ABSTRACT

Post-Modern Authorship in Computing Environments

Prof. Masoud Yazdani, Faculty of Art, Media and Design, University of the West of England, Bristol

Authorship is traditionally seen as an act that leads to the creation of artifacts that are to be appreciated by a reader (or user) in a holistic way, as a whole. Creating a multimedia document, an educational software package or many other digital objects is currently subject to this 'Modern' mindset which sees a clear divide between the programmer and the user.

What characterises a 'Post-Modernist' approach is a downplaying of the notion of "authorship". We aim to build an environment (instead of an algorithm) for creativity where new artifacts are created in a partnership between the author (programmer) and the reader (or user).

Recent AI work has also shown new ways that intelligent behaviour can be achieved through better representation of knowledge in the environment instead of inside computer systems. The 'knowledge in the mind' hypothesis on which most of traditional AI is based is replaced with the 'knowledge in the interface' hypothesis. Open Systems can also be viewed as 'Post-Modern'.

The seminar will present the speaker's work in developing a database of learning materials as part of a Virtual University project.

Computer Science Home Page

Maintained by rbennett@cs.ucl.ac.uk