my big question that I’m gonna start
with is can technology make you more
creative this is kind of a tricky
question really because it depends on a
lot of different things right so I’m
gonna turn it into how can I work with
technology to be more creative myself so
this is this is more interesting and the
thing was when we talk about technology
we really quickly go to our social
intelligence these days and when you
think intelligence and creativity you
think these things sort of go together
and the fun thing about creativity is
that you’re often creating these
processes that result in great
performances or in great paintings but
you usually only see the performance you
don’t get to see all the steps there and
there along the way and a is kind of the
same way we end up being the patterns
that it that it’s generating at the end
we don’t see all the bad things that
came up with or all the bugs so we tend
to think of these things as being a bit
magic but they’re not quite that way so
I started out as a dancer and
choreographer originally and a place to
be because you spend a lot of time
developing these skills and techniques
that you can use at any time so you can
walk into a rehearsal with 15 dancers
and look exactly the same as them
operating at the same expertise or
hopefully better if you’re lucky but you
also need to be able to solo and so
along with all these techniques that
you’ve spent years developing you’re
also spending time developing your
personal style which requires getting to
know yourself quite well and we need to
be able to go back and forth between
these things but sometimes we run into
some issues such as if you’re going to
go choreograph then you’ve done all this
time developing this expertise but it
helps you out in some ways it’s giving
you this great foundation to work from
but at the same time when you go to
think you have a great idea for a new
project and you’re gonna take a couple
of you’re gonna develop some work to
that sometimes the work you’re
developing looks similar to your last
three projects and that’s kind of
challenging because in a way your
expertise has become a habit which can
be a good thing but when you’re trying
to push yourself further and trying to
figure out how to be really creative
that can be challenging your habits and
your expertise can start to get in your
way
so I also was really fascinated with
technology along the way and the thing
that blew my mind when I first started
programming was how you take a problem
and you have to break it down to a
series of steps now a computer doesn’t
just read your mind to do things you
have to really articulate what that is
you have to define what you’re doing
create a series of steps and have a
logical flow through them and all these
steps accumulate creating some sort of
end product and I immediately thought
well isn’t that the same as choreography
because you still have to develop some
movement material make it into some some
steps put a couple of phrases together
and you have a piece
so where’s so it’s all about the steps
and the steps are really important
because that’s where we have choice in
what we’re doing and we can develop a
system it’s going to do these things by
itself if we really wanted to there’s
two fascinating systems composer David
cope developed a system that can
generate Bach and Harold Cohen developed
the earrin system which can paint
portraits of people in landscapes in the
1970s and I’ve been to conferences where
people spend days talking about how is a
system creative how do we evaluate if
the system’s creative could we as humans
even evaluate that or should a machine
be evaluating it these are kind of
tricky questions and you know they they
work sort of in music and painting but
as a dancer I wasn’t quite sure how to
bring that back because the thing is
that I get to work with humans which are
these amazing things that you know are
living and breathing in the studio and
everything
I work with them is pretty much
collaborative because I can develop
movement and get them and they’ve got
that skill and expertise to make it look
perfect whether there’s 15 of them or
one and go solo do something different
that it’s unique to them and come right
back and they have these skills but they
have the same problem so that their
expertise can become I have it I can get
in their way sometimes so it seems like
it would make sense to be kind of simple
to just toss some technology into this
we’ve got cameras and drawing tablets
motion capture systems fitbit’s iPhones
all these things are fabulous fabulous
and right at our fingertips but the
problem is that a motion capture system
can’t make you dance any better it can
only capture what you can already do so
I started trying to play with some other
systems I played with a little bit of AI
I worked with genetic algorithms which
is model solution and I started just
generating some wild dance positions and
this was fun for a little bit but the
problem was that I could do these things
and always come back to my heaven my
expertise is still there so I developed
some some fancier rules try to do things
that are a little bit even wilder but
same thing
it was exciting for a minute and then my
expertise took over and this was very
frustrating for a while until I read a
book by Patricia Stokes who’s a
psychologist list he talked about the
idea that if you’re just getting ideas
to be more creative all the time of
course I have a problem because you’re
picky taking your expertise with you and
while that’s a good thing you need your
expertise to do this kind of work you
also need ways to get around it and
artists have developed a lot of tools
and tricks for doing this over the years
but one of the things that Tricia Stokes
mentioned was you need to identify what
your habits are and be really honest
with yourself about how to engage with
them so if you can pull back on some
things while being creative and doing
something really unique to you at the
so the thing I love about work
technology is a great tool for
collaboration because both computers and
humans have strengths and limitations so
computers are great at crunching data at
finding patterns quite quickly but
humans are pretty good at bringing their
memories and their experiences and their
sensations into the studio with them
they can make meaning with something
right away but the problem is that
humans or computers have a hard time
tracking that kind of magic and
playfulness so that kind of leaves you
with are you just stuck with an
algorithm but the other thing is that
we’ve still got these humans who are
bringing their habits and their
expertise again important but sometimes
gets in their way so computers are quite
good at being able to generate things
that can inspire us well not having all
the baggage of their history with them
so what I ended up doing just to let you
in is that I spend a lot of time
evaluating what my movement habits were
and where I wanted to feel safe and of
course it would be that I was stable
symmetrical I tend to do curvy limbs
with with flowy energy because those are
very human things so I flipped it and I
tried to make things that were unstable
asymmetrical with really hard joints and
I was amazed at how quickly I was able
to start doing things that did start to
feel quite new and I ended up developing
a system with that that I’ve used now
many times to choreograph and you can’t
tell that the uncor iographer was made
with us you don’t see that technology
was part of this process at all but it’s
been really unique in helping me find
new ways working with it and I’ve tested
this with other choreographers who’ve
had similar experiences which is
there we go so this also works in other
places though as well so I’ve been on
teams of people that have applied this
in graphic design there’s a system that
also uses genetic algorithms in order to
let designers give seed material and
then there are manipulating and creating
variations of this with the bunch of
rules around color and shape and
variations and palates and so and then
with music there’s the system that has
been working with improvisation with
live performers so it’s generating music
depending on what they’re doing but
improvisation is special because you are
composing in the moment and so with that
the system can have an attention that
wanders around the space and shifts
depending on what it feels like so to go
back to this initial question of how can
I work with technology to be more
creative it’s a challenging thing
because AI can’t just solve your
problems and neither can your iPhone
unfortunately but you can deal with it
yourself and it really does come back on
to you because you get to notice your
system and the rules that you use and
how you twist and turn those rules and
you also get to notice your habits and
figure out what encourages you to move
beyond them and so really if you take on
that responsibility yourself you have
the tools to be creative in new ways
have to have the courage to intervene
with it thank you [Applause]
with is can technology make you more
creative this is kind of a tricky
question really because it depends on a
lot of different things right so I’m
gonna turn it into how can I work with
technology to be more creative myself so
this is this is more interesting and the
thing was when we talk about technology
we really quickly go to our social
intelligence these days and when you
think intelligence and creativity you
think these things sort of go together
and the fun thing about creativity is
that you’re often creating these
processes that result in great
performances or in great paintings but
you usually only see the performance you
don’t get to see all the steps there and
there along the way and a is kind of the
same way we end up being the patterns
that it that it’s generating at the end
we don’t see all the bad things that
came up with or all the bugs so we tend
to think of these things as being a bit
magic but they’re not quite that way so
I started out as a dancer and
choreographer originally and a place to
be because you spend a lot of time
developing these skills and techniques
that you can use at any time so you can
walk into a rehearsal with 15 dancers
and look exactly the same as them
operating at the same expertise or
hopefully better if you’re lucky but you
also need to be able to solo and so
along with all these techniques that
you’ve spent years developing you’re
also spending time developing your
personal style which requires getting to
know yourself quite well and we need to
be able to go back and forth between
these things but sometimes we run into
some issues such as if you’re going to
go choreograph then you’ve done all this
time developing this expertise but it
helps you out in some ways it’s giving
you this great foundation to work from
but at the same time when you go to
think you have a great idea for a new
project and you’re gonna take a couple
of you’re gonna develop some work to
that sometimes the work you’re
developing looks similar to your last
three projects and that’s kind of
challenging because in a way your
expertise has become a habit which can
be a good thing but when you’re trying
to push yourself further and trying to
figure out how to be really creative
that can be challenging your habits and
your expertise can start to get in your
way
so I also was really fascinated with
technology along the way and the thing
that blew my mind when I first started
programming was how you take a problem
and you have to break it down to a
series of steps now a computer doesn’t
just read your mind to do things you
have to really articulate what that is
you have to define what you’re doing
create a series of steps and have a
logical flow through them and all these
steps accumulate creating some sort of
end product and I immediately thought
well isn’t that the same as choreography
because you still have to develop some
movement material make it into some some
steps put a couple of phrases together
and you have a piece
so where’s so it’s all about the steps
and the steps are really important
because that’s where we have choice in
what we’re doing and we can develop a
system it’s going to do these things by
itself if we really wanted to there’s
two fascinating systems composer David
cope developed a system that can
generate Bach and Harold Cohen developed
the earrin system which can paint
portraits of people in landscapes in the
1970s and I’ve been to conferences where
people spend days talking about how is a
system creative how do we evaluate if
the system’s creative could we as humans
even evaluate that or should a machine
be evaluating it these are kind of
tricky questions and you know they they
work sort of in music and painting but
as a dancer I wasn’t quite sure how to
bring that back because the thing is
that I get to work with humans which are
these amazing things that you know are
living and breathing in the studio and
everything
I work with them is pretty much
collaborative because I can develop
movement and get them and they’ve got
that skill and expertise to make it look
perfect whether there’s 15 of them or
one and go solo do something different
that it’s unique to them and come right
back and they have these skills but they
have the same problem so that their
expertise can become I have it I can get
in their way sometimes so it seems like
it would make sense to be kind of simple
to just toss some technology into this
we’ve got cameras and drawing tablets
motion capture systems fitbit’s iPhones
all these things are fabulous fabulous
and right at our fingertips but the
problem is that a motion capture system
can’t make you dance any better it can
only capture what you can already do so
I started trying to play with some other
systems I played with a little bit of AI
I worked with genetic algorithms which
is model solution and I started just
generating some wild dance positions and
this was fun for a little bit but the
problem was that I could do these things
and always come back to my heaven my
expertise is still there so I developed
some some fancier rules try to do things
that are a little bit even wilder but
same thing
it was exciting for a minute and then my
expertise took over and this was very
frustrating for a while until I read a
book by Patricia Stokes who’s a
psychologist list he talked about the
idea that if you’re just getting ideas
to be more creative all the time of
course I have a problem because you’re
picky taking your expertise with you and
while that’s a good thing you need your
expertise to do this kind of work you
also need ways to get around it and
artists have developed a lot of tools
and tricks for doing this over the years
but one of the things that Tricia Stokes
mentioned was you need to identify what
your habits are and be really honest
with yourself about how to engage with
them so if you can pull back on some
things while being creative and doing
something really unique to you at the
so the thing I love about work
technology is a great tool for
collaboration because both computers and
humans have strengths and limitations so
computers are great at crunching data at
finding patterns quite quickly but
humans are pretty good at bringing their
memories and their experiences and their
sensations into the studio with them
they can make meaning with something
right away but the problem is that
humans or computers have a hard time
tracking that kind of magic and
playfulness so that kind of leaves you
with are you just stuck with an
algorithm but the other thing is that
we’ve still got these humans who are
bringing their habits and their
expertise again important but sometimes
gets in their way so computers are quite
good at being able to generate things
that can inspire us well not having all
the baggage of their history with them
so what I ended up doing just to let you
in is that I spend a lot of time
evaluating what my movement habits were
and where I wanted to feel safe and of
course it would be that I was stable
symmetrical I tend to do curvy limbs
with with flowy energy because those are
very human things so I flipped it and I
tried to make things that were unstable
asymmetrical with really hard joints and
I was amazed at how quickly I was able
to start doing things that did start to
feel quite new and I ended up developing
a system with that that I’ve used now
many times to choreograph and you can’t
tell that the uncor iographer was made
with us you don’t see that technology
was part of this process at all but it’s
been really unique in helping me find
new ways working with it and I’ve tested
this with other choreographers who’ve
had similar experiences which is
there we go so this also works in other
places though as well so I’ve been on
teams of people that have applied this
in graphic design there’s a system that
also uses genetic algorithms in order to
let designers give seed material and
then there are manipulating and creating
variations of this with the bunch of
rules around color and shape and
variations and palates and so and then
with music there’s the system that has
been working with improvisation with
live performers so it’s generating music
depending on what they’re doing but
improvisation is special because you are
composing in the moment and so with that
the system can have an attention that
wanders around the space and shifts
depending on what it feels like so to go
back to this initial question of how can
I work with technology to be more
creative it’s a challenging thing
because AI can’t just solve your
problems and neither can your iPhone
unfortunately but you can deal with it
yourself and it really does come back on
to you because you get to notice your
system and the rules that you use and
how you twist and turn those rules and
you also get to notice your habits and
figure out what encourages you to move
beyond them and so really if you take on
that responsibility yourself you have
the tools to be creative in new ways
have to have the courage to intervene
with it thank you [Applause]
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