Participatory theater: interacting with autonomous tools for creative applications

摘要

Creating art can be seen as creative exploration through a design space defined by the artist and the tools. Artistic tools such as brushes and chisels are passive, stressing direct manipulation interaction that leaves exploration to the artist. If tools were more autonomous, creativity could be enhanced by allowing the artist to delegate aspects of exploration. We describe a software environment called Agentsheets that combines direct manipulation and delegation into an interaction scheme called participatory theater. The advantages of this approach are described in the context of two drawing applications. Art Pals and Art Dwarves, that involve the computer more actively in exploration. We also explore the utility of participatory theater in the physical world by describing our experiences developing and using autonomous painting robots in conjunction with a professional artist.