
of software based artworks and provides us interesting information about the artists, their ideas and
interests. Furthermore, a preliminary literature investigation showed that art’s relationship with
software involves people from diverse background and interest, for example art critics, software
developers, educators and each has his/her own interests and attitudes. In order to get a wider picture
of the intersection and capture issues related to software engineering beyond software dependent art
projects, we extended our focus and conducted the review on the intersection of software and art. The
objective of our literature review here in the context of SArt is to answer to the questions: where and
how software and art intersect each other? Who are the important actors / entities in this intersection
and how can we conceptualize the intersection with respect to these entities?
2.2 Research Method
The conceptual framework presented in this chapter is the result of our literature review which has
been conducted following the systematic review process suggested by Kitchenham (Kitchenham,
2004). The details of the process have been published in our article (Trifonova, Ahmed, & Jaccheri,
2007). In this section we present the criteria that we have used to select the articles in order that the
readers get an overview of the scope and the focus of our literature review. We have set in advance
and agreed on common relevance criteria for inclusion/exclusion of articles in the literature review.
We have also identified the search strategies, including a list of searchable electronic databases of
scientific publications and a starting list of keywords. Criteria were cleared and polished in several
iterations at the beginning of the literature review. Relevant articles are those that address one or more
of the following:
• artists attitude towards software
• software engineers attitude towards art
• influence and usage of software in art
• the influence of arts in computing
• artists’ and software developers’ joint works such as art projects, multimedia installations,
multidisciplinary courses.
• working process related issues such as collaboration problems, communication problems
between artists and software developers.
• software development related issues such as maintenance, requirements, development process
and CASE (Computer Aided Software Engineering) tools in context of software development
projects involving artists.
• features of artistic software, their development history, usage and evolvement including both
the communities of artists and software developers.
Articles that are not published in any scientific journal or conference are excluded from the review,
for example, online articles, articles accompanying art festivals and workshops were excluded on
account of this reason. We want to mention here that the conceptual framework presented later in this
chapter includes not only reviewed articles from our literature review, but also includes relevant

Intersection of Software and Art 5
books and knowledge gained from our participation into several art festivals, art projects and
conferences.
3 The Intersection of Software and Art
The intersection between software and art includes people with varying backgrounds such as artists,
developers, critics who involve themselves into the intersection with purposes that vary for each of
them. This leads to the people at the intersection having different viewpoints on different issues in this
interdisciplinary domain. For example, a software engineer has a different purpose/interest than that
of an art critic when he/she involves him/her self in the intersection. In the following section we
describe the intersection of software and art in the view of the entities that exist in the intersection,
such as actors (who are involved?), interests/viewpoints (Why are the people interested?), places
(where this involvement takes place?), tools and technologies (what tools and technologies has bound
this relationship?).
3.1 Who (are the people involved in this domain)
The people involved in the intersection of software and art can be identified as artists, designers,
software developers, software engineers, theorists, critics and researchers. It should be mentioned here
that these categorizations are based on the roles of the individuals involved and they are not mutually
exclusive. This list is neither complete nor exhaustive; rather it covers the roles that we have found in
our literature review. One person can have many roles at the same time, for example, when the
interactive filmmaker Florian Thalhofer creates interactive documentary software Korsakov; he is
both an artist and a software developer (Blassnigg, 2005).
3.1.1 Artists
Artists here refer to those artists who are using software for realizing some part of their artwork. This
includes new media artists, photographers, filmmakers, curators, animators and all others who utilize
software to accomplish their work. Many artists use software technology not directly for their work,
but for publishing their work or communicating with others through web tools and technologies. It is
interesting to note that some of the artists coin the term ‘info-architect’ to refer to the artists working
with new media technologies (Blassnigg, 2005).
Artists, together with theorists and art critics (see below) are more involved in discussions about the
intersection of software and art compare to the software practitioners. For example, according to Bond
(2005), it is the new media artists, not the software practitioners that take part in the movement of
software art. This movement of software art refers to the viewpoints of the artists who believe that
software itself, that is, the raw code of software that works behind every software application should
be treated as a medium or material of art. Bond (2005)states, “Casting software as an artistic medium
might strike many readers as odd, or even objectionable, but there is a growing body of evidence to
show that it is perceived and utilized in just this way” (p. 118). Theorists Florian Cramer and Ulrike
Gabriel extend the view of software art by focusing on the underlying code (Cramer & Gabriel, 2001).
3.1.2 Theorists and Art Critics
Development of digital, information and communication technologies has built a complex corpus
called cyber-culture. “Media and multimedia information and communication technologies generate
new promises, problems and threats; and artists undertake efforts to examine this emerging area that
has been repeatedly considered as a post biological syndrome. In other words artists do not only use
media technologies but also scrutinize and challenge them” (Kluszczynski, 2005, p. 124). Thus, in the
intersection of software and art we find a number of theorists and art critics as well. As an example,
Erkki Huhtamo, Mathew Fuller, Florian Cramer, Jeffery Cox, Lev Manovich are a few of the names

Intersection of Software and Art 6
to list in this category. Many of the people mentioned here have several roles, varying from artist,
teacher, theorist and programmer. For example Erkki Huhatamo is a lecturer, researcher, writer and
curator all by the same time. Manovich is a lecturer and writer of many articles and books. His book,
“The Language of New Media” is considered by many reviewers to be the first rigorous and far
reaching theorization of the subject. Even though there might not be a person who can be termed as
only theorist, we mention them as a separate category here as we find a significant portion of research
articles that we have reviewed are contributed by these theorists and art critics.
3.1.3 Software Engineers
In context of the intersection between software and art, by software engineers we mean any person
who is involved in the development of what we call ‘artwork support tools’, i.e. software developed
for the artists and intended to be used for some art purposes. These software engineers or developers
might be students who follow some interdisciplinary courses and/or work together with artists in art
projects. In many cases, software developers take part in art projects and work with artists for a short
period. Sometimes artists working with digital media recruit their personal developers, for example,
Paris based artist Christophe Bruno employs his personal software developer to realize his concepts
with the help of software (http://www.christophebruno.com). However, there are new media
application developing groups or companies run by artists that recruit software developers for long
time collaboration, example of which might be the Mediamatic Lab in the Netherlands
(www.mediamatic.nl) and Soundscape Studios in Norway (www.soundscape-studios.no).
In addition, there are some software engineers who do not have direct involvement with artists, but
are involved with the debate of the role of art versus science in software engineering. The debate
focuses on the creativity and innovativeness in software engineering discipline. For example, referring
to the process of solving complex problems where there is no perfect solution achievable through
rigorous methods of science, Bollinger (1997) states “the artistic part of this process lets science move
unexpectedly into new currents and previously unmapped understanding” (p. 125). It is interesting to
see that the panel discussion of OOPSLA 2004 was titled “Software Development: Arts & Crafts or
Math & Science?” But there are also others who think different, for example, McConnell says that
this debate was appropriate at the beginning, at least 30 years back when it started, as at that time
software engineering didn’t have an established body of knowledge. But now, the author recommends
that it should be called engineering as there is significant body of knowledge (McConnell, 1998). A
viewpoint combining the both parties could be “Building software is a complex and exciting task that
is a unique confluence of engineering, mathematics and artistic insight, and it is important we resist
the tendency to view it in a single dimension”(Wei-Lung, 2002, p. 29).
There are other software engineers who refer some software as “art for art’s sake”. Knuth includes in
this categorization programs which are appreciated in light of the challenge the programmers face in
creating it, for example one line programs, programs that output themselves, etc. (Bond, 2005). Knuth
also compares the beauty of a program to the beauty in literature or music – programs whose tasks are
stated elegantly and whose parts come together symphonically are beautiful programs.
3.1.4 Researchers
Many people are involved with software and art for the purpose of research in areas such as user
interface, collaboration, creativity and innovation. These researchers may come both from art and
computing disciplines. Human Computer Interaction (HCI) community is interested in aesthetics of
user interface. Bertelsen and Pold assert that interacting with the interface is a cultural activity. They
propose an approach to interface design in which the interface should be ‘criticized’ by someone with
knowledge in aesthetics and ideally some experience with art and literature. This approach might be
used for increasing the aesthetic value in the user interface (Bertelsen & Pold, 2004).
Creativity and Cognition Studios research group is an active group interested and involved in the
intersection of software and art. Researchers like Linda Candy, Ernest Edmonds and many others
working in the Creativity and Cognition Studios have contributed in numerous collaborative research
works involving art and technology. In fact, creativity and cognition conference which was instigated

Intersection of Software and Art 7
by Ernest Edmonds and Linda Candy has turned into a regular event in Association of Computing
Machinery's SIGCHI calendar.
There are also many art researchers who have addressed significantly the collaboration between artists
and technologists. For example, UIST 98 panel discussion was about artists and technologists working
together where artists like Michael Naimark, Loretta Staples were in the panel with the technologistresearchers
Jon Meyer, Andrew Glassner and Scott Minneman (Meyer et al., 1998). Individual
researchers and researchers whose main stream research is not focused on ‘software and art’ are also
found to be interested in the intersection. An example is Briony J. Oates who proposes to extend the
scope of information systems’ research by including computer art (Oates, 2006).
3.2 Why (art and software need interaction)
Software engineers and artists work together for many reasons, varying from personal interests to the
more general interests of their respective disciplines. In this section we highlight some of the reasons
that we have found in the literature review that brings artists together with the developers.
3.2.1 Artists need tools support
One of the main reasons artists seek help from the technologists is to get support with the tools that
they need for the realizations of their artwork. “… they [artists] are often ill equipped to work with
complex technologies. It is this factor that may incline any artist wishing to work within the domain
of contemporary Art & Technology and digital art towards collaboration as a necessary means for
realising their intentions” (Jones, 2005, p. 76).
Supporting artists with necessary tools invoke many questions, such as: What kind of tools artists
want? What desired features might be included in these tools? For what purposes the available tools
are used? and so on. Many researchers have addressed issues related to the creation of tools to support
artists, designers or creative people in general. Here are some examples: (Machin, 2002) aims at
reducing the gap between developers and artists and enhancing creativity; Warr and O’Neill (2007)
focus on visualization at early stage of collaborative work, supporting individual creativity;
Mamykina et al. (2002) discuss the importance of the ability to track progress and revisit design
decision. Referring to Macromedia Director Machin (2002) states “this kind of software provides the
artists with a powerful tool which assist in visualising the piece even at a very early stage of its
design” (p.3). Biswas et al. (2006) described that a development toolkit (for new media content
design) should support separate design (by the artists) and implementation (by software developers) of
the final application. Thus, it should be able to decrease the semantic gap between artists and
technologists and assist their dialogue. Gross (2005) believes that when it comes to build software
tools for artists, pragmatics analysis (context and behaviour) is crucial because art is heavily
immersed in practice and action, and because art is valued on its ability to communicate.
3.2.2 Art projects need software engineering
Software developers who have the experience of working together with artists in artistic projects have
realized the need of software engineering knowledge in those projects. This is what we have also
realized from our participation into the art projects. Machin (2002) states “What is required now is to
carry out further work in order to establish methods that can be utilized in future requirements capture
software. By working with artists in the installation art field, we can seek out ways to enable the
capture of the artist's ideas without inhibiting the artistic process.” (p. 8). Many researchers/software
engineers are also interested in comparing the software development method and analyze which ones
suit better an art project in a certain context. Furthermore, Candy and Edmonds (2002) investigate
what are the most appropriate evaluation methods in software intensive art and if the evaluation
should be done only by the artists or should include the software engineers as well. Where the
artworks are implemented in limited time and budget and where artists leads the project, the
maintenance and upgrading issues are often overlooked. Thus the maintenance and upgrade of these

Intersection of Software and Art 8
kinds of software supported artworks becomes one of the prime sectors where art projects need
software engineering help.
3.2.3 Computing needs aesthetics
Fishwick (2005) reports the result of a survey on the usefulness of aesthetic methods on several areas
of computer science. The result shows that data structure, algorithms, digital logic, computer
architecture was chosen by the respondents as some of the fields where aesthetic computing can be
used. Information visualization and software visualization are other fields that can contribute to
bringing art/aesthetics inside of computing (P. A. Fishwick, 2007).
Adams (1995) addresses the importance of teaching aesthetics in engineering education and the role
of aesthetics in engineering. Paul Fishwick has coined a term “Aesthetic Computing” to refer to a new
area of study, which is concerned with the impact and effects of aesthetics on the field of computing.
As an example, the discrete models found in computing can be transformed into visual and interactive
models which might increase the understanding of the students. Fishwick et al. (2005) represents a
method for customizing discrete structures found in mathematics, programming and computer
simulation. Based on the method, they transform some discrete models (for example finite state
machine) to geometric models and assess students’ perception on how customized models affected
their understanding and preferences regarding visual and interactive model representations.
3.2.4 Technology changes art’s medium, audience and business
In the recent years more artists are exploring the Internet as a medium to reach their
audience/spectators. When Internet is used as a way to transmit art the focus falls on the individual
spectator, in contrast from the museum type of art presentation (Nalder, 2003). The Open Source
Software tools developed in cooperative spirit and distributed via the internet, enable artists to
experiment and create low-cost artworks. Besides the new way of reaching the target audience,
Internet and Web has created new business models as well. For example, softwareARTspace
(http://www.softwareartspace.com) is a website which provides digital artworks commercially. Usage
of information technologies implies further improvements of tools and technologies to address the
issues related to business and publicity, such as protection of artworks and copyrights. Thus, it brings
artists and technologists together to solve these issues. As an example, small granularity technique has
been proposed by Shoniregun et al. (2004) for the protection of artwork. The potential reciprocal
interaction between artists and technologists in the form of demands of the user (artists) which
stimulate an engineer to extend the technology in some way thus extends the possibility of its use
(Jones, 2005). This helps both technology and art to co-evolve in a configuration of mutual
interdependence.
3.3 Where (the intersection happens)
The influence of technology on art has also created a number of new genres of arts, such as internet
art, generative art, new media art, net art, software art and many more (Nalder, 2003). Many of these
fields might still not be well defined or still at an early stage of evolvement. Professor Peter Weibel
coins all of these fields by a single term “Computer art”. For example, he states in the jury statement
at the Ars Electronica ’92, “Computer art is concerned with artworks that ‘were impossible to produce
before the invention of the computer … even unimaginable” (Oates, 2006). Some sectors of art where
interaction between software and art happens extensively are computer generated sound and
electronic music, visual arts, virtual reality, performance arts etc. Interdisciplinary events and
activities are often supported by institutions or organizations. Thus, even though software is
accessible to individual artists, it is not unusual to find most of the cases of intersection described in
the reviewed articles have occurred in the context of some institutional support. Here we present some
major places/sectors that we have identified from the literature where art and software meet each
other.

Intersection of Software and Art 9
3.3.1 In Educational Institutes
In art schools and computing schools interdisciplinary courses are conducted which include students
from both art and computing discipline. Besides these interdisciplinary courses, there are also cases
where the need of computing education is realized in the art discipline, and the need of art education
in the computing discipline.
In Art Schools
Donna (1991) mentions “It is a fundamental mistake for a university not to provide such training
[computer training] to non computer science majors because of the rapid growth of computing in arts
and humanities” (p.2). The importance of the inclusion of computer graphics courses in the fine arts
syllabus is recognized by art institutes (Garvey, 1997; Sardon, 2006). However, keeping the balance
between the traditional fine arts skills (e.g. drawing, painting, sculpture) and digital skill mastery is of
a great importance. Designing and conducting multidisciplinary courses need consideration of special
issues such as ensuring good team work, having common language and understanding each other’s
skills and abilities as well as having respect for each other’s domain. While presenting their
experience of organizing and conducting an interdisciplinary computer animation course in Ebert and
Bailey (2000) mention the importance of effective teamwork and learning from each other’s
disciplines.
In Computing Schools
Parberry et al. (2006) describe their mainly positive experiences from a course and projects in game
programming offered to the two groups (art and computer science) of students. Argent (2006)
describes two game development courses offered at the University of Denver which were built upon a
four way partnership between computer science, digital media studies, electronic media arts design
and studio art. The role of teaching aesthetics to engineering students was addressed by Adams almost
12 years earlier (Adams, 1995). Zimmerman et al. (2001) describe a course on Virtual Reality and its
“implications for computer science education”. Jaccheri et al. (2007) reports their experience of
running an interdisciplinary course for three years where they have reported that such an
interdisciplinary course gives software students learning outcomes that are quite different from what
they get from more traditional software engineering team projects, in particular concerning
interdisciplinary skills and self insight. Fishwick (2003) describes the Digital Art and Science (DAS)
curricula provided at the University of Florida where he discusses the importance of combining
computer science and art in the educational phase and the positive experiences obtained. He suggests
that such practices will stimulate creativity in Computer Science students.
3.3.2 In Software Industry
Art meets with software in the software industry as well, for example in building entertainment and
leisure related applications, games, and demo-scenes. Computer based entertainment and leisure
related applications range over a wide spectrum evolving from console based ones to
augmented/mixed reality, pervasive, ubiquitous, immersive, context aware and social computing
experiences. The involvement of artists and developers takes place in the industry in the following
way: technologists develop more intelligent interactive context-aware systems while designers, artists
and design-art researchers use the existing technologies as a "new media" to design with, and deliver
"values" and "experiences" which go beyond the notional functionalities of technology (Biswas et al.,
2006). The major areas where the collaboration takes place can be identified as Game Development,
Human Computer Interaction, User Interface Design and Web Design. Game development is an
interdisciplinary field which requires both technical and creative appreciation. Games are considered
as a rich field for art not only because of the design, but also because of the cultural issues and
perspectives that might be identified within the games (Blais & Ippolito, 2006).

Intersection of Software and Art 10
3.3.3 In Research Institutes
Apart from the industry and the art or computing schools, there are also many research institutes
where a research setting is intentionally created for artists and technologists to work closely together.
Even though these research institutes may be a part of a university or an industry, the objective of
research setting is different from general purpose art projects. Often, this kind of collaboration is done
through “Artist-in-residence” programs, for example, the Xerox PARC artist-in-residence program
(Harris, 1999), COSTART project (Candy, 1999). The objectives of these programs are different, in a
way that they are aimed for innovation, creativity or elegant solutions of a complex problem, whereas
in a general art project, the objective is to realize an art work without any explicit intention of
innovation. Many industries also arrange artists in residence program from time to time. This situation
differs from the one where artists work in the same enterprise with other technologists as part of
regular production work.
3.3.4 In Art Projects
In public art especially new media art projects, art meets software for the realization of the projects.
Sometimes artists learn to use or code the software by themselves; sometimes they work together with
the technologists to get the software developed. The art projects can be creation of simple piece
artwork such as internet art, software art, and digital art and so on where a single artist works with the
software. On the other hand it can be an interactive art installation, or a multimedia presentation, film
or electronic music where one or more artist work with software and collaborates with other
technologists.
3.3.5 In Art Centres and Festivals
Art is promoted by many festivals where artists get chance of exhibiting their works to the audience,
communicating ideas and concepts, and evaluating and/or criticising artworks. Many art festivals
along with art institutes promote new media art which lies at the intersection of art and software.
Examples include Ars Electronica (http://www.aec.at/de/index.asp), PixelACHE
(http://www.pixelache.ac/), Read_me (http://readme.runme.org/), Transmediale
(http://www.transmediale.de), Piksel (http://www.piksel.no/), Make Art
(http://makeart.goto10.org/2007/), Trondheim Matchmaking (http://matchmaking.teks.no/).
Competitions like PrixArs (International competitions for Cyber Arts organized by Ars Electronica)
offers prizes on different categories such as computer animation, films, interactive art, digital music,
hybrid art, digital communities and media art research. ARCO BEEP new media art awards targets the
goal of advancing the production and exhibition of new media art and art linked to new technologies
(www.arco.beep.es). PixelACHE presents projects experimenting with new media and technology
with a goal to act as a bridge between the traditional creative discipline and the rapidly developing
electronic subcultures. Other institutes and festivals mentioned here also stress importance on media
art and use of technology.
3.4 What (software tools are used in this domain)
After we have identified people (who), reasons behind their interest at the intersection (why) and the
places/sectors (where) art intersects with software, here we present some practical examples of what
(tools and technologies) binds the relationship between software and art. Artists tend to use software
for different purposes. Quite often they use commercial software; often they are interested in open
source software as a cheap alternative. In few cases, artists develop their own software. Most of the
time they use the software as it was intended to be used by the creator of the software but sometimes
they can be creative and use it in a different way which was not intended. For example the artist Jen
Grey used the proprietary software Surface Drawing in a unique way to draw live models, a purpose
which was not intended (Grey, 2002). Some software is used as a tool to develop artwork; some as a
media to support artists’ activities indirectly (for example collaboration) while others are general

Intersection of Software and Art 11
purpose programming languages used to build applications. Besides these, there is also customized
software i.e., software that is built for a specific artistic purpose. Several articles mention this kind of
software (example, Datareader, Korsakov mentioned in the table below) which was developed by
either artists alone, or with the help of programmers as part of an art project. In this section we list the
software/tools that were mentioned in the literature. These tools provide the reader an overview of
what type of software and tools are used or required by the artists.
Artwork support tools, i.e. tools used to develop artworks are mainly special purpose artistic software
which specializes on some tasks such as visualization, sound manipulation or animation. The
following table gives a list of these kinds of software that were mentioned in different articles found
in our literature review along with their purposes/ functionalities. The list gives the readers an idea
about the tools that artists are using/ interested in using for different art purposes. The list also
contains customized tools that were developed for some specific artwork or art purpose, for example
Datareader was developed for taking as input meteorological data.
Table1. Software tools mentioned in different articles
Category Software Name Description Referenced in
1. Graphics
Manipulation
2. Multimedia
Authoring
3. 3D
graphics
Manipulation
4. Sound
Manipulation
Illustrator Vector based drawing program (Garvey, 1997)
Freehand Tool to create layouts and illustrations (Garvey, 1997)
for print /Web designs
CorelDraw A vector graphics editing software (Garvey, 1997)
Photoshop A graphics editor software (Grey, 2002)
Painter 6.0 Painting tool for graphic designers and (Grey, 2002)
fine artists.
Flash Animation and interactivity (Sung-dae, Jin-wan, & Won-
Hyung, 2006) (Sardon, 2006)
(Marchese, 2006)
Director Creating interactive content for fixed (Garvey, 1997) (Sardon, 2006)
media and internet
(Machin, 2002)
SoftImage 3D 3D animation software for games, film (Jennings, Giaccardi, &
and television
Wesolkowska, 2006)
3DStudio Max Professional 3D modeling, rendering
and animation software
(Garvey, 1997) (Strömberg,
Väätänen, & Räty, 2002)
Mini CAD, Auto A suite of CAD (Computer Aided (Garvey, 1997)
CAD
Design) software products for 2- and
3-dimensional design and drafting
Alias /Wavefront 3D graphics software (Garvey, 1997)
WorldUp
Maya
Breve swarm
simulation
Pure Data
Max/MSP
Software development environment for
building 3D/VR applications
High end 3D computer graphics
software
A package for building 3D simulations
of multi-agent systems and artificial life
Tool for creating interactive computer
music and multimedia works
A graphical programming environment
for music and multimedia
(Zimmerman & Eber, 2001)
(Zimmerman & Eber, 2001)
(Steinkamp, 2001)
(Boyd, Hushlak, & Jacob,
2004)
(Jennings et al., 2006)
(Jennings et al., 2006)
(Marchese, 2006) (Edmonds,
Turner, & Candy, 2004)
GigaStudio 160 Software for music and sound effects (Strömberg et al., 2002)

Intersection of Software and Art 12
Category Software Name Description Referenced in
5. Video
Manipulation
6. Other
Applications
SoftVNS video
toolkit
A real time video processing and
tracking software for MAX/MSP
(Edmonds et al., 2004)
Jitter
Extends MAX/MSP to support real (Polli, 2004)
time manipulation of video data
Korsakov Interactive Documentary software (Blassnigg, 2005)
ELE (Expressive
Lighting Engine)
Mobile Bristol
toolkit
Mobile
Experience
Engine
Sculpture
simulator
Control Lighting for a virtual
environment
A tool to create and share mobile,
location–based media
A software development platform for
creating advanced context-aware
applications and media-rich
experiences for mobile devices
A sculpture simulator with its own
programming language
(Gross, 2005)
(Biswas & Singh, 2006)
(Biswas & Singh, 2006)
(Machin, 2002)
Particle dynamics A software tool set for simulating
natural phenomena.
(Steinkamp, 2001)
Datareader A Max/MSP object to read text data (Polli, 2004)
and convert them into sound
VRML Virtual Reality Modeling language (Nalder, 2003)
7.
Programming
languages
/API
General purpose
programming
languages such as
python, C++, Java
etc.
OpenGL
To create wide range of applications (Nalder, 2003)
Industry standard and API for high
performance graphics
(Fels et al., 2005)
Apart from the artwork support tools there are other tools and software that artists use for supporting
other activities such as communication, publicity, sharing works, ideas etc. Internet and Web tools has
become not only a medium for the artist to publish and present their work and activities but also a
medium for communicating and collaborating with other artists. “The digital arts site Rhizome is
recognized for the crucial role it plays enabling exchange and collaboration among artists through the
network” states Walden in his review on the book Net_Condition: Art and Global Media (Walden,
2002). The tendency of publishing artists work through websites to reach audience was also observed
during our participation in the three projects described in section 2. The other purposes of website
includes, publishing artworks, selling art products, virtual tour of museums and creating online
communities, discussion groups or forums, and blogging.
Domain specific programming language is preferred by the artists compared to the general purpose
programming languages unless the artist does not aspire to be a professional programmer. This is
because general languages can be daunting due to the steep learning curve associated with learning
programming. Besides, artists often prefer to work with intermediate tools where the need for
programming is reduced. But that does not make any limitations for artists to learn the general
purpose programming languages. In some of the articles that we have reviewed mentions a number of
general purpose languages which was used to realize artworks or some artistic software, for example,
C++, ActionScript, UML, 2D OpenGL.
Last but not the least, the role of open source software has to be mentioned as an important factor for
making artists more interested to software. Artists tend to move towards using open source technology

Intersection of Software and Art 13
not only because they are cheap, even free of charge, but also because many artists believe in the open
source ideology. Halonen (2007) mentions that new media art is based on cooperation to a greater
degree than many art forms that can be created alone. He identified four groups with diverse motives:
i) using open source network as an important reference for professional image, ii) using open source
projects as a platform for learning, iii) an opportunity to seek jobs and iv) enrich professional
networks. From our project experience, we identified that some artists want to have open source
projects so that they can build an interested community around the project which might assist in the
further development, upgrade and maintenance of the project at a low cost (Flyndre and SonicOnyx).
Open source and free software usage in artists community is also encouraged by different art festivals
such as piksel (http://www.piksel.org), makeart (http://makeart.goto10.org/). The interest is also
visible by the activities of different art organizations/institutes such as APO33 (http://apo33.org)
ap/xxxxx (http://1010.co.uk/) Piet Zwart Institute (http://pzwart.wdka.hro.nl/).
3.5 The Framework
In the earlier sections we have presented the framework of the intersection in terms of different
entities in the intersection, i.e. people and views, place and tools. Here the framework is presented
through a table (table2). In the table, rows represent where (software and art meet) column represent
who (are the actors), entry in each cell represent the reason why the actors participate in a given place.
Table2: Where, who and why dimension of the intersection of software and art.
Who
Artists
Software
Researchers
Theorists &
Where
Engineers
Art Critics
Educational 4, 5, 10 5 1, 2, 3 X
Institutes
(Computing
and Art
schools)
Research 3, 17 3,6, 17 3, 18, 17 X
Institutes
Software 8,9 7, 8, 9 7 X
Industry
Public Art, 10 11, 12 18 16
Art Projects
Festivals 13, 14, 15 12, 15 17 16
Here we present the list of reasons (Why):
1. Design and conduct interdisciplinary courses
2. Conduct research and disseminate knowledge of conducting interdisciplinary courses
3. Foster innovation and creativity
4. Learn technology
5. Learn to work in multidisciplinary projects
6. Apply aesthetics in computing
7. Do research and development of products
8. Design user interface and enhance/improve human computer interaction

Intersection of Software and Art 14
9. Enhance user experience
10. Use technology in artworks
11. Realize the artwork through software
12. Provide tools and technology support
13. Share and exchange knowledge
14. Exhibit art work in public
15. Extend collaboration between artists and software engineers
16. Follow the changes of art and their social and cultural effects
17. Present research works
18. Conduct research on artists-technologists collaboration and reduce the gap between them
Different people have different reasons to involve themselves with the interdisciplinary domain. The
fact that different actors have different viewpoints is largely due to their varying roles and background
knowledge. That is why, while we see artists picking up different software tools and technologies and
even the naked codes as a material for artworks, software engineers are seen debating over the role of
art in software engineering.
4 Future Trends
The interaction between software and art is an increasing trend followed by many artists, software
developers and technologists. As the technology advances, more and more sectors of life are
influenced by the use of technology. Art finds its way to reflect on every artefact of life, so the
intersection of art with software takes place naturally as it happens with other technologies. The
application of different computing tools and technologies has already been established in arts. The
trend to include the aesthetics in computing, especially in aspects of design is a recent but growing
trend. In future when the computing speed and network speed will increase further, the value of
aesthetics will be even more recognized in computing (Hoffmann & Krauss, 2004). Until now
aesthetics is recognized mostly in human computing interaction, but in future other fields of
computing such as data structure, algorithms, digital logic, computer architecture might be also using
more aesthetics as anticipated by Paul Fishwick (2005).
As time moves on and the interdisciplinary domain matures, this collaboration between art and
computing attracts not only more people but also more disciplines and it gives birth to new issues and
new perspectives. For example, the need of software technology for artists leaded to the inclusion of
different computer courses in art and computing institutes. This in turn has raised the pedagogic
perspectives of conducting interdisciplinary courses involving art and computing students. In future
this might also raise the importance of learning technology through art and fun especially for children.
Software dependent arts such as installation arts that are placed in public space attract the attention of
many viewers including children and old people. Thus it involves social and cultural aspects which
include perspectives of learning, consciousness in the society through computational arts. In future
when there will be more software dependent arts placed in public space, it will be interesting to
consider these findings, in relation to the different people and different perspectives of life
surrounding computational arts as well as building a knowledge base in this growing interdisciplinary
domain.

Intersection of Software and Art 15
5 Conclusion
In this article we present an outline of different entities (who, why, where, what) at the
interdisciplinary research domain of software and art. The interaction between art and software
happens naturally as technology finds its way to influence every sphere of our life and artists reflect,
scrutinize and challenge technology at the same time as they use it for extending their expressions.
Artists working with technology are faced with multiple tasks that demand them to perform different
roles such as researcher, engineer, programmer etc. In many cases artists have background knowledge
of technology from their previous career or education, in other cases they learn a bit of the technology
while working with it. But in general case, artists require support from the technologists to realize
their visions. This brings artists together with technologists and the whole phenomenon brings
together other professionals who are interested or get involved with this intersection of technology
and art. The conceptual framework that we present in this chapter provides a detailed insight of how
the intersection between software and art is. This intersection is mostly based on the articles from our
literature survey and our experience from art projects. So it might not include all the actors and
entities in this interdisciplinary domain. We have limited our literature review to scientific
publications, but many recent trend and relevant information in the intersection of art and software is
available in sources such as websites, online articles, and artists’ biographies. The framework might
look different if we include these sources.
Even though art has connection with software since a long while, but the intersection between art and
software is a very recent trend and it is continuously changing and growing. Thus, in future this
framework will have more entities to include. The conceptual framework adds value to the knowledge
base of the interdisciplinary domain by structuring the information about the intersection. A
knowledge base is a necessary element for an interdisciplinary domain based on which the domain
can prosper and grow. The conceptual framework will thus act as basis for getting into detailed
understanding of this domain. Future work regarding this conceptual framework might include
extension and improvement which will further enhance the knowledge base of this interdisciplinary
domain.

Intersection of Software and Art 16
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Intersection of Software and Art 19
Key Terms and Their Definitions
Installation Art: Merriam Webster defines Installation as “a work of art that usually consists of
multiple components often in mixed media and that is exhibited in a usually large space in an
arrangement specified by the artist”. In wikipedia we find following definition of Installation Art:
“Installation art uses sculptural materials and other media to modify the way we experience a
particular space. Installation art is not necessarily confined to gallery spaces and can be any material
intervention in everyday public or private spaces. Installation art incorporates almost any media to
create an experience in a particular environment. Materials used in contemporary installation art range
from everyday and natural materials to new media such as video, sound, performance, computers and
the internet. Some installations are site-specific in that they are designed to only exist in the space for
which they were created.”
Art Projects: In the context of this chapter, with the word art projects we mean Art projects that use
technology for the development of the final product which is usually an artwork. These projects
include at least one artist and a number of technologists. In context of this chapter, technologists are
software engineers. But in general, besides the software engineers there can be many other
technologists such as sound engineers, electrical engineers and so on. Often art projects are
multidisciplinary projects which involve many people including the sponsors and public
administration, researchers and so on.
Artwork Support Tools: Software used to realize a certain artwork by implementing the core
functionalities of the artwork. This software can be commercial off the shelf (COTS) software or open
source software or even customized software that is developed only to realize a particular art project.
By artwork support tools we mean the whole application that works behind the artwork.
Conceptual Framework: Conceptual framework can be described in many ways: i) a set of
coherent ideas or concepts organized in a manner that makes them easy to communicate to others. Or
ii) an organized way of thinking about how and why a project takes place, and about how we
understand its activities or iii) An overview of ideas and practices that shape the way work is done in
a project. Wikipedia defines it as “A conceptual framework is used in research to outline possible
courses of action or to present a preferred approach to a system analysis project. The framework is
built from a set of concepts linked to a planned or existing system of methods, behaviours, functions,
relationships, and objects”.
Software Engineering: According to IEEE Standard Glossary of Software Engineering
Terminology, Software engineering (SE) is the application of a systematic, disciplined, quantifiable
approach to the development, operation, and maintenance of software. According to the Software
Engineering Body of Knowledge, the discipline of software engineering encompasses knowledge,
tools, and methods for defining software requirements, and performing software design, computer
programming, user interface design, software testing, and software maintenance tasks. It also draws
on knowledge from fields such as computer science, computer engineering, management,
mathematics, project management, quality management, software ergonomics, and systems
engineering. In industry software engineers can have several specialized roles such as analysts,
architects, developers, testers (according to Wikipedia). In context of this chapter, we call all people
who are involved in the development of software for art projects as software engineers irrespective of
their specialization.
Computer Art: Wikipedia defines Computer art as any art in which computers played a role in
production or display of the artwork. Such art can be an image,` sound, animation, video, CD-ROM,
videogame, web site, algorithm, performance or gallery installation. Often computer art is used in
general to refer to artworks that were impossible to create before the invention of computer.

Intersection of Software and Art 20

Paper 5
Salah U. Ahmed, Cristoforo Camerano, Luigi Fortuna, Mattia Frasca, and Letizia
Jaccheri. "Information technology and art: Concepts and state of the practice", In Borko
Furht (Ed.): Handbook of Multimedia for Digital Entertainment and Arts, Springer
Science+Business Media B.V., 2009, 769 pages, ISBN 978-0-387-89023-4, ch. 4, pp. 567-
592. .

Chapter 25
Information Technology and Art: Concepts
and State of the Practice
Salah Uddin Ahmed, Cristoforo Camerano, Luigi Fortuna, Mattia Frasca,
and Letizia Jaccheri
Introduction
The interaction between information technology (IT) and art is an increasing trend.
Science, art and technology have been connected since the 60’s, when scientists,
artists, and inventors started to cooperate and use electronic instruments to create
art. In 1960 Marshall McLuhan predicted the idea that the era of “machine-age”
technology was next to close, and the electronic media were creating a new way to
perform art [1].
The literature is full with examples of artists applying mathematics, robotic technology,
and computing to the creation of art. The work in [2] is a good introduction
to the merge of IT and art and introduces genetic art, algorithmic art, applications
of complex systems and artificial intelligence. The intersection is drawing
attention of people from diverse background and it is growing in size and scope. For
these reasons, it is beneficiary for people interested in art and technology to know
each other’s background and interests well. In a multidisciplinary collaboration, the
success depends on how well the different actors in the project collaborate and
understand each other. See [3] for an introduction about multidisciplinary issues.
Meyer and others in [4] explains the collaboration process between artists and technologists.
The definitions of visual art have extended far beyond the canvas since the
beginning of the twentieth century. The increased availability of computers has
caused a burgeoning of computer based visual art, also known as digital art. This
has developed into a broad range of computer graphics, animation, cybernetic sculptures,
laser shows and Internet-gaming. While the aesthetic experience has always
S.U. Ahmed and L. Jaccheri ()
Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway
e-mail: fsalah, letiziag@idi.ntnu.no
C. Camerano, L. Fortuna, and M. Frasca
Engineering Faculty, Dipartimento di Ingegneria Elettrica, Elettronica e dei Sistemi (DIEES),
University of Catania, Italy
e-mail: fcristoforo.camerano, lfortuna, mfrascag@diees.unict.it
B. Furht (ed.), Handbook of Multimedia for Digital Entertainment and Arts,
DOI 10.1007/978-0-387-89024-1 25, c Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2009
567

568 S.U. Ahmed et al.
meant some interaction among the creator (artist), the creation (artwork), the viewer
(spectator), the current “electronic age” allows a truly two-way involvement, with
the possibility of input from both the creator and the viewer altering the creation.
The “new media art” is an umbrella term, which generically describes artwork
that incorporates an element of new media technology. New media technologies
are defined as technologies that were invented, or began integration into society
from the mid 20th century. The most significant new technology, which has affected
visual art is computer software, which enables individuals to digitally manipulate
images. Traditional visual art is enriched through new way of expression: another
art form, which has become prevalent in the digital age is “interactive art”. In this
genre, the aim of the artist is to stimulate a two-way interaction between his works
and the spectator. This process has become increasingly possible via new media
technologies. It implicates creative activity in a context which now not only includes
professionals such as graphic artists and composers, but the wider public as well.
Spectators are no longer situated within a pure passive role: spectators today play
an interactive role within the artist to create new media art.
The relationship between technology and visual art is well explained in [5]
and [6]. In these works F. Popper introduces the concept of “synaesthesia” between
art, human emotion and technology. The emphasis is on the visual aspects and their
strict connection to emotions. Popper in his work “Art-Action and Participation”
examines the interplay of art, craft, and technology in five major categories: laser
and holographic art, video art, computer art, communication art, and installation
demonstration and performance art [7]. At a time in which simulation and reality
become interchangeable and humans and machines are intellectually connected,
Popper began to study the new way of conceiving the visual arts through the experiences
of other artists. Popper also looks at the social and political impact of the
rapid communication of ideas, experience, and images. Popper in his works shows
how the kinetics art influences all contemporary art expressions.
Cultural and social transformation from this age to nowadays elaborates a new
method to reflect on art and technology. Nowadays, the number of artists participating
in multimedia software games, interactive robotics and new electronic
applications is continuously increasing in art projects like interactive art installations.
As this intersection of art and technology grows, it involves people from
different disciplines with different interests creating a milieu of interdisciplinary collaborations.
At the Engineering Faculty of University of Catania and the Norwegian
University of Science and Technology we explore the intersection of information
technology and art to understand different entities that are involved in the intersection.
In the general context of the intersection between IT and art we focus on three
subsets of IT, which are software, electronics, and robotics. This choice is dictated
by the nature of research and art projects we are working on.
The objective of this chapter is to provide a framework of the intersection
between IT and art based on our theoretical (literature review) and practical
work (participation to IT intensive art projects). We have explored the intersection
between technology and art through a deep investigation based on papers, articles

25 IT and Art: Concepts and State of the Practice 569
and books, conferences, art projects, festivals and art centres, practical examples
of interaction between information technology and art carried out in university of
all over the world and in laboratories and research centres. We have explored this
intersection through a detailed and systematic study of literature and we have also
presented the criteria used to select the articles in order that the readers get an
overview of the scope and the focus of the literature review. In [8] wehavealso
identified the search strategies, including a list of searchable electronic database
of scientific publications and a starting list of keywords. Relevant publications are
those that address artist attitude towards technology, engineer attitude towards art,
influence and usage of IT in art or of art in computing, and features of artistic
software.
The Conceptual Framework
The conceptual framework described in [8] is our attempt to clarify the intersection
of IT and art by identifying the involved actors, their interests, place of interaction,
and reasons behind collaboration. In this section we will present the conceptual
framework. The study and our literature review is described by several entities such
as “who”, “where”, “why” and “what” which stand, respectively, short for “who” are
people involved, “where” the intersection take place, “why” the people are interested
to the intersection and “what” tools or electronics or software are used in this intersection
between IT and art.
Who
In the intersection between art and IT we find artists like cyber-artists, designers,
software engineers [9, 10], researchers, electronic and robotic engineers, theorists
and critics [11] engineers and researchers [12,13,14]. The roles of artists,
researchers, engineers and critics are neither exhaustive nor mutually exclusive.
These roles have different backgrounds and viewpoints. One person can have
many roles at the same time, for example, when the interactive filmmaker Florian
Thalhofer creates the interactive documentary software Korsakov; he is both an
artist and a software developer [15]. Technologists include people like software engineers
and hardware engineers. But if we take the wider intersection of technology
and art, technologists will include engineers from different disciplines like, mechanical,
robotics and electrical engineers, just to cite some examples. In the following
we will tend to refer to engineers and artists without trying to classify, each time,
which kind of engineer and artist we are referring to.
Nowadays software, electronics, mathematics, robotic technology, genetic art,
algorithmic art, led installations and artificial intelligence in union with music,

570 S.U. Ahmed et al.
dance, sculpture and painting expression are used to involve the audience as part
of an interactive dialog with technology. Ref. [16] provides a good example of explanation
about how these different technologies can be used to involve audience
and create interactive dialog processes.
The role of software developer is explained for example by Machin in [17]. In
order to build software tools for artists, pragmatics analysis of context and behaviour
is crucial because art is heavily immersed in practice and action, and because art is
valued on its ability to communicate [18].
At the same time other artists, such as Marco Cardini in his cyber art installation,
want to create an immersive atmosphere in which the artist set an interactive
dialog with audience involved [19]. In [20, 21, 22] a new way to create visual art
is explored, through the research of strange attractors, patterns and shapes, through
kinematics ad robotics. The importance of aesthetics in engineering is another topic
discussed several times by various authors such as for example Adams [23].
Where
The dimension of the framework ‘where’ refers to the places or the context where IT
and art meets each other. It is common that the intersection happens in the context
of some institutional support. In the framework presented in [8], the following contexts
are mentioned: educational institutes such as Art schools, computing schools,
software industry, research institutes, art projects and art centres and festivals.
Another place of intersection between technology and art is Internet: in the recent
years more and more artists are exploring the Internet as a medium to reach their
audience and spectators [24], so Internet has became a new dimension where people
can create different kind of web-art through special tool for artist [25, 26, 27, 28].
In art schools and computing schools interdisciplinary courses are conducted
which include students from both art, computing discipline, robotic course, complex
systems course [29]. Besides these interdisciplinary courses, there are also cases
where the need of computing education is realized in the art discipline, and the need
of art education in the computing discipline.
In addition to IT and entertainment industry, art and computing schools, there
are research institutes where a research setting is intentionally created for artists
and technologists to work closely together. These research institutes may be a part
of a university or an industry. Often, this kind of collaboration is done through
“Artist-in-residence” programs, for example, the Xerox PARC artist-in-residence
program [30], COSTART project [31], “Robot Artist in Resident Project” [32]. The
objectives of these programs are fostering of innovation and creativity. In an art
project, the objective is to realize an artwork, whose main mission is to convey the
artistic message that the artist wants to express.

25 IT and Art: Concepts and State of the Practice 571
Why
The ‘Why’ dimension refers to the reasons why artists and technologists want to
interact. One of the main reasons artists seek help from the technologists is to get
support with the tools that they need for the realizations of their artwork [33].
We make an attempt to classify the reasons for cooperation into six categories:
– Learning about interdisciplinary cooperation. The potential reciprocal interaction
between artists and technologists is challenged by the demands of the user
(artists). These demands stimulate engineers and researchers to extend technology
with possibilities that go beyond its intended use [33].
– Innovation of products and interfaces. As an example we look into Human-
Robot-Interaction (HRI), which aims at developing principles and algorithms to
allow more natural and effective communication and interaction between humans
and robots. Research ranges from how humans will work with remote, teleoperated
unmanned vehicles to peer-to-peer collaboration with anthropomorphic
robots. Many researchers in the field of HRI study how humans collaborate and
interact and use those studies to motivate how robots should interact with humans
34.
– Aesthetics in computing. In [35] Fishwick reports the result of a survey on the
usefulness of aesthetic methods on several areas of computer science. The result
shows that data structure, algorithms, digital logic, computer architecture was
chosen by the respondents as some of the fields where aesthetic computing can
be used. Information visualization and software visualization are other fields that
can contribute to bringing art/aesthetics inside of computing [36]. Paul Fishwick
has coined the term “Aesthetic Computing” to refer to a new area of study, which
is concerned with the impact and effects of aesthetics on the field of computing.
As an example, the discrete models found in computing can be transformed into
visual and interactive models, which might increase the understanding of the students.
Fishwick represents a method for customizing discrete structures found
in mathematics, programming and computer simulation. In [35] discrete models
are transformed to geometric models. Moreover, Adams addresses the importance
of teaching aesthetics in engineering education and the role of aesthetics in
engineering [37].
– Develop and exhibit IT based Artworks. One main motivation for the cooperation
between artists and engineers is that large artistic projects must rely on
IT knowledge to be successful. For example, in [17] Machin underlines the importance
of mature requirement elicitation techniques, which enable the capture
of the artist’s ideas without inhibiting the artistic process. Researchers are interested
in comparing the software development methods in art projects and analyze
which ones suit better an art project in a certain context. In [13] Candy and
Edmonds investigate the most appropriate evaluation methods in software intensive
art projects and if the evaluation should be done by artists or it should include
software engineers as well. Where the artworks are implemented in limited time
and budget and where artists lead the project, the maintenance and upgrading

572 S.U. Ahmed et al.
issues are often overlooked. Thus the maintenance and upgrade of these kinds of
software supported artworks become one of the prime sectors where art projects
need engineering help.
– Reflection on society through art. Erkki Huhtamo, Mathew Fuller, Florian
Cramer, Jeffery Cox, Lev Manovich fall in this category. The people in this category
are often called theorist or art critics whose main role is to besides other
criticize artworks and social and cultural affects of art in our society. Many of the
people mentioned here have several roles, varying from artist, teacher, theorist
and programmer. For example Erkki Huhatamo is a lecturer, researcher, writer
and curator all by the same time. Manovich is a lecturer and writer of many articles
and books. His book, “The Language of New Media” is considered by many
reviewers to be the first rigorous theorization of the subject. Even though there
might not be a person who can be termed as only theorist, we mention them as
a separate category here as we find a significant portion of research articles that
we have reviewed are contributed by these theorists and art critics.
– Dissemination of research results. In recent years emergent scientists create interactive
installations that allow for immersive relationships to develop between
the spectator and the artwork. For examples one of the five presented projects in
the Section “Description of the Projects” is “Chaotic Robots for Art”: the realization
of this, takes inspiration from the theory of strange attractors of Chua’s
circuit [38] and from the innovative conception of visual art developed by Frank
Popper. The gallery of strange attractors of the Chua’s circuit [39, 40] iswidely
known in the literature. The wide variety of patterns based on strange attractors
achieved an aesthetic level such that more people worked in order to emphasize
in art the impressive features of strange attractors considering chaos as bridge
between Art and Science. Many engineers such as Moura L., and Reichardt J.,
also start in their work a new way to create cyber paint through robotics [41, 42].
The role played by simple mechanical systems that generates complex strange
attractors has been remarked in different works and with different strategy, and
the emergence concepts in generating new patterns has been emphasized in researches
with the final objective to demonstrate the new paradigm of shapes and
complexity [43, 44]. There is a growing tendency to develop new kind of robots
for art [45] and the research of new modelling methods with a biological approach
applied to entertainment robotics and bio-robotics [46]. In this sense for
example bio-robotics for art is ever closer to the mechanism that ensure that a
robot can have a brain similar to the man’s brain. For example a new class of
visual-motor neurons, recently discovered in the monke’s brain, the so called
“Mirror neurons” are used in robotics and they represent today the key element
in the understanding of phenomena like imitation, evolution of language, autism,
knowledge of the behaviour of others [47]. In [48] Wolpert studied practical examples
and models for the motor commands inside the brain through the concepts
of mirror neurons and with the background of the Simulation theory of Mind-
Reading of Gallese and Goldman, [49]. All the concepts and the theories studied
by Wolpert and Gallese are often used in robotics because of the increasing trend
to combine art and bio-inspired robotics.

25 IT and Art: Concepts and State of the Practice 573
Table 1 Who, where, and why dimension of the intersection of software and art
Who Where Artists IT Engineers Researchers Theorists
Education
Institutes
Learning,
Develop
Learning
Learning,
Innovation
Research
Institutes
Innovation,
Disseminate
Innovation, Aesthetics,
Disseminate
Learning,
Innovation,
Disseminate
IT Industry Innovation Innovation Innovation
Public Art Develop Develop, Innovation Learning Reflection
projects
Festivals Learning,
Develop
Innovation, Learning Disseminate Reflection
In Table 1 we give a visual representation of the where, who, and why dimension.
What
The ‘what’ dimension of the framework refers to the tools and technologies used
in the intersection of art and IT. After identifying people (who), reasons behind
their interest at the intersection (why) and the places/sectors (where) art intersects
with software, here we present some practical examples of what (tools and
technologies) binds the relationship between software and art. In the framework presented
in [8] different categories of tools and software are identified, for example,
graphics manipulation software, multimedia authoring, 3D graphics manipulation
software, sound manipulation software, video manipulation software, and other
applications.
Here we take a wider perspective by looking at kinetic art in addition to software
art. The term kinetic art refers to a particular class of artistic sculpture made primarily
at the end of years 1950s. Kinetics art contains moving parts or depends on
motion for its effect: for example wind, a motor, or the observer generally powers
the moving parts.
Jean Tinguely is another artist that with his works realises an infinity of constructivist
images by means of constructions whose elements rotate with different,
incommensurable speeds. The Meta Matics of Tinguely at CAMeC (Centro Arte
Moderna e Contemporanea at La Spezia) are machines, which automatically create
infinite sequences of drawings. The principle of these machines is that of Lissajous
figures, i.e: the superposition of different harmonic oscillations [50]. Carried out in
a precise way, such movements result in stark geometric images with pretty Moirépattern-effects:
this is what we see in many early computer-generated graphics. But
the mechanical imperfections of Tinguely’s machines create an abundance of irregularities,
deviations and interruptions, which result in a suggestion of expressive
human gesture. The Meta Matics presented a pastiche of the abstract-expressive
painting of the 1950’s. Their position in art history may be compared with Jackson
Pollock’s all-over’s.

574 S.U. Ahmed et al.
Pontus Hultèn organized a futuristic exhibition on art and mechanical technology
at the Museum of Modern Art in New York (MOMA) in 1968 with the title
“The Machine: As Seen at the End of the Mechanical Age”. Today this art sculpture
of P. Hulten is shown at MOMA gallery of New York [51]. Pontus Hultèn
understood such transformation to make an impact on the audience visually, but
often on the exhibition space as well via sound, smell, taste, image and light
effects.
For visual artists the computer is a design tool. Utilising the available techniques
of pasting, erasing, displacement, and multiplication, artists are able to develop their
own ‘electronic palette’ to assist them with their creations. Researchers, like Oates,
look at computer art as an information system and propose to extend IS research
agenda to include computer art [52].
The technologies used for creating visual art can enable collaboration, lending
themselves to sharing and augmenting by creative effort similar to the open source
movement, in which users can collaborate to create unique pieces of art.
Artists tend to use software for different purposes. Quite often they use commercial
software; often they are interested in open source software as a cheap
alternative. In few cases, artists develop their own software. Most of the time they
use the software as it was intended to be used by the creator of the software but
sometimes they can be creative and use it in a different way which was not intended.
For example the artist Jen Grey used the proprietary software Surface Drawing in
a unique way to draw live models, a purpose which was not intended [53]. Some
software is used as a tool to develop artwork; some as a media to support artists’
activities indirectly (for example collaboration) while others are general purpose
programming languages used to build applications. Besides these, there is also customized
software i.e., software that is built for a specific artistic purpose. Several
papers mention this kind of software which was developed by either artists alone,
or with the help of programmers as part of an art project. These tools provide the
reader an overview of what type of software and tools are used or required by the
artists.
Artwork support tools, i.e. tools used to develop artworks, are mainly special purpose
artistic software which specializes on some tasks such as visualization, sound
manipulation or animation.
Apart from the artwork support tools there are other tools and software that artists
use for supporting other activities such as communication, publicity, sharing works,
ideas etc. Internet and Web tools have become not only a medium for the artist to
publish and present their work and activities, but also a medium for communicating
and collaborating with other artists. “The digital arts site Rhizome is recognized for
the crucial role it plays enabling exchange and collaboration among artists through
the network” states Walden in his review on the book Net Condition: Art and Global
Media [54]. The other purposes of website include, publishing artworks, selling
art products, virtual tour of museums and creating online communities, discussion
groups or forums, and blogging.
Domain specific programming language are preferred by artists compared to the
general purpose programming languages unless the artist does not aspire to be a

25 IT and Art: Concepts and State of the Practice 575
professional programmer. This is because general languages can be daunting due
to the steep learning curve associated with learning programming. Besides, artists
often prefer to work with intermediate tools where the need for programming is
reduced. But that does not make any limitation for artists to learn the general purpose
programming languages. Some of the papers that we have reviewed mention a
number of general purpose languages which were used to realize artworks or some
artistic software, for example, CCC, ActionScript, UML, 2D OpenGL.
Moreover the role of open source software has to be mentioned as an important
factor for making artists more interested to software. Artists tend to move towards
using open source technology not only because they are cheap, even free of charge,
but also because many artists believe in the open source ideology. In [55] Halonen
mentions that new media art is based on cooperation to a greater degree than many
art forms that can be created alone. He identified four groups with diverse motives:
i) using open source network as an important reference for professional image, ii)
using open source projects as a platform for learning, iii) an opportunity to seek
jobs and iv) enrich professional networks. From our project experience, we identified
that some artists want to have open source projects so that they can build an
interested community around the project which might assist in the further development,
upgrade and maintenance of the project at a low cost. Open source and
free software usage in artists community is also encouraged by different art festivals
such as piksel (http://www.piksel.org), makeart (http://makeart.goto10.org/).
The interest is also visible by the activities of different art organizations/institutes
such as APO33 (http://apo33.org) ap/xxxxx (http://1010.co.uk/) Piet Zwart Institute
(http://pzwart.wdka.hro.nl/).
Description of the Projects
In this section we use the framework introduced to present five of our projects.
Each project is described by a short introduction, followed by the who (and when),
where, why, and what perspectives. In the introduction we try to reconstruct the
artistic idea or the research motivation for the artwork. This partly overlaps with the
why dimension.
Flyndre
Flyndre [56] is an interactive art installation (see Fig. 1). It has an interactive sound
system that has the artistic goal to reflect the nature around the sculpture. To implement
this goal the produced sound changes depending on parameters like the
local time, light level, temperature, water level, etc. Flyndre relies on Improsculpt,
a software tool for live sampling and manipulation, algorithmic composition and
improvised audio manipulation in real time.

576 S.U. Ahmed et al.
Fig. 1 Flyndre
Who
The sculpture was built by Nils Aas. Then work of adding sound features was
initiated in 2003 by composer, musician and programmer Øyvind Brandtsegg.
Brandtsegg used a customized version of his music composition tool Improsculpt.
Brandsegg had started the development of Improsculpt in 2000 and the first version
of the software was completed in 2001. Brandtsegg collaborated with engineers regarding
the development, testing and deployment of the sound system. A group of
software engineering students and researchers at NTNU has re-factored the software
modular architecture.
The first version of the software was a single script file that was hard to modify,
maintain and upgrade. Students from NTNU were involved to develop and
improve aspects of Improsculpt from the software engineering point of view. The
software architecture has been re-designed to make it modular, easy to extend and
modify. Another group of students with multidisciplinary background has improved

25 IT and Art: Concepts and State of the Practice 577
the Internet based communication between the sculpture and the servers at NTNU
that process sounds. The students developed the technical framework for the networking
and the sensors systems (i.e. for capturing parameters by the sensors and
for transferring them via the Internet to the sound processing station). A third
group has developed an open source version of Improscuplt and published it as
open source by uploading a project in Sourceforge. Besides, utilization of wiki and
Concurrent Versioning System (CVS) introduced by the software engineers was
found to be very useful by the artist. A summary of these activities is published
in [56].
Where
The intersection between IT and art in this case is in the context of a real life art
project. It is a public art project meaning that the artwork is placed in a public place.
According to the presented framework, it falls in the category of public art. The
student work falls in the category of educational institutes. The sculpture is located
in Inderøy, Norway. Visitors can walk around the sculpture or sit nearby to watch it
and listen to its music.
Why
In case of Flyndre the collaboration is between artists, IT engineers, and researchers.
The project involves many students as mentioned in the ‘who’ part of the description.
The main reason behind the intersection is technological help to the artist who
wants to develop and exhibit an IT based artwork. The artist needed technological
support to improve the architecture of Improsculpt. For installing the sound on Flyndre,
the artist collaborated with the sound engineers. From the artist point of view
cooperation is motivated by his desire to use technology in the artwork and learn
about tools and technology. Researchers and engineers were motivated by learning
goals.
What
The sound installation Flyndre makes use of a loudspeaker technique in which the
sound is transferred to the metal in the sculpture. The music is influenced by parameters
such as high tide and low tide, the time of year, light and temperature, and
thus reflects the nature around the sculpture. The computer that calculates the sound
from the sensor data using the Improsculpt software is located in Trondheim. The
sensor data and the sound signals are streamed via the Internet between Inderøy and
Trondheim.
There is a website of the project which provides a live streaming of the sound
that is played by the sculpture. The web site includes on-the-fly animated Flash

578 S.U. Ahmed et al.
application that displays the current parameters of the environment and the current
music played by the sculpture. The archive of the previously played music by the
sculpture is also accessible through the web site. At the controlling core of the sound
installation there is a custom version of the software Improsculpt. It is software
for live sampling and manipulation, algorithmic composition and improvised audio
manipulation in real time. The main tools and technologies used in the project are
Csound, Python, Wiki, Sourceforge, and CVS.
Sonic Onyx
Sonic Onyx is an interactive sculpture that enables people to send files and plays
them back (see Fig. 2). Anyone located inside the space of the sculpture can send
text, image or sound files from Bluetooth enabled handheld devices such as mobile
phones or laptops. The received files are converted into sound and mixed with
other sound files. The converted sound file is then played back by the sculpture. The
project is an example of artists, engineers, and researchers working together. There
are many actors involved in the project making it a multidisciplinary project and
collaboration.
Fig. 2 Sonic Onyx

25 IT and Art: Concepts and State of the Practice 579
Who
The actors involved in the project come from different backgrounds. The project
includes the people involved from the development phase of the project to the users
of the artwork. The actors of the project are namely the artist, software engineers,
and researchers. Besides these actors there are the users which include students
and teachers of the school. Samir M’Kadmi is the artist of the project. There are
five software engineering students and their supervisor, two IT consultants, three
researchers (from NTNU). The physical structure was build by a mechanical company.
The users, or visitors of the sculpture are mainly students and teachers of the
school but anyone can visit the sculpture.
Why
The artist needed help from the software engineers and developers to develop the
artwork. Technology consultants had an important role here as software developers
were still students and had lack of experience. Researchers were interested to
observe and analyze different characteristics of the project. For the students (developers
of the project), it is also a reason to learn to work in a multidisciplinary project
apart from the main objective of realizing the artwork and providing technology and
tools support for the project. The technology consultant worked also in providing
technology and tool support both to the artists and software developers.
Where
According to the framework the intersection of art and technology comes here in the
form of an art project. The final objective of the project has been to create a piece of
artwork which will is open for public and mounted in a public space. It falls in the
category of public art and art project.
What
The software tools and technologies that are used in the project are mainly open
source. Linux has been used as the operating system of the server. Pure Data has
been used for sound processing and Python has been used for the application.
The Open Wall
The Open Wall is a 8030 pixels resolution 201 inch LED screen. The Open Wall is
a wall-mounted LED installation (see Fig. 3). One goal of the Open Wall project is

580 S.U. Ahmed et al.
Fig. 3 The Open Wall
to inspire reflection about Information and Communication Technology with focus
on openness, copyrights, and authorship [57].
Who
In 2005 architect Åsmund Gamlesæter initiates this project as he wanted to build a
LED facade for an experimental house. The house was built by a group of students
and was supposed to stay for one year. The architect asked CIS (Computer and
Information Science) department for help and cooperation. Hardware design was
the most important task when the installation was built for the first time.
When the experimental house was removed, the boards were taken over by CIS.
In 2007, as a result of a master thesis, the Open Wall software goes open source
with BSD license. In January 2008 three groups of students re-build the installation
during a three weeks intensive course. The students reuse the existent hardware and
software and develop the missing pieces of the software and the content.
Why
The projects has many actors, each having different point of views. Engineers and
researchers see the cooperation with artists as a source of inspiration and a possibility
to reflect about technology and find inspiration for innovations. In particular,

25 IT and Art: Concepts and State of the Practice 581
the SArt perspective is to inspire reflection about Information and Communication
Technology with focus on openness, copyrights, and authorship. Artists want to
engage in projects like this to explore the possibility of technology and interaction
with technical people and researchers. Students choose this project as part of
their curriculum because they like to co-operate with other students with different
background. Technology gets old quickly. Technologists experience this inevitable
assumption as a source of both frustration and motivation to learn all the time about
new technology. An important lesson we learn in this project is that visitors criticize
our work as the technology, which was developed 3 years ago (at time of writing this
paper). An important question that arise is therefore: “how important is the type and
novelty of technology in a cooperation project between artists and technologists?”.
Where
The installation is first installed on the façade of an experimental house in the town
of Trondheim. A sister installation is build and installed in a discothèque in town.
The current Open Wall is in a meeting room at the Department of CIS. The installation
is available through a WEB interface, which allows its users to both upload
and see pictures on the Open Wall. The software of the installation is available at
sourceforge.net.
What
The Open Wall is a wall mounted LED piece consisting of 96 circuits boards (166
boards) containing 2400 orange LED lights with 5 cm distance in all directions to the
next light. The wall is 480 cm long and 180 cm high. Each board has 25 LED lights
on its surface, emitting light with 99 possible intensities. Each board has its own
microprocessor, power connection, and Ethernet. Connection to the main controller
device is established through a set of switches or hubs. In short, this is a massive
parallel network of boards. The software governing the installation is written in Java
and available at http://sart.svn.sourceforge.net. In the context of a multidisciplinary
project work, three groups have developed 3 projects based on The Open Wall, and
one of the groups, inspired by living art which would ‘die’ if nobody cares about
it, presents a bunny that changes its state (i.e. sleep, awake, excited) according to
activities in the room. The second group brings the discussion to political and social
themes by reflecting about the wall and its open source and creative possibilities.
They use the wall to display texts from “Steal This Book” by Hoffman 0 70. The idea
of the third group is to display an ECG wave propagating along the wall screen as
on an ECG monitor. All three groups discuss the possibilities to include interactivity
through sensors (e.g. movement in “Lux Vitae”, people position “Bull devil 7”,
sound level in “Heart and software”). With the installation in place, the employees
of CIS start to play with it and develop a web based interface which enables users
to upload and see the content of the wall with an Internet browser.

582 S.U. Ahmed et al.
Fig. 4 The four Chaotic Robots for Art
Chaotic Robots For Art (Fig. 4)
This research begins from the study of the cooperative behaviour of inspection
robots by combining the concept of art and complex systems. The role of chaotic
synchronization in the generation of the kinematic trajectory shows the discovering
of new aesthetic features of the motion in mechanical control systems.
The target of the project is to show emergent spatial attractors generated by clusters
of robots called “Chaotic Robots for Art”. The project idea takes inspiration
from our studies on groups of robots to working together, with different skills.
We use dynamical chaos instead of classical random algorithms to drive robots
in a given arena, and we use typical chaotic laws to drive our robots. The use
in engineering-entertainment area of interactive technologies suggests the idea to
establish new ways and new methods to create art with the intent to satisfy an increasing
need to bring new technologies to users.
Who
The actors involved in the project are three engineers (two electronic engineers and
one software engineer) that take inspiration from different artists, researchers and
robotic engineers, cyber-artist, theorists and critics.

25 IT and Art: Concepts and State of the Practice 583
From the late of 2005 at laboratories of University of Catania Luigi Fortuna,
Mattia Frasca and Cristoforo Camerano began to apply on entertainment robotics
their previous results of nonlinear dynamics theory for the generation of patterns
and strange attractors [20].
These three artists engineers try to create an immersive relationships between
the spectator and the artwork: these relationships are controlled by complex sensortriggered
interfaces which incorporate movement, speech, touch and light information
on entertainment robotics.
Where
The final objective of this art project is to create a piece of artwork mounted in a
public space like museums, art schools and researcher centres. Up to now people
can manage the “Chaotic Robots” to create art at the DIEES laboratories of the
Engineering Faculty at the University of Catania.
Why
This research and art project includes cooperative robots, strange attractors synchronization,
and led trajectories analysis. It is inspired by the Popper theories [6], and
aims at integrating robots in virtual arts. The key element is the spectator interaction
and participation. The reflection in a 3D space of the shapes and patterns of
cooperative robots generate the artwork.
Another important key-element in the background of the presented research is
the idea to find similarities through a real dancer and a dancer robot.
For this reason in the middle part of our experiments, we tried to compare the
trajectories of our chaotic dancer robot with the trajectories of a real dancer that
plays in the same room in the given arena. The research revealed the discovery of a
class of strange trajectories and patterns that are shown in Fig. 5.
Fig. 5 The robots perform typical Chaotic Attractors

584 S.U. Ahmed et al.
The hypothesis is that the possibilities to reveal the beauty and the charm of typical
chaotic forms of strange attractors can suggest a possible interesting alternative
for future development of entertainment robots applications for art and this new
way of establishing interactive dialogs between audience and the used technology
can became a new way to create immersive Cybernetic-Painting-Art.
What
HRI (introduce in the framework in the previous section) is implemented through
a SCADA-System (Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition-System) that is a
simple GUI (Graphical User Interface) that is able to control the chaotic robots.
The target of the project is to show emergent spatial attractors for art generated by
clusters of robots. The research revealed the generation of emerging sets of strange
attractors, spatially distributed, and the generation of a gallery of strange attractors
in a 3D space. We realized mobile robots by using different kinematic structures and
the Lego Mindstorms system allowed us to easily implement them.
The task of each robot in the cluster is to provide specific functions and to explore
the environment in different points in order to get complete specific information.
The scenario where the measurements must be taken is a three-dimensional space
with spatial coordinates (x; y; z) where equipments must be dynamically located in
order to perform different types of investigations and where the kinematism assures
the realization of a congruent set of detections. Randomized trajectories are generated
for each robot and a random search algorithm is used to improve the detection
performance of the clusters. In particular, instead of using randomized positions a
strategy based on chaotic trajectories has been conceived. In this way, even if a randomized
motion is performed, the robots in the cluster can be synchronized each
other to coordinate their behaviour.
The use of synchronized clusters of robots is adopted in this work in order to
implement coordination of robot trajectories both inside each cluster and among the
various clusters and at the same time this mechanism of synchronization should be
adopted in order to have symmetries in the trajectories.
The trajectories that are shown in the Fig. 5 represent a strange attractor gallery
of experimental routes generated by using mechanical device synchronization. In
particular, the control strategy adopted consists in emphasizing the cooperation and
the randomized motion avoiding collisions among robots. In order to trace the trajectories,
the robots were equipped with markers (different led were equipped on
each robot) and the whole environment was totally obscured. Then, photos with
long exposure times or videos of the robot motions were taken. In the latter case the
video is then post-processed in order to have the complete trajectory of the robot.
In all experiments shown the size of the arena was fixed to 3; 5m 4m and the
height of the arena walls was 40cm. The control laws used for all robots is a typical
logistic function or other chaotic laws. Actually, in spite of each robot being
fed with the same set of rules, its detailed behaviour over time is unpredictable, and
each instance of the outcome produced under similar conditions is always a singular
event, dissimilar from any other.

25 IT and Art: Concepts and State of the Practice 585
The robots controlled by chaotic laws perform interesting chaotic dynamics such
as “Multi Scroll” Attractor.
By analysing the above described course of action of the set of four robots, we
note that from initial random steps of the procedure, a progressive arrangement of
patterns emerges, covering the shown trajectories. These autocatalytic patterns are
definitively non-random structures that are mainly composed of clusters of ink traces
and patches: this shows the artistic emergence of complexity in real time and space.
Interactive Bubble Robots For Art
This project takes inspiration from the study of the interactive processes between
human and robot defined as HRI and from the study of Mirror Neurons to study
elements of imitation and learning of the movement sequences.
The target of the project is to show artistic emergent spatial patterns that reflect
the processes of learning through imitation and the processes of understanding the
behaviour of others. The study reveals the opportunity to implement through two
identical Bubble Robots the concepts of the “Mirror Neurons” to study the applications
in art of the 3D spatial shapes described by the trajectories of the robots (see
Fig. 6).
Who
HRI is a multidisciplinary field with contributions from the fields of humancomputer
interaction, artificial intelligence, robotics, robotics art, bio-robotics,
natural language understanding and social science. In this context, DIEES researchers
are currently exploring different applications areas for HRI systems.
Fig. 6 The two Interactive Bubble Robots for Art

586 S.U. Ahmed et al.
Application-oriented research is used to help bring current robotics technologies to
bear against problems that exist in today society.
Where
Public space like museums, art schools and research centres can benefit from this
research art project. This art project has the final scope to create a piece of artwork
opened to the public. At moment people can work with the “Interactive Bubble
Robots for Art” to create art at DIEES laboratories at the University of Catania.
Why
The mechanism of Mirror Neurons in the brain of the macaque is able to show the
congruence between the observed action and the executed action. The Simulation
theory of Mind-Reading (Gallese and Goldman, 1998) requires two different kinds
of simulation: “Predictive” simulation that, under the hypothesis that the observer
has the same final goal of the observed one, after the simulation process results in
an action, and a “Retrodictive” simulation that represents a “Postdictive” simulation
that produces the same observed action by predicting it.
Motor control theory, studied by Wolpert [48], requires two different kinds of
motor commands. The “Action-to-Goal” model receives information about an action
and then makes a goal for it, while in the “Goal-to-Action” model one system
generates a specific action for the goal that is shown as input. At the same time, the
“Forward Model” (still proposed by Wolpert) represents a “predictor” receiving a
replica of the motor command and generating the expected action for it. On the contrary,
the “Inverse Model” represents a “controller” and produces motor commands
that are specific to realize a desired final goal. Researchers used this biology models
to perform a simulation model for Art applications through two identical rolling
robots that implemented the mechanism of mirror neurons.
What
The two rolling robots are equipped with special sensors to detect light and sound.
In the upper side of robot structure there are 21 leds used for the implementation of
the mechanism of imitation of mirror neurons. The sphere that surrounds the robot
is in plastic, and consists of two matching halves. The first Bubble Robot performs
his chaotic trajectory in the given arena according to a chaotic control law based on
logistic map. The second Bubble Robot has a special control unit that contains the
Mirror Neurons “neural net” software implementing the imitation mechanism. With
this procedure, the two Bubble Robots can be distinguished as an “Observer Robot”
and an “Observed Robot”.
When one robot moves in the arena, the trajectories are mapped through the flash
lights of the leds. The “Observer Robot” is able to understand and learn through

25 IT and Art: Concepts and State of the Practice 587
imitation. In fact the led system of the first robot activates the mirror neurons of the
second robot. In our model, the vision (visual neuron) is represented by the sensors
of the “Observer Robot” which detect variation of the light emitted by the first robot.
The “Observer” Bubble Robot reacts as a monkey when it sees another monkey that
performs a behavior similar to its personal behaviour and initiates to imitate the first
monkey.
Through the described research, a model of the mirror neurons system has
been applied to robotics. The model implements at each stage an unsupervised
learning mechanism, and the experiment seems to confirm that the model applied
to the Chaotic Bubble Robots provides a direct support for the simulation theories
of Mind-Reading and the interpretation of the inverse model of the control
loop [48, 49].
The robots are able to understand and learn through imitation: a robot comes in
harmony with each other through these neurons. A robot can create art and the other
is able to imitate his gesture of art.
Discussion and Conclusion
In this chapter we have given an introduction to the multidisciplinary field of IT and
art by giving some hints of the historical perspective (in the introduction) and by
providing four categories (who, where, why, what) that can be used to reflect about
existing literature. We have used these four viewpoints to describe five projects we
currently work with. Our literature classification is unavoidably incomplete. First,
even if we have used a systematic review to collect papers at the intersection of IT
and art, we are aware that we have covered a limited part of the extensive literature
in the field. This depends from the fact that all the authors have a background as
IT researchers. This happens even if, as shown by the description of our projects,
we are used to work with artists and to listen to their perspective. In the future
we have to continue and intensify this cooperation with artists. Moreover we aim
at working together with art theorists to enrich our horizon concerning literature
sources.
As shown in Table 2, the framework makes possible the comparison of different
art projects. We have used the framework to compare three Norwegian projects with
two Italian projects and we claim that the framework enables us to understand the
similarities and to reflect over the differences. On the “who” dimension we notice
that all the five projects encompass researchers. Concerning the “why” dimension,
our framework focus on the motivation of the cooperation. At the same time an
artwork is always driven by an artistic idea and the cooperation between the actors
aiming at realizing the artwork is strongly related to the artistic idea even if it does
not necessarily coincide with it.
From the five projects we can observe few trends. In project “Sonic Onyx” and
“Flyndre”, the artists are the driving force and they first came up with the ideas to
create artworks using technology. In these two projects, artists came into contacts

588 S.U. Ahmed et al.
Table 2 Summary of the five projects according to the framework
Project Who Where Why What
Flyndre
Sonic Onyx
The Open
Wall
Chaotic
Robots
for Art
Interactive
Bubble
Robots
for Art
Programming
artist &
researchers &
engineers
Artist &
researchers &
engineers
Architect &
researchers
(hw and sw)
Researchers &
artists
(dancers)
Public (sculpture park)
and Internet
(flyndresang.no)
Public (school)
1. Public (house facade)
2. Research (meeting
room) & Internet
(theopenwall.no)
Research
Develop &
Learning co
Develop &
Learning
1. Develop
2. Learning &
Aestetics &
reflection &
Disseminate
Develop &
Learning &
Aestetics &
Disseminate
Researchers Research Aestetics &
Disseminate
Sound
Python
C-Sound
Improsculpt
Flash
Sound & Light
Linux
Pure Data
Python
Led Art Linux
Java
Wiki
Kinematics,
Chaos
Theory,
C-language,
Trajectories
Led Art
Kinematics, Java,
Mirror
Neurons,
Trajectories
Led Art
with the technologists to seek help for the development of the artworks. In projects
“Chaotic Robots for Art” and “Interactive Bubble Robots for Art”, technologists
developed ideas to create artwork using robotics. The resulted works represents the
urge/desire of technologists to create artistic or aesthetic applications using technology.
In the project “Chaotic Robots for Art” the technologists collaborated with
artists to explore the artistic possibilities of application of chaotic laws into robotics.
In the project “The Open Wall” the initiation in the project and the collaboration between
artists and technologists is multifaceted. An architect initiated the project. The
artistic possibilities are kept open and addressed by both technologists and artists
who challenge the technical limitations of the wall to express novel applications as
well as enhancing the capabilities of “The Open Wall”.
In the projects “Chaotic Robots for Art” and “Interactive Bubble Robots for Art”,
kinematics is an important tool to create three-dimensional artwork: this connects
IT based art with kinetic art. The kinematics aspects of Chaotic Robots and Bubble
Robots give inspiration to two dimensional artworks, like “The Open Wall” and
open up for possibilities of transforming static two dimensional led systems as the
Open Wall into tree-dimensional artworks.

25 IT and Art: Concepts and State of the Practice 589
Presenting the projects over the framework shows us that the “who, why, where,
what” characteristics can be matched properly with framework. The concepts of the
framework are present in our projects.
On the “what” column, devoted to tools and techniques, we give the main functionalities
of the artworks, being sound for “Flyndre”, sound and light for “Sonic
Onyx”, led art for “The Open Wall”, and Kinematics and led art for the two projects
“Chaotic Robots for Art” and “Interactive Bubble Robots for Art”.
The framework allows us to reflect about art projects and to pose questions that
can generate research questions and inspiration for further work. We conclude our
work with a set of questions that are important for us. Here we list the questions that
we have developed by looking at the combination of the theoretical framework and
our practical projects and that will drive our work in the future years.
Who: Given an artwork. Who is the author? Who is the responsible? Which roles
are driving the project? Why do we miss one role, like for example theorists in
our five projects?
Where: Which effect has the “where” dimension on an artwork? If we look at
the Open Wall, taking the installation from the public space into a meeting room
in a University department has consequences in this respect. If the installation
could be regarded as a piece of art when it was the public space, it has become
a technological prototype or tool when taken into a private space in a University.
Which is the role of the web interface with respect to the artwork?
Why: How can we attract and facilitate multidisciplinary participation in the
development of projects like this? How can we convince Industry and Public
Funding Agencies to found these projects?
What: Which are the tools that make each project successful and which are those
that hinder the success of our project? Can we facilitate good software evolution
by publishing it as Open Source? Which software license should an artwork that
is published as open source should have? Which is the role of the source code?
Is this product, like for example “The Open Wall”, a piece of art or is it a tool
for artist expression? How can theories from fields such as kinematics, dynamical
nonlinear systems, neurobiology, and chaotic trajectories challenge the now main
stream computer based digital art?
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Paper 6
Salah Uddin Ahmed, Abdullah Al Mahmud, and Kristin Bergaust. "Aesthetics in
Human-Computer Interaction: Views and Reviews", In Jacko A. Julie (Ed.): Proc. 30th
International Conference on HCI - New Trends in Human-Computer Interaction, San
Diego, CA, USA, July 19-24, 2009. Springer Verlag LNCS 5610, ISSN 0302-9743, ISBN
978-3-642-02573-0, 913 pages, part 4, pp. 559-568. DOI:10.1007/978-3-642-02574-7

Aesthetics in Human-Computer Interaction:
Views and Reviews
Salah Uddin Ahmed 1 , Abdullah Al Mahmud 2 , and Kristin Bergaust 3
1 Department of Computer and Information Science,
Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway
2 Department of Industrial Design,
Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands
3 Faculty of Art, Design and Drama,
Oslo University College, Norway
salah@idi.ntnu.no, a.al-mahmud@tue.nl, kristin@anart.no
Abstract. There is a growing interest of aesthetics issues in Human-Computer
Interaction (HCI) in the recent days. In this article we present our literature review
where we investigate where and how aesthetics has been addressed by the
HCI researchers. Our objective is to find out the sectors in HCI where aesthetics
has a role to play. Aesthetics in HCI can be the common interest that involves
both art and technology in HCI research to facilitate from each others discipline
in the form of mutual interaction.
Keywords: Aesthetics, interaction, usability, art and technology.
1 Introduction
Interaction with computer addresses many issues such as ergonomics, design, human
factors, usability, aesthetics and so on. Interaction includes the main interface with
which human communicates with computer. Thus it is one of the most potential sectors
in computing where aesthetics is applicable. As the technology advances and the
processing power of computers increases along with the reduced memory cost, the
user interfaces of applications are getting richer with much more details including
aesthetics elements that enhance the user experiences.
In this article we present our literature review where we investigate where and how
aesthetics has been addressed by the Human Computer Interaction (HCI) researchers.
Our objective is to find the sectors of common interest between artists and technologists
and improve collaboration between them to facilitate from each other’s background
knowledge and skills in the form of a mutual symbiosis. An important topic in
HCI, aesthetics, however is an abstract concept and is used in a wide range of contexts
in association with other words denoting varying meanings. Even in art and
humanities discipline the word is used in various contexts and hence it is understandable
that researchers in technology and computing might use the word incoherently.
Besides, there are also different views on applying aesthetics in human computer
interaction. In this article we would like to present from the literature how the word
J.A. Jacko (Ed.): Human-Computer Interaction, Part I, HCII 2009, LNCS 5610, pp. 559–568, 2009.
© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2009

560 S.U. Ahmed, A. Al Mahmud, and K. Bergaust
aesthetics has been used by the researchers, which contexts it is used and what meaning
it is used for. We would like to categorize the field of human computer interaction
into some clusters of thematic areas in order to understand how the field looks like
when we view it from the point of aesthetics. The objective is to understand the meaning
of aesthetics, remove confusions and understand the use, applications and possibilities
of aesthetics in the context of human computer interaction.
The use of aesthetics in computing specially in human computer interaction is getting
lot of attention in the recent days. Call for paper of CHI 2008 (conference on Human
Factors in Computing Systems) with a slogan, “Art, Science, Balance” reveals how
the influence of aesthetics and art in general is well recognized by the research community
recently. But as the area is still very new and as HCI researchers are not
experts on arts and aesthetics there is room for misunderstanding. Therefore an investigation
of our current understanding and a snapshot of the field viewed from the
perspective of aesthetics will help the researchers to better understand the position
and role of aesthetics in human computer interaction. Besides aesthetics being a link
between technology and art will help future researchers to open up more possibilities
of collaboration between art and human computer interaction.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows. Section 1.1 presents our research
background and section 1.2 describes the research method. Section 2 gives definitions
of aesthetics and its importance in HCI. Section 3 provides the result of the review.
Section 4 concludes the paper with discussion and our viewpoints reflecting the result
obtained from the review.
1.1 Research Background
The research is conducted as part of the SArt project [1] inside the Software Engineering
group at the Department of Computer Science in the Norwegian University of
Science and Technology. Our ultimate objective is to propose, assess, and improve
methods, models, and tools for software development in art context while facilitating
collaboration with artists. As part of research in SArt we have performed a literature
review in order to conceptualize the intersection of software and art [2]. From the
review we have discovered that the intersection involves people from diverse background
and interest, for example art critics, software developers, educators and so on.
This is also visible in the software dependent art projects that SArt group members
have participated. From our experience of working with artists we have seen that
technologists and artists have different viewpoints. While working with artists we
have observed that there is a difference in the way how artists and technologists work
as well as differences in how the make meanings of different concepts. In a field
where there are both technologists and artists involved there are many issues that has
to be considered such as having a common language, good collaboration, coexistence
of artistic process and technical process, evaluation of products both from technical
and aesthetic viewpoint etc. This work is in line with our investigation of how we can
improve the collaboration between artists and technologists by working together and
learning from each other. As a part of that goal here we would like to look into the
field of human computer interaction to see how aesthetics, a concept from arts has

Aesthetics in Human-Computer Interaction 561
been applied by the technologists to discover the field from artists’ and technologists’
common interest where aesthetics is the bridge between them.
1.2 Research Method
We followed a systematic review of the literature published in recent conference
proceedings and journals which are easily accessible from ACM, IEEE and Springer
digital library. We started the review by following Kitchenham’s principles [3]. At the
beginning, we selected papers by reading the titles and abstracts, later we have modified
the process as we could not find lot of papers by only title and abstracts. We
searched the entire article with the keyword search and if a match was found we read
the abstract and part of the article that has the keyword. We discarded articles that has
only mentioned the word merely and has no significant meaning or relationship between
aesthetics and the main work of the paper. Otherwise we read the full article
and listed in our final selection. A total of 67 papers were selected from the following
top-level conference proceedings limited with the years mentioned below:
• Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems CHI – Years (from 2008 to
1997)
• Conference on Designing Pleasurable Products and Interfaces, DPPI – Years
(2007, 2005, 2003)
• DIS conferences – with no time limits
• TOCHI – with no time limits
• NordiCHI and HCII – with no time limits
The keywords that we have used are a. aesthetics b. aesthetic. We have chosen
both ‘aesthetics’ and ‘aesthetic’ in order not to miss the mentions of word such as
aesthetically.
2 Aesthetics and HCI
New conferences and workshops that explore various aspects of the consequences of
the integration of computing into everyday life are emerging. New terms are entering
the HCI vocabulary such as emotion, pleasure, experience, expression, and indeed
aesthetics. Aesthetics is increasingly viewed as a key issue with respect to interactive
technology. But aesthetics is a general term and it is often used in association with
other terms. Here we present what it actually means and how it is defined.
The Oxford English Dictionary presents the following definitions for aesthetics: i)
the science that treats the conditions of sensuous perception; and ii) the philosophy or
theory of taste, or of the perception of the beautiful in nature and art [4]. In the preface
of Encyclopedia of Aesthetics which is one of the most comprehensive references
on this topic, Kelly states [5], “Ask contemporary aestheticians what they do, however,
and they are likely to respond that aesthetics is the philosophical analysis of the
beliefs, concepts, and theories implicit in the creation, experience, interpretation, or
critique of art.” Britannica encyclopedia defines it as philosophical study of the qualities
that make something an object of aesthetic interest and of the nature of aesthetic

562 S.U. Ahmed, A. Al Mahmud, and K. Bergaust
value and judgment [6]. To define its subject matter more precisely is, however, very
difficult. It also mentions that self-definition could be said to have been the major task
of modern aesthetics.
2.1 Why Aesthetics
Human computer interaction started from computing field and now extending its
scope in many other directions by including behavioral science, psychology, and
sociology and so on. However, there are allegations that human technology interaction
has focused almost exclusively in goal driven behavior in all work settings [7].
However, since computing expands its domain from workplace to pervasive and domestic
environments, interest in aesthetics for designing is increasing in HCI. Gaver
and Martin suggests that the importance of non-instrumental user needs, such as surprise,
diversion, or intimacy should be addressed by technology [8]. Jordan proposed
a hierarchy of such needs and claimed that – along with the functionality and usability
of a system – different aspects of pleasure are important to enhance the user’s interaction
with it [9].
2.2 Types of Aesthetics
In the context of HCI two types of aesthetics are mentioned in [10], classical aesthetics
and expressive aesthetics. Classical aesthetics refer to traditional notions emphasizing
orderly and clear design and expressive aesthetics to designs creativity and
originality. Study shows that classical aesthetics is perceived more evenly by users
whereas expressive aesthetics can vary depending on framing effects or different
cultural and contextual stimuli [7].
Different kinds of quality dimensions are mentioned such as Ergonomic, Hedonic,
Instrumental and Non-instrumental. Ergonomic quality comprises quality dimensions
that are related to traditional usability, i.e. efficiency and effectiveness [11]. Hedonic
quality comprises quality dimensions with no obvious relation to the task the user
wants to accomplish with the system, such as originality, innovativeness, beauty etc.
In other place, instrumental Quality and Non instrumental Quality is used in relation
to perception of user experience which are basically the same as ergonomic and hedonic
qualities [7].
3 Aesthetics in Human-Computer Interaction
Aesthetics come into play in many stages in many ways in HCI. In this section we
would like to present the different areas and contexts where aesthetics is mentioned
and addressed in our reviewed literature. From the review, we have identified some of
the areas where aesthetics is used in HCI. Some of the key areas that we have identified
are: Artifacts design, System design, Attractiveness and look and feel of User
Interface (UI), Interaction with a system, Usability and user experience, Research
methods for HCI. The following table lists the articles according to the particular
addressed themes or areas of HCI.

Aesthetics in Human-Computer Interaction 563
Table 1. Thematic subject areas where aesthetics has been addressed in HCI literature
Themes Articles What is addressed
Artifacts Design [12], [13], [14],
[15], [8], [16], [17]
[7]
(ubiquitous computing).
System Design [17], [11], [18],
[19], [17]
Attractiveness and
Look and Feel of UI
Interaction with a
system
Usability and User
Experience
HCI Research
methods
Design of artifacts and gadgets, evaluation of
artifacts, environment related design of artifacts
Software applications, tools, artistic software,
games.
[20], [21], [22]
[23] [24] [25]
User interface of an application, mobile phone,
web sites etc.
[26],[27], [28], Interactive art installations, museum guide,
[12], [29] interactive learning system, ATM machines etc.
[7] [30], [27], [31], Users’ feelings, emotion, usability.
[32], [25]
[33], [34] Research methods that considers aesthetics.
3.1 Artifact Design
With the recent shift from narrow focus on work to a broader view of interaction
industrial designers, communication designers, and newly minted interaction designers
all began to play more important roles in the invention and development of new
artifacts meant to address a broad set of problems and opportunities [14]. Future Information
appliances design may benefit from considering aesthetics aspects of the
gadgets [8]. How digital technologies might be employed in everyday settings can
combine concepts from both work and plays and these devices often act not only as an
emulator or information source instead creates a new form of appreciation both conceptual
and aesthetic [16]. Often these devices are created by artists and are displayed
as interactive and or digital art in the art galleries.
Evaluation of Artifacts. Aesthetics is not only an issue during the design of these
diverse computing devices/artifacts but also in the evaluation of these devices. After
running a survey on heuristic evaluation match between design of ambient display
and environments in [35], the authors assert, "The display should be pleasing when it
is placed in the intended setting."
Ubiquitous Computing. Areas such as ubiquitous computing, augmented reality, and
physical computing have made it evident that the personal computer is just one out of
many possible ways in which we can design how humans interact with computers
[12]. The design of these devices should be carefully done so that they consider the
contextual qualities of the environment such as aesthetics, emotions and aspirations
whether they are place indoor in home, museums or outdoor in public places [15] [36]
[34]. For example, when designing an ambient display, one should notice an ambient
display because of a change in the data it is presenting and not because its design
clashes with its environment [35].

564 S.U. Ahmed, A. Al Mahmud, and K. Bergaust
3.2 System Design
By system design, we mean the context of creating new tools or software applications.
Hedonic quality plays a substantial role in forming users judgment of appeal and it
should be explicitly taken into account when designing a software system [11]. In
[17], authors presented a technique used for creating a new kind of tool for 3D drawing.
In creative settings where innovation and novelty is sought, artists and technologists
work together in close collaboration.
3.3 Attractiveness and Look and Feel of UI
Aesthetics has been addressed by many articles in the attractiveness and look and feel of
different websites. There is already a transition towards aesthetically pleasing interfaces
and it will continue as more importance is placed on the aesthetics of a user interface,
and as the proper tools are available to interface designers for creating such interfaces
[20]. A theoretical framework for assessing the attractiveness of web sites has been
introduced in [22] where as aesthetics is considered an issue for rating web sites in [23].
Aesthetic factors beyond usefulness and traditional usability are increasingly recognized
as contributing to the overall success of a product or system [24] [25].
3.4 Interacting with a System
Aesthetics and interaction are interwoven concepts, rather than separate entities [26].
In aesthetics of interaction the emphasis shifts from an aesthetically controlled appearance
to an aesthetically controlled interaction, of which appearance is a part.
Aesthetics of interaction moves the focus from ease of use to enjoyment of the experience
[27].
Mixed Reality and Virtual Reality. Design for mixed reality or virtual reality devices
are driven by many contextual requirements of which aesthetics is an important
part [36]. Artistic association is also important in virtual reality systems, “The curtain
rain was chosen for its aesthetic qualities, both in terms of its striking visual image
and sound, its asymmetric transparency, and not least, due to the artistic association of
projecting a virtual desert into a curtain of water” [19].
Interactive Art. Interactive art is a new kind of art that is highly dependent on technology
and user interaction. Often these kinds of artworks are illustration of interdisciplinary
collaboration between research, design, craft and art and involve interaction
with the user in a new or innovative way such as presented in the case of computational
composite [12] or computational textile kit in [29]. In [28], the authors present
a method developed to support design of innovative interactive technology.
3.5 Usability and User Experience
The use of aesthetics is not always warmly accepted by HCI researchers. In fact, as
mentioned in [37], it is often seen by many professionals as inversely proportional to
easiness of use or usability. There has been continuous debate on conflicting impact
of usability and aesthetics in HCI [38]. However, later many researchers worked on

Aesthetics in Human-Computer Interaction 565
the positive impact of aesthetics. Now empirical evidence shows correlations between
the perceived aesthetic quality of a system’s user interface and overall user satisfaction
[31], [32] leading to claims that aesthetic design can be a more important influence
on users’ preference than traditional usability [25]. Usability is important but
good aesthetic design can overcome some deficit of usability problems. In fact, usability
and user experience is related to the appraisal of a system which depends on
both instrumental and non instrumental qualities [7].
3.6 HCI Research Methods
HCI has emerged as a design-oriented field of research, directed at large towards
innovation, design, and construction of new kinds of information and interaction
technology. Three accounts have been named regarding the design theory such as the
conservative account, the romantic account, and the pragmatic account of which
pragmatic account is the one that considers the issues such as creativity, craft, aesthetics
[33]. HCI researchers have adopted approaches based on traditions of artistdesigners.
Thus new methods have been developed in HCI such as cultural probes
whose purpose is to inspire the creation of appropriate pleasurable even provocative
designs [39].
4 Discussions and Conclusion
From the review we have seen where and how aesthetics has been used in context of
HCI. The outcome reveals us a picture of the relationship between aesthetics and HCI
The consideration of aesthetics is visible in many sectors of HCI, from artifact design
to research methods for collecting user data or evaluating artifacts. What we see from
the review is that the most common use of aesthetics in HCI refers to visual aesthetics
or expressive aesthetics. The conflict with usability also accounts in case of expressive
aesthetics. We believe that the contradiction arose since we referred to only visual
or expressive aesthetics and compared its effects with usability. But aesthetics as a
philosophy is a wide concept rather than only the visual or static beauty of interfaces.
It refers to the feelings associated with the use and interaction with a system. In this
case aesthetics of interaction is not conflicting with usability; rather usability is a part
of aesthetics of interaction. Having high expressive aesthetics and less usability can
affect the emotion of the user negatively, thus the aesthetics of interaction. So proper
aesthetics of interaction should define where and how expressive aesthetics will be
included and how much they will act aligned with usability, and overall user experience
of the user effecting their emotion positively.
In this paper, we have put together different contexts of use of aesthetics in HCI to
present the reader different meanings and views that we attach with aesthetics in HCI.
As technology will advance giving us more options to use more expressive and innovative
interaction with computers, aesthetics in HCI will get even more attention in
the future. Proper understanding of the meaning, value and impact would help the
future researchers to be more conscious about the role of aesthetics and possibly
eliminate confusions around it among them. Aesthetics can in that way bring together

566 S.U. Ahmed, A. Al Mahmud, and K. Bergaust
artists, designers and technologists with creativity, inspiration and engagement in a
collaborative and multidisciplinary milieu inside human computer interaction.
References
1. SArt Project, at Norwegian University of Science and Technology,
http://prosjekt.idi.ntnu.no/sart/
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Paper 7
Salah Uddin Ahmed, Letizia Jaccheri, and Samir M'kadmi. "Sonic Onyx: Case Study
of an Interactive Artwork", In Fay Huang and Reen-Cheng Wang (Eds.): Proc. First
International Conference on Arts and Technology (ArtsIT 2009) - Revised Selected
Papers, Yi-Lan, Taiwan, Sept. 24-25, 2009, Springer Verlag LNICST (Lecture Notes of
the Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications
Engineering), Vol. 30, 292 pages, ISBN 978-3-642-11576-9, ISSN 1867-8211
(http://www.springer.com/series/8197), pp. 40-47. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-11577-6.

Sonic Onyx: Case Study of an Interactive Artwork
Salah Uddin Ahmed 1 , Letizia Jaccheri 1 , and Samir M’kadmi 2
1 Department of Computer and Information Science, Norwegian University of Science and
Technology, Trondheim 7491, Norway
2 Artist, Oslo, Norway
{salah,letizia}@idi.ntnu.no, s-mkad@online.no
Abstract. Software supported art projects are increasing in numbers in recent
years as artists are exploring how computing can be used to create new forms of
live art. Interactive sound installation is one kind of art in this genre. In this article
we present the development process and functional description of Sonic
Onyx, an interactive sound installation. The objective is to show, through the
life cycle of Sonic Onyx, how a software dependent interactive artwork involves
its users and raises issues related to its interaction and functionalities.
Keywords: Interactive artwork, software dependent artwork, case study, artist
technologist collaboration.
1 Introduction
The relation between art and computer dates back to the 60s. The intersection of art
and software interests, includes and attracts people with diverse background to come
together and work in common projects [1]. The use of computer in art has increased
with time covering computer graphics, computer composed and played music, computer-animated
films, computer texts, and among other computer generated material
such as sculpture. The development of software based sound technology and the interaction
with art can relates back to a pre-digital era, which goes from the Italian
futurist, Luigi Russolo (1913) to John Cage, Pierre Schaeffer, Pierre Boulez, Olivier
Messiaen, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Iannis Xenakis, etc. [2]. MUSICOMP (Music
Simulator Interpreter for Compositional Procedures), one of the first computer systems
for automated composition was written in the late 1950s by Hiller and Robert
Baker [3]. Popular software for creating interactive sound installations in recent years
includes Max/MSP and Pure Data. Often these kind of interactive artworks rely heavily
on software applications for realizing artistic expressions and interaction. Like
Oates [4] who looks at computer artworks as Information Systems and proposes to
extend Information System research agenda to include computer art, we suggest to
extend software engineering research to include software dependent art projects. Our
experience from projects involving both artists and software engineers such as Flyndre
[5], and Open Wall [6] shows that software engineering can play important role in
such interdisciplinary projects [7]. The struggle of software engineers to make technology
more accessible to artists is recognized by researchers [8]. Besides, researchers
have addressed collaboration between artists and technologists as an important
F. Huang and R.-C. Wang (Eds.): ArtsIT 2009, LNICST 30, pp. 40–47, 2010.
© Institute for Computer Sciences, Social-Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering 2010

Sonic Onyx: Case Study of an Interactive Artwork 41
issue in interdisciplinary projects which is often challenging due to the differences
among the involved parties [9]. In this article we present the case study of Sonic Onyx
by describing its technical and functional features and showing how it raises different
issues related to its development, interaction and user experience.
The rest of the paper is organized in following way; section 1.1 describes our research
background and research method. Section 2 gives technical and functional
description of Sonic Onyx, where 2.1 describes the hardware and 2.2 describes the
software components of the artwork and 2.3 describes how it works. Section 3 addresses
the development context. In section 4 we evaluate the project and identify the
issues raised by the project during and after development. This is in a way our lessons
learned from the project. Section 5 concludes the article with indication of possible
future extension of Sonic Onyx.
1.1 Research Background and Method
The work presented in this article is part of SArt research project at the intersection of
art and technology [10]. The objective of SArt is to assess, develop, and propose
model and process for developing art using technology and software. Sonic Onyx was
chosen as a case study for SArt because of its involvement of both artist and
technologists and its placing as a public art in a school with a purpose to use and experiment
the sound installation with the pupils of the school. Besides, Media Lab at
Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) was also involved in the
process of development of the artwork. The objective is to find answers to the following
research question set by SArt, “What are issues and challenges that software
engineering has to tackle to implement software dependent art projects?”
The software of Sonic Onyx was created by a group of computer science students.
The development lasted six months and researchers from SArt took part in the process
as observers. They took part in the group meetings and received copies of all documentations
produced during development. The case study was done following research
strategy defined by Oates [11]. The type of the case study can be defined as
explanatory and longitudinal with duration of six months. The data presented in this
article about the project is collected from i) interviews, ii) project report, iii) project
documentations and iv) participation in the group meetings. Interviews were conducted
on the developers, the sponsor and the artist who is also an author of this article.
Feedbacks from users were collected from school teachers. Documents consist of
pre-project report, weekly reports, meeting minutes and the final project report. The
developers of the project created a status report every two weeks. They also created
meeting minutes on each meeting. Besides, project activities were closely observed by
taking part in the project meetings.
2 Sonic Onyx – An Interactive Art Installation
Sonic Onyx is an interactive sound sculpture placed in front of a secondary school in
Trondheim. The sculpture is about four meters high and the diameter of the “space” is
about seven meters. There are fourteen static metal arms and a globe like sphere in the
middle. The sculpture has seven loudspeakers located in seven arms and a subwoofer

42 S.U. Ahmed, L. Jaccheri, and S. M’kadmi
located in ground at the center making it possible to provide 3D sound effects within
the space created by the sculpture. People can communicate with the sculpture by
sending texts, image and sound files from their Bluetooth enabled handheld devices
such as mobiles or PDAs. These media files are processed and converted into unrecognizable
sound that is played by the sculpture. The artwork was commissioned by
the Municipality of Trondheim based on the following propositions made by the artist:
i) the artwork should be interactive ii) use latest technology and iii) allow learning
and pedagogy.
Fig. 1. Sonic Onyx during night and daytime
2.1 The Hardware
Sonic Onyx consists of four main parts: i) Central server ii) Bluetooth server iii)
Sound system and iv) Light system. Central server is a desktop computer with high
configuration hardware. It’s main task is to store art music, run the main application
and support remote administration. The interactive part of the sculpture is based on
Bluetooth technology that allows spectators to communicate with it by i) sending
instructions to handheld devices in proximity of the sculpture and ii) receiving files
from the handheld devices.
Table 1. Hardware components of Sonic Onyx
Part
Configuration/Tools
Server
PC with Dual Core 64 bit CPU, OS: Linux Debian
Bluetooth Systems Bluegiga WRAP access server with 3 Bluetooth radios
Sound Systems Sound Card - M-audio Delta 1010
Speakers - CAP-15 (7 piece)
Subwoofer - TIC GS50 omni
Power Amplifier - IMG STA 1508
Microphone mixer - Moncor MMX-24
Light System DMX 512 Lanbox-LCX system
A Bluegiga WRAP access server [12] makes the Bluetooth system. It has an Ethernet
interface which makes it possible to place it inside the sphere of the sculpture while the
main server resides in a building close by. The sound system was carefully chosen
since the installation is meant to be operational for many years in outdoor setting. The

Sonic Onyx: Case Study of an Interactive Artwork 43
speakers need to have robust design, good sound quality and outdoor specification. The
light system consists of a LanBox DMX controller which controls the light located in
the sphere of the sculpture [13]. The changing of color of the light is programmable
2.2 The Software
The main program which is called “Spamalot” runs in background all the time and
calls other subprograms when necessary. The application has two major tasks which
are: to receive files from the Bluegiga Bluetooth server and to process the files in
order to modify and/or generate sound. The processing of the received file is done by
Pure Data (called Pd here after) patches. Pd is an open source graphical programming
language used for interactive computer music and multimedia works [14]. Modular,
reusable units of code written in Pd are called ‘Patches’. The transfer script is a shell
script used to rename, timestamp and copy the files received from the Bluetooth
server. The script is executed every time a file is received.
Table 2. Software components of Sonic Onyx
Name Description Tools Used
Spamalot 265 lines of code Python
Processing Part Pd patches – 20 patches for
Sound, 13 for Image and 4
for text
Puredata, pd-zexy, pd-aubio,
gem, decoders,speech synthesizers
Transfer Script 60 lines of code Linux Shell
Web site 5 pages and a guestbook PHP, MySQL,
Besides the main application for running the system, a website was considered as
an important part of the project which will provide a) remote administration of art
music, b) provide sample sound files online and c) a guest book. Thus it is an extension
of the artwork that would allow flexibility in administration of the sculpture
sound system. The website that was primarily built using PHP and MySQL and it
supported uploading music files and guest book but no remote administration.
2.3 How Does It Work
The working process of the artwork can be described sequentially as follow: First, a
user sends a file from Bluetooth enabled device. The Bluetooth server inside the globe
receives the file and sends it to the central server located in the school building.
Obexsender [15] software that comes with the Bluegiga access server is used to transfer
the file.
An NFS-share is mounted on the main server as part of the access server file system;
in that way all incoming files are copied to the nfs-shared drive of the server.
Once the user file is in the server, it is converted into an audio file by the application
‘Spamalot’. Appropriate file conversion libraries are called and many encoders and
decoders are used in order to support a wide range of file formats. In case of text file,
it is converted into wav file. But in case of image it is converted into a jpeg which is
used to manipulate a preselected audio file by reverb and pitch shifting depending on

44 S.U. Ahmed, L. Jaccheri, and S. M’kadmi
Fig. 2. The architecture of Sonic Onyx sound system
the color values of the picture. In case of sound file, it is processed and modified
using random Pd patch. The modified file is then played by the sculpture using the
amplifiers and loudspeakers.
3 Development Context of the Project
The project was developed by a group of five computer science students from Trondheim
and Sør-Trøndelag University College (HiST) as part of their bachelor’s project.
The group had some prior knowledge on programming, electronics, web design and
project work but no experience of working in art projects. Besides the developers,
there was one project supervisor who is a teacher at HiST, the artist, who is the main
client of the project and a technical consultant from Media Lab, NTNU.
The development process that the group have followed can be described as an agile
or rapid development method more specifically [16]. They chose Python and used
DrPython IDE [17] to take the advantage of Python’s fast testing, and debugging
opportunities. They followed a two week iteration process with meetings every second
week and created a report documenting work done in last iteration as well as the
plan for next iteration. Communication between artist and the developers were pretty
good. Artist’s familiarity with technology and previous experience with similar project
made the communication smooth. But since the artist was not living in the same
town, he was invited to the meetings only when the developers had something significant
to consult him. Communication among developers was easy since they were
all students of the same class and many of them knew each other before. As the developers
had little experience and technical skill needed for this kind of artwork, a
technically experienced person was needed as a consultant in the development team.
Experts from Midgard Media Lab [18] took part in group meetings and helped the

Sonic Onyx: Case Study of an Interactive Artwork 45
group regarding domain related knowledge and expertise. Technologists also took part
with the artist in the conceptualization phase to define the concept of the artwork. The
functionalities of the system were defined, modified and changed through explorations.
4 Evaluation of the Project
The project is special in a way that students did not have previous experience of
working artist and on the other hand artist did not work with student developers. But
all in all, the project ran smoothly. The management of the project was good; everyone
was serious about the meetings and project deliveries and collaboration between
all members was very good. The group was very optimistic during the development
period. The project was a success in a way that students covered most of the requirements
except a few due to lack of time or load of complexity. For example, sending a
welcome instruction by the Bluetooth receiver was not completed. Besides, the web
site [19] of the project was not completed. The website made by the group was not
used by the artist mainly because: i) he did not like the layout and the design of the
web site and ii) the site was incomplete.
Unlike traditional sculpture or painting, the development of interactive art does not
end with the completion of the artwork; rather it continues enhancement and changes
with users’ responses and interaction with the sculpture. Besides, software dependent
artwork needs timely maintenance and upgrading. Interactivity and experimenting
with artwork increases the importance of maintenance and upgrading.
Sonic Onyx was built with the objective that pupils from the school will use it and
experiment different possibilities around the artwork. It was not meant to be an end
product, rather a developing one which will evolve with response to the users. Often
the sponsors of the artwork do not consider this difference and as such they overlook
the after delivery maintenance and upgrading of the system. This might be because of
their lack of awareness of maintenance and upgrading issues related to the interactive
installations or their unfamiliarity with technology dependent artworks. So the artist
has to take care of this factor and make the sponsor understand the necessity of maintenance
and upgrading. In case of Sonic Onyx, the artwork came across some afterward
maintenance problems such as hardware and configuration related problems.
Since there was no one responsible for maintaining, it was hard for the school to use it
continuously without interrupt. Placing an artwork in the public space specially in
outdoor setting without any supervision bring other safety issues, such as the subwoofer
placed in the ground was destroyed by the pupils from the school even though
it had protective cover.
Locating the artwork in a public space with a neighborhood raises some issues due
to its interruption of the environment such as how loud should it play, which time it
will play, when the light should be turned off during day time etc. These issues are
based on users’ feedbacks which actually evoke enhancements and modification of
the artwork and its software.
Involving students in the project as part of a coursework has certain issues such as
limitation of time. Besides developing the system, students need to get a good grade
in the course. In sonic Onyx, when a part of project was lagging behind due to manufacturing
delay of the arms, students could not wait till the end for deploying the
sculpture and the software system on the site. This was a bit surprising for the artist;
on the other hand students did not have any contract in the project, so they were not

46 S.U. Ahmed, L. Jaccheri, and S. M’kadmi
bound to wait until everything was ready. The artist was expecting a proper delivery
of the system including in site deployment and testing.
Backing up of the whole system at regular interval is important especially for a system
like Sonic Onyx which is supposed to be upgraded. For a complex interactive system to
carry on experimenting and adding, updating or modifying functionalities it is necessary
that the artist can roll back to a safe state after any kind of problems during the experimentation.
The system can also go down or crash any time and back up is important to
restart the system. Otherwise it can be a complete mess with the application.
Sonic Onyx is targeted to involve school pupils with music activities. Besides playing
files received from user’s handheld devices, it provides the possibility to add
auxiliary instruments such as microphone, mixer etc. Students can interact with Sonic
Onyx directly through its MIDI interfaces to control both light and sound allowing
them live performances. In this way it allows students of the school to create and store
music in the server, play directly and or mix different instruments with the help of the
sculpture. Thus the artwork not only enhances the school yard with its aesthetics
value but also involves the students with activities for learning and practicing music.
When in rest, the sculpture plays songs stored in the hard drive of the server. The
idea is to promote contemporary artists by playing their music in stand by mode and
bringing them closer to the audience. The web site of the project is planned to give the
artists the possibility to register, create account, and upload music files which will be
later played by the sculpture. In this way, besides the students it has the possibility of
engaging contemporary artists as well.
5 Conclusion
In this article we have presented the technical and functional descriptions of an interactive
artwork. We have presented here how artwork is very similar to a computer
application and raises many issues related to maintenance, upgrading, interaction, and
development process. Technology dependent artwork placed in a public place might
have similar issues that deserve consideration. We have also presented through Sonic
Onyx how interactive art has the possibilities of engaging people in an artful way. We
have shown how the artwork can involve students in learning and playing with technology
as well as attract contemporary artists to use the artwork to play their music.
Future work of Sonic Onyx includes live streaming of the playing of sculpture
through the project web site. Thus it will allow contemporary artists to upload,
store and administer music files through their web account and reach to the audience
through artwork playing their music. It would be also a nice extension to have the
possibility of user sending request via SMS or Bluetooth from the site of the sculpture
to play certain music. Based on user request ranking of music and playlists can be
made which will help engage all participant more enthusiastically.
References
1. Ahmed, S.U., Jaccheri, L., Trifonova, A., Sindre, G.: Conceptual framework for the intersection
of software and art. In: Braman, J., Vincenti, G., Trajkovski, G. (eds.) Handbook of
Research on Computational Arts and Creative Informatics. Information Science Reference,
p. 26 (2009)

Sonic Onyx: Case Study of an Interactive Artwork 47
2. A Brief History of Algorithmic Composition,
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system. European Journal of Information Systems 15, 617–626 (2006)
5. Trifonova, A., Jaccheri, L.: Software Engineering Issues in Interactive Installation Art. In:
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17. DrPython, http://drpython.sourceforge.net/
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19. Sonic Onyx, http://www.soniconyx.org

Paper 8
Salah Uddin Ahmed. "Developing software dependent artwork in collaboration with
students". Submitted to Leonardo Transactions.

DEVELOPING SOFTWARE
DEPENDENT ARTWORK:
ARTIST AND SOFTWARE
DEVELOPERS
COLLABORATION
Salah Uddin Ahmed
Norwegian University of Science and Te
chnology, Trondheim7491, Norway E-
mail: .
Submitted:
Abstract
Software-dependent artwork is on the increase as
software use expands into every part of our lives.
Sometimes artists develop this style of artwork by
themselves, but more commonly they seek help
from technologists creating an opportunity for
artists and software developers to collaborate. Here,
we present our experience with a real-world collaboration
through a case study of the development of
a software-dependent artwork where students were
the software developers. Keywords: Softwaredependent
artwork, case study, collaboration.
Software-dependent artwork creates
opportunities for interdisciplinary
projects where software developers and
artists work closely together. Art projects
involving software technology are interesting
for both artists and technologists:
artists want to use technology in their
work, while software engineers and researchers
are challenged to create a new
class of software applications. As a result,
researchers consider softwaredependent
artwork to be an information
system [1]. As such, the development of
this type of artwork also deserves the
involvement of Software Engineering
(SE). In a preliminary investigation, it
has been observed that SE can play important
roles in these kinds of art
projects in terms of the use of software
development processes, tools and developing
awareness of maintenance and
upgrading of artwork applications [2].
We at SArt project, led by Letizia Jaccheri
at the Norwegian University of
Science and Technology (NTNU), are
interested in proposing, assessing, and
improving methods, models, and tools
for software development in a fine art
context while facilitating collaboration
with artists. We have taken part in several
interdisciplinary projects involving art
and software. Here we present our experience
with a collaborative between an
artist and technology students in a
project called Sonic Onyx.
Collaborations between artists and
technologists may not function very
smoothly [3] [4, 5], due to the fact that
the collaborators come from two very
different disciplines. The development of
software-dependent artwork applications
is often different than traditional software
applications. For example, the system
specification in artwork is often not
very explicit and can change up until
very late in the project. Additionally,
collaboration between artists and technologists
is often driven by creativity
and innovation rather than by a specific
functional purpose. Moreover, student
projects have particular characteristics
that make them different from projects
developed by professionals. In this article
we briefly present features and characteristics
that affected the success of
the collaboration between technology
students and an artist in developing Sonic
Onyx, and the lessons that we have
learned from the project.
The software-dependent artwork
Sonic Onyx is an interactive sound
sculpture created by the artist Samir
M’kadmi [6]. It was placed in front of a
secondary school in Trondheim, Norway.
The sculpture is about four meters
high and the diameter of the “space” is
about seven meters. There are fourteen
static metal arms and a globe-like sphere
in the middle.
Fig. 1. Users interacting with Sonic Onyx
(2007) (©Samir M’kadmi, Photo © Salah
Uddin Ahmed)
The sculpture has seven loudspeakers
located in seven of its arms and a subwoofer
located in the ground in the center,
making it possible to provide 3D
sound effects in the space created by the
sculpture. People can communicate with
the sculpture by sending texts, images
and sound files from their Bluetoothenabled
handheld devices, such as mobile
phones or PDAs. Based on the type
of file, the information is distorted
and/or mixed with randomly selected
audio from the system and played back
by the sculpture and thus provoking the
sender to find a relationship between the
sent file and the played back audio.
When there is no user interaction, the
sculpture plays music composed by contemporary
musicians. Artists can create a
user account and upload and store files
of their musical compositions in the system.
The globe of the sculpture contains
a lighting system that changes colors,
which gives the sculpture a visual aesthetic.
The developers of the project
were final year bachelor’s degree students
from Sør-Trøndelag University
College (HiST). The project group involved
Håkon Grønning, the students’
advisor from HiST and Jarmo Röksä
from the Midgard Media Lab, NTNU,
which mediated between the artist, the
student group and the municipality of
Trondheim, and that served as a consultant
to the students.
Researchers from SArt (including me
as part of my PhD thesis under the supervision
of Letizia Jaccheri), took part
in the project as passive observers. We
followed the case study research strategy
as prescribed by Oates, [7] and used
several data collection methods such as
interviews, documents, questionnaires
and observation in order to collect a
wide range of data. Interviews were conducted
with the developers, the sponsor
and the artist. Several documents were
assessed, including the pre-project report,
weekly reports, meeting minutes
and the final project report.
Development context
The project was commissioned by the
municipality of Trondheim based on the
following guidelines proposed by the
artist: (i) The artwork should be interactive;
(ii) It should use the latest technology;
(iii) It should allow scope for
learning and pedagogy, and; (iv) The
development of the artwork should involve
educational institutions. The artist
had previous experience working with
interactive installations. He proposed a
set of general requirements for the interactivity
of the sculpture, with the option
of experimenting with the developers to
explore different possibilities and solutions.
The developers, who did not have
professional experience of working in
this kind of projects, had a two-fold objective
for the project. One was to complete
the project successfully within the
time and budget limit, the other was to
enable students to learn from the
process. To serve both purposes, the role
of project manager rotated among several
students. Report writing, documentation,
and other tasks such as taking
meeting minutes and writing emails were
shared among the members so that everybody
could share the workload and get
a sense of the variety of activities in the
project. While the group had meetings
every second week with the students’
advisor, the artist was called upon only
when needed since he lived in a different

city. However, the artist was present at
most of the meetings and the communication
with the group was frequent, good
and easy-going. The fact that the artist
had a reasonable understanding of different
tools and technologies made
communication easy. The artist had experience
with Max/MSP, which is quite
similar to Puredata, the software used for
the project. Puredata was selected for the
project because it was open source.
Since the developers were inexperienced,
the presence of J. Röksä as a
consultant for the group proved to be
very useful. In addition to Röksä, the
group also contacted sound professionals
in town for the sound system development.
From the artist’s point of view, the
collaboration was successful and the
project ran smoothly, which was also the
perception of the developers. Most of the
important functionalities were implemented,
except for a couple of tasks that
were not completed due to lack of time.
The artist was happy with the end product
for the Sonic Onyx system. According
to the models of co-creativity derived
by Candy and Edmonds [8], the collaboration
in this project can be described as
a partnership model with artist in control.
The artist took part in the implementation
phase with the technologists
and the technologists were involved with
the artist in the concept design phase.
However, not everything went as
planned. The production of the steel arm
for the sculpture was delayed by the steel
manufacturing company. As result, the
deployment of the sculpture took place
long after the student project had ended,
which meant the artist was left alone
during the time of final deployment and
system testing. The fact that there was no
one to help the artist with the on-site
deployment or installation surprised the
artist. Although it was a school project
and they did not have a written agreement
on how long or how extensively
the students should help with the project,
the artist expected the students to deliver
the system properly, including in site
deployment, testing and running the system
at its location. Another factor was
the time that students had to spend on
learning and researching suitable solutions,
due to the experimental nature of
the project and the lack of experience of
the developers. As the students mentioned
in the report, “Much time was
spent learning socket programming, and
the Linux C API. This was later abolished
when NFS file sharing arose as a
possibility”[9]. Except for these few
issues, the collaboration generally
worked well. The project enabled us to
identify several factors that we believe
are critical for the successful implementation
of an artist and technology student
collaborative project like Sonic Onyx.
Lessons Learned
The following are factors that we think
are important in creating fruitful artiststudent
collaboration:
i) The biggest risk in this kind of student
effort is that one does not know if the
project will deliver a working system or
not. According to the artist, “The main
difference between doing a project with
students and professional developers, if
we disregard professional efficiency, is
the insecurity. You are not sure if you
will end up with a fully functional system
as you do not know whether the
students will be able to or have the capability
to implement the whole system”.
ii) Another issue is after-development
support and maintenance. It is not reasonable
to expect technical support from
the students after the project is completed,
and the student group will not be
traceable or able to continue providing
support and maintenance of the system.
iii) With a student project, the artist must
be aware of the worst possible outcome
and be prepared for the failure of the
project. The artist or the developers or
any other resources in the project group
should have enough of an understanding
about the technology to enable the
project to be implemented. Without
access to technically experienced people,
the risk increases.
iv) Using new tools and technology is
always a challenge, especially for a student
group that has not had much work
experience. Experimenting with alternative
solutions also takes time. In fact,
much time can be wasted on learning
and searching for a suitable solution if
the group is inexperienced. Therefore,
guidance from experienced professionals
is important in a student project and the
earlier this can be arranged, the better it
is for the project.
v) A student group consists of members
with different levels of skill and motivation.
Good supervision is needed to enable
all members to work to their highest
potential.
vi) Good communication between the
artist and the developers is important and
the artists’ knowledge of technology and
ability to communicate with the technologists
is a plus in making communication
easy.
vii) Frequent communication and the use
of a partnership model where the both
artist and technologist are involved and
influence each other’s work are both
positive factors.
viii) An agreement is important to clarify
how long and how much support will
be provided by the student group.
Conclusion
Artist-students collaborations can be
successful when critical issues are properly
identified and addressed. The collaboration
can be beneficial for both artists
and students. Artists can realize their
artwork and by working with students,
can lower development costs and experiment
with trial-and-error based developments,
while students can learn SE
skills in the context of real life projects
and collaborate with artists and take part
in the creative process. Here we have
briefly shown the issues that were identified
in the Sonic Onyx project. We believe
that the lessons learned will be
helpful to both artists and software developers
who want to attempt similar
collaborative efforts.
References and Notes
1. Oates, B.J., New frontiers for information systems
research: computer art as an information
system. European Journal of Information Systems.
15,No. 6(2006): pp. 617-626.
2. Trifonova, A., S.U. Ahmed, and L. Jaccheri,
SArt: Towards Innovation at the intersection of
Software engineering and art, in 16th International
Conference on Information Systems Development
(Galway, Ireland: Springer, 2007).
3. Meyer, J., et al. Artists and technologists working
together (panel), Proceedings of the 11th annual
ACM symposium on User interface software and
technology (San Francisco, USA: ACM Press,
1998).
4. Biswas, A., et al., Assessment of mobile experience
engine, the development toolkit for context
aware mobile applications, in Proceedings of the
2006 ACM SIGCHI International Conference on
Advances in Computer Entertainment Technology
(California: ACM Press, 2006).
5. Biswas, A. and J. Singh. Software Engineering
Challenges in New Media Applications, Software
Engineering Applications (Dallas, TX, USA: ACTA
Press, 2006).
6. Sonic Onyx, < http://www.soniconyx.org/>,
accessed 12 May 2010.
7. Oates, B.J., Researching Information Systems
and Computing: SAGE Publications Ltd, 2006).
8. Candy, L. and E. Edmonds. Modeling cocreativity
in art and technology, Proceedings of the
4th conference on Creativity & cognition (Loughborough,
UK: ACM Press, 2002).
9. Asphaug, T., et al., Sculpture with 3D Interactive
Sound, Bachelor Thesis (Trondheim: Sør-Trøndelag
University College 2007). pp. 110.
Special thanks to S. M'kadmi, H. Grønning, and the
developers, T. Asphaug, C. Bielsa, E. M. Grytå, E.
Thorsrud, and T. Tollefsen for their cooperation
with the study. Thanks to L. Jaccheri for supervising
the case study.

Declarations on Co-author Consensus
P1: Letizia Jaccheri and Anna Trifonova
P2: Anna Trifonova
P4: Letizia Jaccheri, Guttorm Sindre and Anna Trifonova
P5: Cristoforo Camerano, Luigi Fortuna, Mattia Frasca and Letizia Jaccheri
P6: Abdullah Al Mahmud and Kristin Bergaust
P7: Letizia Jaccheri and Samir M'kadmi

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