Handbook of Multimedia for Digital Entertainment and Arts- P21 pptx

602 A.F. Marcos et al.
enabled this communication or interaction phenomenon to occur. The role of the
spectator may become gradually more active by interacting with the artwork itself
possibly changing or becoming a part of it [2][4].
When we focus our analysis on the creation process in digital art we easily con-
clude it is intrinsically linked with the design and development of computer-based
artworks. By exploring computer technologies digital art opens to new type of tools,
materials and artworks as also establishes new relationships among creators, art-
works and spectators or observers, largely not comparable to previous approaches.
Indeed we can describe art objects as simple symbolic objects that aim at stim-
ulating emotions. They are created to reach us through our senses (visual, auditory,
tactile, or other), being displayed by means of physical material (stone, paper, wood,
etc.) while combining some perceptive patterns to produce an aesthetic composi-
tion. Digital art objects differ from conventional art pieces by the use of computers
and computer-based artifacts that manipulate digitally coded information and digital
technologies, i.e., they explore intensively the computer medium, what opens un-
limited possibilities in interaction, virtualization and manipulation of information.
These digital art objects or artifacts, where some are possibly non-tangible, con-
stitute, in fact, the resulting product from the artistic creation process that together
establishes a common communicational and informational space. Information or
information content, meaning the intended message of each artifact, is a central con-
stituent of this common communicational and informational space. Accordingly,
artistic artifacts, may these be of digital or physical nature can be defined as in-
formational objects. The computer medium is defined here as the set of digital
technologies ranging from digital information formats, infrastructures to process-
ing tools that together can be observed as a continuum art medium used by artists to
produce digital artifacts [9][10](seeFig.1).
When we consider the creation process itself, we can establish its beginnings
when the creator gets an hold of the first concept or idea resulting from his/her sub-
jective vision, gradually modeled into a form of (un)tangible artifact. It constitutes
the message, this about something, the artist wants to transmit to the world. When

Physical
World
Continuum Art Medium
Digital Art
Virtual
World
Virtual
Transient
Interactive
Real
Permanent
Passive
Mechanic
Electronic
Artifacts
Computer-
based
Artifacts
Interactive
Digital
Artifacts
• Stone
• Hood
• Ceramic
• Pigment
•…
• Mechanical
• Electrical
• Electronic
Components

• Digital Information Content
• Multimedia & Multimodal
& Ubiquitous Technology
• Communication & Presentation
& Storage Infrastructures
•…
Fig. 1 The Continuum Art Medium
27 The Creation Process in Digital Art 603
digital content is used in this process, it can be both the means and the end product.
On one hand, the digital content can be explored as the means to create non-digital
artifacts, as for instance, digitally altered paper-based photography, and, on the other
hand, be the end-result intended as it is the case in animated comics.
In fact, digital art applies the computer medium both as raw material (e.g. the dig-
itally coded information content) and as a tool of enhancing creativity. The reader
shall become aware of the fact that raw material is related here to unprocessed (or in
minimally processed state) material that can be acted by the human labor to create
some product. Similarly, digitally coded information content can be manipulated by
digital artists to create artistic objects. When in the creation process, digital artists
apply information content along with technologies from multimedia, virtual reality,
computer vision, digital music and sound, etc. as also the information and com-
munication infrastructure available such are the internet, presentation devices, and
storage arrays, among others, to create interactive installations and generate digital
artifacts. Therefore, the computer medium traverses effectively all the stages of the
creation process, from concept drawing until the final artifact production and exhi-
bition. Today’s powerful editing and programming tools make it possible to an artist
to modify, correct, change and integrate information content as valuable raw mate-
rial in the creation process, that may be presented in several digital formats such are
text, image, video, sound, 3D objects, animation, or even haptic objects.
We are here interested in the creation process of the artifact per si, following a
model based in what Routio, in his works on arteology (the science that studies the

artifacts), labels as project-specific artistic development that purports to assist the
creation of a single artifact (or a series of them) by defining its goals and providing
the conceptual model on which the work of art shall be based [12]. Thus and because
it deals intensively with the computer medium, in digital art this creation pro-
cess inherits aspects from computer systems development (even hardware=software
engineering) and design process. The artifact’s message, narrative and end-shape de-
sign is pivotal as also its technological implementation and final deployment within
a exhibition space [7][8].
Moreover, artistic communities need to have access to common technological
infrastructures that facilitate collaboration (collaborative editing, annotating, etc.),
communication and sharing of work experiences, of materials, being these, unpro-
cessed digital content or final artifacts, activities that are essential for a soft progress
from the starting concept to the final artwork. We argue here that as in other human
activities, artistic creation benefits from the collaboration within a community of
equals while having access to materials and tools. Such common information space
is in effect a creative design space; thought design (in the sense of shaping) is the
fundamental activity in the creation process of digital art.
In this chapter we propose to analyze and discuss the main concepts and defini-
tions behind digital art while proposing a model for the creation process in digital
art. It allows for a smooth progress from the concept=idea until the final product
(artwork) while exploring the computer medium to its maximum potential. The
chapter is divided in the following sections: first we give an overview of the back-
ground of digital art in terms of its fundamental concepts and developing vectors.
604 A.F. Marcos et al.
Next we describe the creation process for digital art, embracing the creative design
space architecture while presenting concrete examples. Finally we draw out some
conclusion.
Digital Art Fundamentals
Digital art has its roots within the first decades of the twentieth century with isolated
experiments created by a few visionaries whose results were mostly exhibited in art

fairs, conferences, festivals and symposia devoted to technology or electronic media.
These first artworks have been mostly classified as marginal to the mainstream art
world. Alike in the Dadaist art movement some of these artworks were seen as a
form of anti-art.
The development of science and technology has been the principal engine of the
evolution of digital art. But, what we know today as digital art has been strongly
influenced by several art movements such were, among others, Fluxus, Dada, and
Conceptual Art. These movements brought into digital art the emphasis on formal
instructions, the focus on concept, on the event per se, and also, the emphasis on the
viewer’s participation, contrasting to the art based on unified static material objects.
From the Dadaism specifically, digital art inherited the concept of creating art by
using precise predefined rules, i.e., a finite set of instructions generates the final
artwork (a poem, a painting). The rule’ or algorithm’ instruction was adopted as the
conceptual central element in the creation process. Instruction-based art is a fertile
soil of today’s digital art. Similarly, the Fluxus art movement has also extensively
explored the idea of instruction-based generated art along with the immersion of the
audience in the event, forcing an interaction between the spectator and the artworks.
Influences from the Conceptual art, a movement emerged in the 1960s, came from
its central statement “the idea or concept is the most important aspect of the work”.
This is still a way of thinking and practice common to many digital artists in all
over the world. The concept or idea is the leitmotif for the shaping of the digital
artifact. It means that “all of the planning and decisions are made beforehand and
the execution is a perfunctory affair, i.e., the idea becomes a machine that makes the
art”, by artist Sol LeWitt (1967).
Digital art, as it is known nowadays, entered the world art in the late 1990s when
museums and art galleries started increasingly to incorporate digital art installations
in their exhibitions. The Intercommunication Center (ICC) in Tokyo, Japan; the
Center for Culture and Media in Karlsruhe, Germany; the Ars Electronica Festival
in Linz, Austria; the EMAF - European Media Arts Festival, Osnabr¨uck, Germany;
the VIPER (Switzerland); the International Art Biennale of Cerveira, Portugal; and

the DEAF - Dutch Electronic Arts Festival are examples of initiatives that have sup-
ported and initiated digital art consistently all over the last two decades. Digital art
is today a proper branch of contemporary art [10][11].
Today’s digital artifacts range from virtual life as it is the case of A-Volve (1994)
from Christa Sommerer and Laurent Mignonneau, a virtual environment where
27 The Creation Process in Digital Art 605
Fig. 2 In the left: Rotary Glass Plates (Precision Optics [in motion]), 1920, by Marcel Duchamp.
In the right: Autopoiesis, 2000, by Kenneth Rinaldo (courtesy of the author)
aesthetic creatures try to survive; to artificial life robotics installation such is Au-
topoiesis (2000), by Kenneth Rinaldo that presents sculptures with sensors that
react to the visitor by moving their arms towards the person provoking attraction
or repulsion (see Fig. 2). Virtual Characters (usually called Avatars), Internet art and
Cyborgs are topics where digital artists are active nowadays. A more comprehen-
sive overview of the today’s aesthetic digital artifacts can be obtained from Paul
Greene [11].
Definitions
Digital art is in fact a recent term that became a general designation for several
forms of computer-supported art, from computer art (since 1970s), multimedia art,
interactive art, electronic art and more recently, new media art. Under the defini-
tion of digital art there are several art branches commonly connected to the specific
media or technology they are based on.
We define digital art as art that explores computers (tools, technologies and dig-
itally coded information content) as a tool and material for creation.
In the course of this definition digital art has to incorporate the computer medium
in its creation process, even if the final artifact does not visibly integrate computer
or digital elements.
In Fig. 3 we present an overview of the different artistic areas related to digital
art. As we can observe, digital art embraces, by definition, all type of computer-
supported art.
Digital art is mainly based on three grounding concepts: controlled randomness

access; presentational virtuality and interactivity that have been behind emergent
606 A.F. Marcos et al.
INTERACTIVITY
VIRTUALITY
RANDOMNESS COMPUTING
Vide
o Art
Multimedia
Art
Electronic Art
Interactive Art
E
Interactive Art
Software Art
Vide
o Art
Virtual Art
DIGITAL ART
Information
Art
Interactive
Virtual Artifacts
Passive Virtual Artifacts
Interactive Electronic Artifacts
Multimedia
A
Mu
Interactive Art
dia
Art

D
D
I
G
I
T
A
L
AR
T
nformation
Inf
nf
Art
El
e
c
t
r
o
n
i
c
A
r
t
Fig. 3 A general categorization of digital art
artwork from the 1960s to today’s digital art installations. They can be described as
follows:
- Randomness Access: (pseudo) non-deterministic instruction-based algorithms

open the possibility of instant access to media elements that can be reshuffled in
seemingly infinite combinations;
- Virtuality: the physical object is migrated into a virtual or conceptual object.The
concept itself becomes perceptible through its virtualization;
- Interactivity: the viewer may assume an active role in influencing and changing
the artwork itself.
The artwork is often transformed into an open structure in process that relies on a
constant flux of information and engages the participant in the way a performance
might do. The audience becomes a participant in the work, resembling the com-
ponents of the project that may display information of a specific perceptive nature
(visual, auditory, tactile, or other). The artist plays usually the role of facilitator for
the participant’s interaction.
Creation Process
The creation process in digital art relies often on collaborations between an artist
and a team of programmers, technicians, engineers, scientists and designers, among
others. This collaboration implies a multidisciplinary work involving art, science,
technology, design, psychology, etc., that form a common communicational and
27 The Creation Process in Digital Art 607
informational space. Due to the widespread of the digitally coded information con-
tent that is increasingly available in high expressive multimedia formats, the creation
process is becoming more and more based on the manipulation and integration of
digital content for creation of artworks.
Accordingly, we need a common creative design space where digital artists can
smoothly progress from the concept=idea until the final product (artwork) while
exploring the computer medium to its maximum potential. This common cre-
ative design space incorporates necessarily a communicational and informational
space beneath, where digitally coded information content of different nature and
level of processing is available for the artists’ use. Furthermore, tools for editing,
design or for any specific processing and composing have to be offered along with
facilities for communication and collaboration among the community members. The

creative design space shall also provide tools to support all the activities at all phases
of the creative design process, ranging from the drafting phase, passing through the
artifact’s implementation phase until the artifacts exhibition preparation (exhibition
space design) as also the access to physical and/or digital exhibition space. This way,
the creative design space will facilitate the establishment of communities of inter-
ests in art, where people from different backgrounds share materials (raw material),
and digital collections while collaborating throughout common goals.
The meaning of design in this context, appoints to a conscious effort to create
something that is both functional and aesthetically pleasing. Design is here taken
from both the perspective of design in engineering and from a more inventive view
as it is the case in applied arts.
As L
¨
owgren and Stolterman [8] state design is always carried out in a context
(p. 45). In digital art, design of digital artifacts is mainly based on the conceptual-
ism’s aphorism where the initial “idea or concept becomes a machine that makes
the art” (Sol LeWitt, 1967). However, unlike in the pure design process, where the
problem-solving guides de action of the designer, in digital art such systematic man-
ner appears not primarily to solve a problem but to enhance the intention to the
realization, i.e., the final artifact. Generally, artists follow an alike process in devel-
oping their creative ideas, though they may be less conscious of the process they
are following. Initially the artist will tend to experiment in a rather random manner,
collecting ideas and skills through reading or experimentation. Gradually a partic-
ular issue or question will become the focus of the experimentation and concrete
implementation, formulating alternative ways, trying them, in order to adopt a re-
fined one that will be pursued through repeated experimentation [7]. Thus the design
process itself evolves from a vision or idea (even if it is not aware for the creator)
until the final digital artifact is released. The message the spectator can obtain from
the artifact in terms of a personal or group experience is the central issue the digital
artifact holds.

From this point of view the digital artifact is nothing but a designed thing built
around a core of digital technology. In digital art context, the artifact is an object
embracing information content displayed by means of digital media or a combina-
tion of digital and physical components. The artifact acts as a materialization of a
message, a piece of information, throughout the presentation of information content
608 A.F. Marcos et al.
intended to stimulate emotions, perceptive experiences on side of the user. Thus,
artistic digital artifacts, being these of pure digital or a combination with physical
constituents are more adequately defined as informational objects.
Digital content is defined as informative material of digital nature that holds the
ability to be acted to transmit a message. Some authors, as for instance Robert Musil
in his unfinished novel “The Man without Qualities”, refer to digital technology
and by legacy, digitally coded information content, as the material without qualities
due to its pervasive characteristics and constantly development. These are, however,
characteristics that open, almost on a daily basis, new challenges and possibilities
for aesthetical experiments since the computer medium can constantly wear new
presentational facets.
The Process
The creation process in digital art is mainly based on the design of the arti-
fact’s message and its development. The computer medium in the form of editing,
communication and collaboration tools as well as digitally coded information con-
tent is likely to be always present and traversing the overall creation process.
As depicted in Fig. 4 the creative design process is launched when the artist
gets hold with an initial idea=concept. Then, the artist starts to design the concept,
entering a process that will lead into the final artifact. This process is not a linear
process, on the contrary, artists may go back and further in the activity sequence,
skipping one or focusing the work in another. The process is usually highly dynamic,
yet, the artist’s vision is always present. The creation process involves the following
phases:
Message Design phase:

- Concept Design: in this activity the artist gets involved in converting his=her
idea=concept or vision into a set of sketches, informal drawings, i.e., the abstrac-
tion is concretized in a perceptive structure. The artist does exploratory drawings
that are not intended as a finished work. The outcomes of this activity are, thus,
sketches, drawings that allow the artist to try out different ideas and establish a
first attempt for a more complex composition.
- Narrative Design: here the artist takes the drawings resulting from the concept
design activity and designs a composition, a construct of a sequence of events
that set up the message that will allow the users=viewers an emotional connec-
tion which grants memories and recounting of the artwork. The narrative of the
message behind the initial concept is designed taking into consideration aspects
such as the structure of its constituent parts and their function(s) and relationships.
The narrative assumes the form of a chronological sequence of themes, motives
and plot lines. The outcome of this activity can be resumed as the design of the
message as a story.
- Experience Design: this activity embraces the process of designing the message,
taking into account its related concept and narrative, to design and conceptual-
ize specific characteristics of each narrative event from the point of view of the
27 The Creation Process in Digital Art 609
Narrative
Design
. Sketching
. Draft drawing
Concept
Design
Experience
Design
Artifact
Design
Artifact

Implementation
Artifact Exhibition
Planning
Artist Vision
. Exposition set up
. Evaluating
. Storytelling
. Scripting
Perceptive designing:
. Content
. Interaction
. Architecture design
. Technology selecting
. Use scenario design
. Application realizing
. Techno. integrating
. Artwork deploying
Aesthetic Musing
Artist
Starting
Concept
Public
Final
Artifact
. Aesthetic
concern
. Technology
innovation
Fig. 4 Overview of the Creative Design Process phases
human experience it shall provide. This design or planning of the human expe-

rience is made based on the consideration of an individual’s or group’s needs,
desires, beliefs, knowledge, skills, experiences, and perceptions. The experience
design attempts to draw from many sources including cognitive and perceptual
psychology, cognitive science, environmental design, haptics, information con-
tent design, interaction design, heuristics, and design thinking, among others.
Aesthetic Musing: this is a central activity in the creative design process, it repre-
sents the moments of contemplation where the artist revise his=her vision against
the decisions made (to be done) during the design and development of the artifact.
We identify two guiding vectors in aesthetic musing of artifacts:
- Aesthetic concern: process of integrating characteristics in the artifact that eventu-
ally provide a perceptual experience of pleasure, meaning or satisfaction, arising
specifically here from sensory manifestations of the artifact such are shape, color,
immersion, sound, texture, design or rhythm, among others. Beauty here relates
almost exclusively to the aesthetic dimension of the perceptive nature of the arti-
fact components.
- Technology innovation: process of integrating novelty in the reshape, use, com-
bination and exploitation of digital technology. This appoints to the computer
medium dimension of the beauty creation, i.e., the technology is a driven force to
610 A.F. Marcos et al.
set up new aesthetic dialogues. Taken the fact of the digital technology is under
accelerated development; integration of high levels of technology innovation in
digital art is commonly desired.
Artifact Development phase:
- Artifact Design: this activity relates to all aspects concerned with the design of the
computer system or application that will support the final artifact. This includes
the design of the system architecture, interface and interaction, as well as the
selection of technology to implement them. Since the artifact is to be acted usually
by an audience of viewers, we have also considered in this activity the design of
the use scenario from the technological point of view. Design adopts here a hybrid
perspective mixing aspects from applied arts and engineering. It applies principles

from a more rigorous design based on exploitation of technology, science and
even mathematical knowledge along with the aesthetical concerns.
- Artifact Implementation: in this activity the artist proceeds to the implementation
of the artifact itself. This incorporates tasks as programming, testing and debug-
ging, as well as, technology integration and the final artifact deployment. This
demands from the artist to hold programming and technological skills if he=she
wants to have a more direct control over the implementation process. The artist
can even be assisted by a team of programmers and technologists; however, to
be in command of the artwork, the artist has to be skilled in technology to a cer-
tain level.
- Artifact Exhibition Planning: this activity joins together all aspects related with
the setting up of the artifact exhibition. This represents the final stage of the over-
all creative design process, where the artifact is brought into the world, i.e., the art
object meets the audience. The success of this meeting will depend increasingly
on the attractiveness of the artifact, the way the exhibition space is organized, how
the logistic of its different components are managed and supported and also on the
contextualization of the artifact in the overall exhibition. Notice this activity will
be based on the decisions made before in terms of the message design, the artifact
implementation, and above all, on the use scenario configuration. Artifacts may
be presented in museums, art halls, art clubs or private art galleries, or at some
virtual place such is the Internet.
The Creative Design Space Architecture
The creative design space is the local, physical and virtual, where the creative design
process is realized. As previously defined, a creative design space is a digital com-
municational and informational space that enables the generation of artistic content,
the storage, transmission and exchange of digital data while providing the exhibition
and presentation space for access to information and content by both specialists and
the public.
27 The Creation Process in Digital Art 611
Starting

Concept
Creative Design Space
Aesthetic
Musing
Message Design
Artifact Development
Concept
Design
Artifact
Exhibition
Planning
Narrative
Design
Experience
Design
Artifact
Design
Artifact
Implementa-
tion
Technology
• Multimedia/ Multimodal
• Virtual Reality / Avatar
• Ambient Intelligent
• Computer Vision
• Algorithms/ Programming
• Copyright Management
•…
Infrastructure
• Internet / WWW

• Conference Rooms
• Grid/Ubiquit.Computing
• Storage Arrays
• Presentation Devices
(Caves, Video halls, mobile)
•…
Design & Collaboration
Tools
• Drawing /Storytelling
• Content/I nteraction Design
• Document Sharing
• Annotating
• Version Management
• Cooperative Editing
•…
Computer Medium:t echnology
• Digital Doc. Libraries
• Digital Music Libraries
• Individual Catalogues
• Ad hoc Materials
•…
Digital Document
Repositories
User Community
Final
Artifact
• Digital Art Collections
• Online Museums, Art
Galleries, Exhibitions
• Individual Catalogues

• Ad hoc Materials
•…
(Digital) Art
Repositories
• Digital Recoveries
(Archaeological, Cultural,
Architectural Sites)
• 3D/2D reconstructions
• Ad hoc materials
•…
Hybrid Cultural
Heritage Content
Computer Medium: information content
Artist Community
Accessing via Presentation
Devices
Artifact
Fig. 5 The Creative Design Space Architecture
The creative design space aims at supporting an artistic community by enabling
all the main activities of the creative design process by providing tools for design,
shaping, planning, collaboration, communication and sharing of information as well
as giving access to digitally coded information content of diverse nature. Usually,
such a space has also to provide exhibiting facilities for presentation of final artifacts
to the audience.
As a whole, the creative design space as depicted in Fig. 5 is not entirely affected
either by technological advances or the needs of users and creators. The flow of
work from one activity to another remains conceptually the same.
As previously noticed, the computer medium is likely to traverse all the stages of
the creative design process, from concept drawing until the final artifact production
and exhibition. As we can observe in the figure 5 the computer medium can be

divided in two main lines of contributions, namely:
- Computer medium as technology: we identify here three principal types of tools:
 Design & Collaboration Tools: they include all type of tools and applications
that support activities related with design, drawing, planning, etc. as well as
those allowing the collaboration among groups of artists to happen throughout
communication, sharing of files, joint editing and annotating, etc.
612 A.F. Marcos et al.
 Technology: we consider here all the computer technologies that are offered
not only as tools or applications but principally as technological areas whose
knowledge, procedures and techniques can be exploited in benefit of the cre-
ative design process. Programming languages, toolkits, specific algorithms,
concepts and architectures, scripting techniques or procedures in areas such
are virtual reality, computer vision or ambient intelligent are good examples
of the technology mentioned here.
 Infrastructure: this relates to all supporting infrastructures that make the com-
puter medium to happen, in terms of communication, conferencing, storage
facilities, computing capacity, presentation devices, etc.
- Computer medium as digitally coded information content: we identify here three
principal types of information content:
 Hybrid Cultural Heritage Content: this relates to all kind of content, partial or
full digital, collected from different cultural heritage sources such are arche-
ological sites, museum, 2D and 3D digital recoveries of architectural and
historical findings, etc. Cultural heritage content has been serving as raw ma-
terial for the shaping of digital artifacts that aim at transmit specific cultural
messages. For instance, digitally altered photography is exploiting to a great
extend digital photographs of famous paintings.
 Digital Document Repositories: these relate to the more formal document
repositories ranging from text and image documents, digital music databases,
from institutional or personal catalogues and collections. This type of infor-
mation content is adequate, for instance, to be applied in artifacts that explore

more official information sources, as for instance, the ones based on narratives
referring to historic, real-life elements (dates, names, events).
 Digital Art Repositories: these relate to digital-born art objects, media, docu-
ments, etc. owned by art galleries, museums, festivals, art houses, individual
or ad hoc collections that are accessible online. Under this classification we
consider also all the artifacts generated within the creative design space that
can be digitally stored.
Artists enter the creative design process by providing a starting concept. Then, all
along the message design and artifact development phases, the artist may bring into
play several types of tools, by a single manner or collaborating with colleagues,
while using digitally coded information content. Incorporated in this information
content we might have also parts of or complete artifacts. They can be, possibly,
reused as simple musing objects or be even transformed into new forms. Thus, the
management of copy rights in the accessing and re-use of digital content is a manda-
tory requirement for a successful development of the community of interest over the
common creative design space.
Notice that the final artifact is released into the digital repositories and not
directly to the audience. This is because the access to the digital artifacts has to
be done by presentation devices within an exhibition space, being this physical such
is a museum room or virtual like the Internet.
27 The Creation Process in Digital Art 613
Discussion
We are aware of the risks behind the proposal of a creative development process
model, when the phenomenon of artistic creation or creativity is still not explained
at all. However, digital art is an art branch that relies intensively on the computer
medium.
Digital art brought the interaction and virtuality (in the sense of the immaterial)
in art, as artists explore new forms of involving the spectator in the artwork and
enhancing the shift from object to concept in the form of the “virtual object”. This
virtual object is usually seen as a structure in the process, sometimes dynamic and

volatile, that creates expressive effects, stimulates emotions and perhaps feeling on
the part of the spectator, who might become an active player when interacting with
the artwork itself and changing it in unforeseen new shapes.
Furthermore digital artists often explore the concept of combinatorial and strict
rule-based process inherited from the Dadaism poetry, as well as, controlled ran-
domness to generate and activate instructions for information access and processing.
This leads to the materialization of artworks resulting from pure instruction-based
procedures as was the work of the American composer John Cage, whose work car-
ried out in the 1950s and 1960s, explored extensively these concepts. Cage described
music as a structure divisible into successive parts that could be filled by means of
automatically controlled randomness and instruction-based algorithms. This open
an infinite set of possibilities for creation.
On the other hand, the intensive development of the information society has im-
plications in the widespread of huge volumes of rich multimedia content and their
usage in shaping digital artifacts. One way or other, our civilization’ heritage is
turning into digital format and, to a great extent, available for free. Design and pro-
cessing tools are become common place and increasingly trouble-free thought they
will integrate artificial intelligence in order to facilitate the creation process. Art
shall become, in short time, a prerogative of everybody, granted the access to the
computer medium. Therefore, the emergence of collaborating artists’ communities
sharing a common informational and communicational space increases the need for
concrete implementations of the creation process where people may work alone but
also act in group by sharing ideas and content with colleagues linked over a common
creative design space.
We have observed that regardless of the specific digital medium employed, the
creation process is essentially the same. People start with a first idea or concept and
go along all or some of the different creation process phases. Important differences
between artists in their methods of realizing an artifact can generally be ascribed
to the differing technical requirements of the digital medium. These differences are
superficial and mainly related to the technical understanding of the specific digital

medium and the related computer-based technologies.
In fact the most important aspect in the digital art outcome is the concept em-
bedded in. The concept is what the artist wants to show to the audience, .i.e., it is
this “about something”. The specific digital medium is the mode of expression or
communication used by the artist to convey the concept at hand. It may be con-
crete, as in the case of an interactive installation, or ephemeral, as in the case of a
614 A.F. Marcos et al.
sound recording or motion picture. Although copies of these latter works exist in
physical form, they are not meant to be appreciated for their physical manifestation.
Digital art may embrace ephemeral artworks that are meant to be appreciated in the
dimension of time rather than all at once in space.
Thus, we can summarize the creation process in digital art as the application of an
individual’s concept to a specific digital medium or groups of media, by exploring
the potentialities of the computer technologies and infra-structures along a set of
phases that start in the design of the message and ends in the deploying of the final
artifact.
We are aware of the complexities behind objectives to achieve normalization
of art-based processes. Art is still dominated by subjectivity, creativity and non-
quantifiable outcomes that are opposed to science objectivity and methodological
replication goals. However, digital art is an art branch that relies intensively on the
computer medium, thus the computing science. Consequently deconstructing the
design process behind digital artifacts must open new avenues for the digital art
analysis but even more important enhance community knowledge about replicable
methods usable in the design and creation of new digital artifacts.
Conclusions and Future Work
In this chapter we have analyze and discussed ground concepts and definitions be-
hind digital art, emphasizing how the computer medium is itself the tool and the
raw material in its creation. We have presented a model for digital art creation that
consists of a creative design process implemented by means of a common design
space where digital artists can smoothly progress from the concept until the final

artifact while exploring the computer medium to its maximum potential.
We have seen the creation process in digital art is essentially about design of the
message and experience the artifact will transmit and allow, as also its implementa-
tion as a computational system or application.
The computer medium affects here the role as the tool to enhance the creation
process; as also as the raw material when the digitally coded information content and
computer components are primarily explored in the shaping of the artifact. We have
also stated the activity of digital art creation is mostly about collaboration among
a multidisciplinary team. It requires a common communicational and informational
space where the different activities of the creation process can be realized along with
communication and collaboration facilities, as also, the access to digital information
content and exhibition spaces have to be provided.
References
1. Beveridge, W.E.B. (1957). The Art of Scientific Investigation, (New York; Vintage Books).
2. Duchamp, M. (1959). The Creative Act. Lecture at the Museum of Modern Art, New York,
October 19, 1961. Published in Art and Artists, 1, 4 (July 1966).
27 The Creation Process in Digital Art 615
3. Eco, U. (1962). The Open Work. Harvard University Press, (1989).
4. Eliot, T.S. (1920). Tradition and Individual Talent in The sacred wood; essays on poetry and
criticism. London: Methune, [1920]. ISBN:1-58734-011-9.
5. Grau, O. (2003). Virtual Art – From Illusion to Immersion. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The
MIT Press.
6. Greene R. (2005). Internet Art. London: Thames & Hudson Ltd.
7. Laurel, B. (ed), (2003). Design Research: Methods and Perspectives. The MIT Press.
8. L
¨
owgren, J., & Stolterman, E. (2007). Thoughtful interaction design – a design perspective on
information technology. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press.
9. Marcos, A. (2007). Digital Art: When artistic and cultural muse and computer technology
merge. IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, 5(27), 98–103.

10. Marcos, A., Branco, P., Carvalho, J. (2009). The computer medium in digital art’s creative
development process. In James Braman & Giovanni Vincenti (Eds.), Handbook of Research
on Computational Arts and Creative Informatics: IGI Publishing.
11. Paul, Ch. (2005). Digital Art. London: Thames & Hudson Ltd.
12. Routio, P. (2007). Arteology, the Science of artifacts. University of Arts and Design Helsinki
(UIAH). Printed from the Internet at: h.fi /projects/metodi/108.htm (visited at
01.02.2009)
13. Wilson, S. (2002). Information Arts: Intersections of Art, Science, and Technology.Cam-
bridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press.
Chapter 28
Graphical User Interface in Art
Ian Gwilt
Introduction
This essay discusses the use of the Graphical User Interface (GUI) as a site of cre-
ative practice. By creatively repositioning the GUI as a work of art it is possible to
challenge our understanding and expectations of the conventional computer inter-
face wherein the icons and navigational architecture of the GUI no longer function
as a technological tool. These artistic recontextualizations are often used to ques-
tion our engagement with technology and to highlight the pivotal place that the
domestic computer has taken in our everyday social, cultural and (increasingly), cre-
ative domains. Through these works the media specificity of the screen-based GUI
can broken by dramatic changes in scale, form and configuration. This can be seen
through the work of new media artists who have re-imagined the GUI in a number
of creative forms both, within the digital, as image, animation, net and interactive
art, and in the analogue, as print, painting, sculpture, installation and performative
event. Furthermore as a creative work, the GUI can also be utilized as a visual way-
finder to explore the relationship between the dynamic potentials of the digital and
the concretized qualities of the material artifact.
As the image, functionality and modality of the GUI is moved across, and be-
tween media types (recontextualized as a form of art), it can also act as a syncretic

agent in the establishing of hybrid mixed-reality forms and readings. Unlike the VR
experience, where we are expected to locate ourselves in an alternative disembodied
computer generated space, the concept of mixed-reality implies that we can retain a
much stronger sense of our physical presence and location, while interacting with a
digitally mediated environment. The notion of mixed-reality art is framed both per-
ceptually and formally around the interplay between physical and digitally mediated
spaces. Mixed-reality art allows for the formulation of multi-modal combinations
of environments referencing the qualities we assign to the digital - dynamism, com-
plexity, interconnectivity, mutability and so on, to work in tandem with the material
I. Gwilt (

)
Faculty of Design Architecture and Building, University of Technology, Sydney
e-mail:
B. Furht (ed.), Handbook of Multimedia for Digital Entertainment and Arts,
DOI 10.1007/978-0-387-89024-1 28,
c
Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2009
617
618 I. Gwilt
culture of physical art forms, objects and spaces and the qualities we assign to these,
such as - value, originality, weight and stability. The desktop metaphor of the GUI
can be read as a dual metaphor, which recalls actions and qualities from both digital
and material cultures. Through the premise of mixed-reality the GUI interface res-
onates in both digital and physical environments, where the mutability of its devices
and metaphors can be used to contest the usual technological and cultural signifi-
cances assigned to them.
Strategies for the Re-contextualization of the GUI
in Art Practice
As a technological tool the GUI acts as a human computer interface where famil-

iarity with the desktop metaphor is intended to give the user a sense of immediacy,
enabling the user to look past the medium of the computer altogether in an attempt
to make the technology transparent and to establish a sense of the empirical expe-
rience. However, at the same time the notion of hypermediacy [1] suggests that the
user is constantly presented with the interface through the interplay and arrange-
ment of complex digital media.
1
This dual tendency situates the GUI at the centre
of our contemporary relationship with computer technologies, to the extent that our
quasi-ritualistic interactions with the GUI can be used and indeed have been used to
initiate a number of digitally informed creative practices. These appropriations are
commonly realized in three main ways: firstly, by the utilization of the established
aesthetic of the computer interface; secondly, by producing unexpected media inter-
pretations of GUI iconography; and thirdly, through the concepts of mixed-reality
art in multimodal reframings of the GUI. In many cases the digital/material dialec-
tic has been problematized through the types of strategies which we associate with
Conceptual art movements of the 60s and 70s. This includes the use of the creative
tactics of interventions, readymades and documentation processes.
2
1
Bolter and Grusin discuss the idea of the transference of image from one media to another and the
associated cultural and semantic implications associated with this activity [1]. They argue that the
remediated experience (throughout media both old and new) is made up of the contradictory duality
of immediacy and hypermediacy. The concept of immediacy refers to the notion of a ‘live point of
view’, present in digital media. Immediacy suggests a transparent experience where the nature of
the delivery medium disappears and the content / experience becomes the main focus. Conversely,
the idea of hypermediacy implies that this primary experience is always intrinsically linked to the
nuances of the delivery medium, from the texture of paint on canvas, to split-screen television news
interviews and the screen architecture of web browser navigation devices. Hypermediacy suggests
that the affect of the media is always present in the content delivery.

2
Conceptual art represented a dematerialization of the art object and a questioning of art’s medium
specificity. Moreover, it was interested in the redefining of the spaces in which we might encounter
art. Tony Godfrey defines the works, concepts and actions of Conceptual art into four main cat-
egories. Firstly: readymades, wherein the artist recontextualizes existing material to comment on
meaning or significance, (as exemplified through the work of Duchamp), secondly; interventions,
the placing of an element in a different or unexpected context, thirdly; documentation, of social,
cultural, or scientific phenomena or systems, and fourthly; words and the use of the written texts
or trysts as artistic commentary, information, instruction or criticism [4].
28 Graphical User Interface in Art 619
The Visual and Conceptual Configuration of the GUI
The history of digital computing is a relatively short one, which has already been ex-
tensively documented [2]. However, it is important here to locate the role of GUI in
relation to the computer’s expedient growth into everyday use, as it can be attributed
with playing a major part in the rapid dissemination of domestic computer-based
technologies. It is a commonly held belief that important cultural shifts are based
around enabling technologies [3][4], and that these shifts are frequently aligned with
an associated visual aesthetic. I would argue that the GUI is the associated visual
aesthetic of domestic digital computing (enabled through the underlying technolo-
gies of computer programming and microchip advancements). The GUI has become
a techno-cultural phenomenon, creating a cultural shift through which easy access
to digital content is achieved by the manipulation of a series of visual icons, menu
systems, mouse, keyboard and cursor [6]. The GUI is literally an interface between
the numeric languages of computer code, the semantic particulars of command-
line interfaces, and an adaptable series of user outcomes, which can be understood
and applied by the populace. The success of the GUI as a visual signifier for
computer technologies is grounded in this wide spread popularity as an interface
between human and machine. Moreover, the prevailing use of icon based visual
architecture and the desktop metaphor means that the GUI has gained sufficient
cultural recognition that it can now be seen as a technological referent for artistic

commentary.
Just as the work of Andy Warhol in the 1960s drew on a culture of commod-
ity consumption and mass production in the economic boom of industrial America,
the computer interface as a communal artifact and point of social convergence has
also begun to inform a sector of contemporary art practice in the era of the digital
economy. As Pop art elevated the images of material consumption to art status, the
aesthetics of computer information technology - in both hardware and software -
have become the image of digitization in the early part of the twenty first century.
The material canonization of the GUI aesthetic can be compared to the Pop art tropes
of the 1960s, which had the ability to elevate the mundane content of commercial
consumption to cult status. Commenting on this relationship between the interface
and material form in art, Louise Poissant states that ‘the renewal of art forms has
materialized through a series of iconoclastic gestures, which has introduced new ma-
terials that were first borrowed from the industrial world or from everyday life and
progressively from the domain of communications and technology’ [7]. Moreover,
the hybrid nature of mixed-reality art has the potential to recreate the sensibili-
ties of the digital aesthetic in a variety of cultural environments and media forms,
through the weaving together of both interface and material culture. These new lam-
inates can be seen as a contributing agent in this acceptance of the digital form. As
Lev Manovich states ‘Content and interface merge into one entity and no longer can
be taken apart.’ [6].
620 I. Gwilt
The GUI as an Environment for Art Practice
In previous texts I have extensively discussed the work of a number of artists who
have been creatively repositioning the GUI as image and artifact since the mid
1990s.
3
In the following section I would like to describe the work of two contem-
porary artists who are continuing in this tradition. As the GUI evolves through new
three-dimensional interfaces, complex data retrieval/visualization possibilities and

Web 2.0 initiatives, new possibilities for re-imagining the GUI in a creative context
are established. As we consider these artworks we should keep in mind the digi-
tal/physical lineage of these artifacts. The GUI recontextualized as art gives us the
opportunity to look critically at the evolution of the computer desktop metaphor and
its appropriation back into object based artifacts. As Melinda Rackham comments:
Most people today are aware that the GUI has influenced print design and commercial
media, but are unaware to the extent that internet works and desktop icons are being made in
traditional art forms like painting, sculpture, drawing, engraving, and even needlepoint. [8]
Moreover, the transformation from digital to material artifact sets up the potential
for these representations of computing technology to be accepted as precious, rari-
fied artworks, which command value and prestige. Again in the words of Melinda
Rackham, ‘unlike the more ephemeral and distributed net art, these works often have
a ready made object based art market willing to purchase them.’ [8].
A rapidly developing digital paradigm, in which we are seeing the increased
public engagement with geographical and other space-based rich data retrieval, and
visualization possibilities is also being referenced in art practice. Enabled through
the uptake of in-car way-finding systems, Google Earth and Google maps software
etc., these tools have their own set of visual icons and GUI devices. A work entitled
Map (2006) by Aram Bartholl, humorously comments on this cultural shift. In this
work the red place marker icon used in the Google map software is materialized as
if it were seen in the actual physical location that has been identified by an online
Google map search (Fig. 1). Made from wood and fabric, the physical marker corre-
sponds proportionately to the scale that it is seen at on the map in the Web browser
(when viewed at maximum zoom) [9]. This creative intervention elicits a response
from passers-by when placed in a public space, and indicates how the referencing of
the GUI is continuing to evolve artistically through new applications of technology,
and continuing to bleed into physical spaces through these art practices.
In another GUI based work, the artist Ben Fino-Radin makes reference to the
notion of sharing and communities. In the sculptural pieces of Hyperlink (2006),
Fino-Radin weaves together the visual symbol for connectivity from the Internet

3
For further information on artistic references to the GUI see the following texts: From Digital
Interface To Material Artifact, Proceedings of ISEA 2008 The 14
th
International Symposium on
Electronic Art, Pages: 202–203, Year of Publication: 2008, ISBN: 978-981-08-0768-9 A Brief
History of the Graphical User Interface in Contemporary Art Practice, 1994–2004, Proceedings
of the Ninth International Conference on Information, Pages: 931–936, Year of Publication: 2005,
ISBN ISSN:1550-6037, 0-7695-2397-8
28 Graphical User Interface in Art 621
Fig. 1 Aram Bartholl Map (2006) installation view. Image Aram Bartholl
Fig. 2 Ben Fino-Radin Hyperlink (2006) plastic needlepoint canvas and yarn. Image Ben Fino-
Radin
(the pointing finger cursor) with the real-world arts and crafts notions of social
circles and communities, typically associated with needlepoint and embroidery
practices (see Fig. 2). As Fino-Radin explains about his own work, ‘the environ-
ments I create with these objects are a space for the vernacular of two seemingly
different cultures (crafts and computers) to rub up against each other and create a
new culture/tribe with psychedelic/spiritual depth.’ [10].
622 I. Gwilt
Conclusion
Despite critics, the desktop interface has proved to be an enduring and practical in-
terface between user and computer, and the recent iterations of the GUI are still very
much grounded in the paradigms of the original desktop and windows metaphors.
These visual icons and navigation systems have stood the test of time, surviving
a period of highly dynamic and volatile technological growth in the rise of con-
sumer computing. However, the current trend towards the realist representation of
desktop icons, facilitated by increasing computer-processing power, may eventu-
ally complete the visual transition between the notion of a ‘traditional’ digital GUI
aesthetic - one of limited colour and simple geometric forms - to one comprised of

photo-realistic imagery. This visual synthesis, from symbol to image, may not inher-
ently change the functionality of the desktop interface (although it may contribute to
the notions of transparency as discussed above). Nevertheless, it may lead to a weak-
ening in the flexible interpretation of the desktop interface metaphor, which through
the use of a graphic language, signals that it is an agent of mediation. Whereas, the
user expectations of a photo-realistic icon may well have a more strongly correlated
expectation of functionality in relation to the behaviors of its real-world counter-
part. The continuation in this trend towards a photo-realistic interface potentially
assigns the GUI (as a distinguishable visual form) to history. New technological
developments including dynamic information systems, increasingly efficient voice
recognition, biometric sensing devices and perceptual computing techniques (where
the computer responds directly to physiological input signals), all point to the pos-
sible end of the dominance of the desktop metaphor and the GUI as the widespread
domestic computer interface. The question is - will these shifts in the form of the
GUI negatively impact on its use as an artistic social cultural referent, or continue
to offer new and different creative opportunities.
References
1. J. D. Bolter, and R. Grusin, “Remediation: understanding new media”, MIT Press, 1999.
2. P. E. Ceruzzi, “A history of modern computing”, MIT Press, 1998.
3. P. Hayward, “Culture, technology and creativity in the late twentieth century”, John
Libbey, 1990.
4. R. Pepperell, and M. Punt, “The Postdigital Membrane: Imagination, Technology and Desire”,
Intellect Books, 2000.
5. T. Godfrey, “Conceptual art”, Phaidon, 1998, pp. 7.
6. L. Manovich, “The Language of New Media”, MIT Press, 2001, pp. 88, pp. 67.
7. L. Poissant, “The Passage from Material to Interface”, “Media Art Histories”, O. Grau. The
MIT Press 2007, pp. 229.
8. M. Rackham, “arteface”, unpublished text taken from introductory section for gallery show
proposal, curated by Melinda Rackham and Ian Gwilt. For details of the proposal contact
, 2005.

9. A. Bartholl, “Net Data vs. Every Day Life”, Retrieved Jan 24th 2009, from http://www. daten-
form.de/mapeng.html 2006.
10. B. Fino-Radin, (2006). “Ben Fino-Radin – Hyperlink” Retrieved Jan 31
st
2009 from
finoradin.info/hyperlink.htm 2006.
Chapter 29
Storytelling on the Web 2.0 as a New Means
of Creating Arts
Ralf Klamma, Yiwei Cao, and Matthias Jarke
Introduction
Both non-digital and digital stories draw attentions of the audience and make people
remember stories for a longer period of time due to interesting plots, involved emo-
tions and strong expressiveness of narrations. The essence of stories has not been
changed for thousands of years in spite of the emergence of digital media. Stories
are one of the most important arts collected or created by human beings. Stories
are embedded in fine arts, e.g. the impressionist artwork Dance at Le Moulin de la
Galette by Auguste Renoir tells one of the most vivid stories quietly. Stories create
arts as well, e.g. George Lucas’ Star Wars episodes have a significant impact on
culture and society and perform exact the roles of art pieces.
Various multimedia content including videos, music, images, podcasts, digital
maps, 3D models, and games etc. has emerged on the Web 2.0. Arts are collective
human intelligence and survive over centuries, while the terminologies like digi-
tal media, storytelling, or Web 2.0 are associated with a rather “short” transition
period of time. This contrast raises new challenges how Web 2.0 based storytelling
contributes to arts for communities or even for society.
Multimedia content has been widely employed in the computer gaming branch,
such as the quite mature video game market, as well as the emergent educational
gaming and serious games. Video games attract a large number of players, be-
cause it stimulates the competition and cooperation of players on the one hand.

On the other hand, the stories supporting video games play an important role. How
can we organize a collection of diverse media from the multimedia forest full of
“chaos”? One approach is to make that media tell stories which involve personal
experiences and emotions. The storytelling process could be a process of creat-
ing arts in an unconscious way. Meanwhile, storytelling is an effective approach to
sharing experiences and knowledge among user communities of common interest
R.Klamma,Y.Cao(

), and M. Jarke
Informatik 5 (Information Systems), RWTH Aachen University Ahornstr. 55, D-52056,
Aachen, Germany
e-mail: fklamma, cao,
B. Furht (ed.), Handbook of Multimedia for Digital Entertainment and Arts,
DOI 10.1007/978-0-387-89024-1 29,
c
Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2009
623
624 R. Klamma et al.
[1, 11, 26]. Nonetheless, much social networking sites use the term “share a story”.
New information and communication technologies as well as Web 2.0 support story-
telling with seamless integration of various multimedia content. Besides books and
paper based documents, stories have been told in films, TVs, and nowadays widely
in the Internet. Hence, how stories are told with the Web 2.0 technologies such as
weblogs, videos, and images becomes a potential and interesting research field.
There is no doubt that only a few stories could become arts. Arts are created
and deposited as a tedious knowledge process across a wide range of communities
and over a long period of time. Information increases rapidly on the Web 2.0 while
the number as well as the knowledge of experts does not. It is hard to judge the
correctness of online information. Links can be distinguished between authority
and hub. Is a story told online trustworthy? Experts and their knowledge have been

cultivated in communities of practice [29], in which people are motivated to practice
together and learn among themselves due to common interests. Expertise knowledge
is accordingly collected and experts arise. Hence, experts have their own particular
knowledge domain and are not universal on Web 2.0 (cf. Figure 1). Accordingly,
arts can be created through storytelling in communities of practice.
The motivations of storytelling could be concluded as knowledge creation and
sharing for arts concisely. Stories are told both for fun and for learning across user
communities. However, the real and hidden motivations of storytelling on the Web
2.0 can help developers design and develop advanced multimedia information sys-
tems to meet requirements of user communities. Web 2.0 enables every Internet
users to tell stories easily just with a mouse click, which lowers the barriers of media
or art access and control greatly. It is also instructive to observe how the major role
Fig. 1 Web 2.0 and Communities of Practice
29 Storytelling on the Web 2.0 as a New Means of Creating Arts 625
has been exchanged from experts to amateurs or wide crowds. Here, experts refer
to those who use traditional media such as films and TVs, while amateurs and wide
crowds are emergent super stars or invisible hero or heroins on Web 2.0.
In fact, with the same multimedia content a story can be told in a totally dif-
ferent way. First, sequences of the multimedia content can be organized in diverse
ways. Second, the same multimedia content can be shared by or be used to com-
pose different stories. However, the currently prevailing Web 2.0 platforms or social
networking sites lack approaches to flexible authoring of multimedia content. The
existing technologies produce a great amount of user-generated content, of which
no certain purpose is connected with multimedia content. Storytelling is an effective
and entertaining approach to pass and embed certain meaning and certain purposes
to multimedia content. It expresses that media has its semantics only if it is used in
a context.
On the one hand, storytelling focuses on the research of contextualizing and
re-contextualizing multimedia content with Web 2.0 approaches such as content
tagging, rating with feedback. On the other hand, the roles of communities of prac-

tice, the intertwining roles of amateurs and experts on the Web with user generated
multimedia stories help the storytelling approach create artworks.
Furthermore, the mobility and mobile multimedia information systems are re-
alized by diverse service development, which is in line with the Service Oriented
Architecture and the Software as a Service paradigms. Storytelling platform real-
ization is also discussed in this chapter. For example, the Web 2.0 based YouTell
is a storytelling Web site for personalized storytelling and expert-finding. Besides
the storytelling board, an additional user model is conceptualized to assign dif-
ferent media operation rights to users with different roles. The Web 2.0 features
such as tagging and ranking stories are also employed. Story search algorithms
are developed including a profile-based algorithm. In addition, experts with certain
knowledge can be identified in communities of practice. The storytelling process is
intertwined with a set of Web 2.0 approaches and expert finding. The art value of
multimedia stories is enhanced accordingly.
Use Scenarios
As a case study, we make storytelling available in the Bamiyan Development Com-
munity (www.bamiyan-development.org) within the Virtual Campfire project [4].
The joint aims of the community is the preservation and development of the
Bamiyan Valley in Afghanistan. The cooperation work is carried out by different
communities including architects, cultural scientists, computer scientists, web de-
signers etc. The valley, in the heart of the Hindu Kush Mountains, is perhaps best
known for the tragic demolition of the two Buddha statues which are listed among
UNESCOs World Heritage Sites. This part of Afghanistans cultural heritage, and its
preservation, can have a major impact on sustainable tourism and economic devel-
opment for the whole region.
626 R. Klamma et al.
Scientists and professionals who fled from the oncoming war took part of the
then paper-based archives with them, scattering those archives all over the world.
The generation of scientists and professionals trained and working before the war is
now reaching retirement age. Afghan scientists, and professionals trained in other

countries, are coming to Afghanistan to help rebuild scientific infrastructures and
management of the cultural heritage. While the older scientists and professionals
have at least some archived knowledge about the status quo of Afghan sites and
monuments before the war, young scientists and professionals use modern infor-
mation technology and new scientific methods to actualize the knowledge about
the sites and the monuments. In order to bring both together, they need a channel
to communicate and cooperate among them. Thus, an international and intergener-
ational cooperation was initiated, because no cultural heritage management work
was done over two decades on site in Afghanistan during the civil war.
Web 2.0 based storytelling is an effective and useful tool for the communities
working on cultural heritage conservation in Afghanistan. Professional communi-
ties start to make extensive use of Web 2.0 tools and platforms to enhance their
knowledge work. But, with the Web 2.0 and the new computing capabilities in the
mobile ubiquitous Internet, the relationship between professionals in their closed
communities and amateurs in the Web 2.0 is debated again.
Researchers, engineers and other professionals document the status of the niches
of the Bamiyan Buddha in the Bamiyan Valley during a campaign. They make use
of special measurement equipment for 3D-stereometry and widely available devices
such as Global Positioning System (GPS) enabled camera systems. All resulting ma-
terials, e.g. digital images with additional stored GPS coordinates, will be requested
by a mobile multimedia database on a laptop of a researcher. The international com-
munity can immediately access the materials by the community information system.
They can tag the multimedia and they can relate it in other media. Moreover, pro-
fessional communities can create a multimedia story which can be used to train the
local staff in Afghanistan [24] (cf. Figure 2). So the local communities can gain
knowledge to head for professional communities.
Related Work
This section pertains to the concepts and practices of Web 2.0, Community of Prac-
tice,and storytelling. Several existing storytelling platforms are also surveyed then.
Above all, the main difference between Web 2.0 and Web 1.0 is the idea that com-

puters are more media than tools. The term “Social Software” characterizes this
very concisely. Social Software is well known by examples like the digital image
sharing platform Flickr (http://www.flickr.com), the digital video sharing platform
YouTube () or the social bookmarking platform del.icio.us
(http:// del.icio.us) and can be broadly defined as environments that support activ-
ities in digital social networks [12]. Digital social networks are a connected social
graph of human and non-human (media) actor representations mainly realized by
29 Storytelling on the Web 2.0 as a New Means of Creating Arts 627
Fig. 2 Professional communities build-up with educational gaming