Performamatics
Performamatics is a collaboration between the UMass Lowell Computer Science, Art, Music, and English departments in the area of exhibition and performance technologies [1]. The common thread in performamatics projects is that many tasks, performed by multiple people, must come together on a tight schedule by a specific date to achieve a desired result. Performamatics also implies that each team member must “perform” his or her task in a way that can be integrated into a final product, regardless of whether that team member participates visibly in the culminating event.
We define performance broadly to encompass all CS applications in the creative and performing arts. These areas not only resonate with today’s media-rich culture, but reinforce the fact that virtually all computer applications now require the integration of creative elements. CS and Arts majors alike must learn to work with specialists in areas where the perspective is often quite different from their own. We believe that computer scientists have much to learn from those trained in the arts and vice versa.
Planning for an event such as exhibition or performance gives very sharp focus to one’s work. Building on the “artbotics” concept pioneered by Yanco et al. [2], we believe that focusing CS assignments around a theme and making those assignments part of a larger project, doing the assignments in conjunction with arts and humanities majors, and having those assignments result in a broadly interpreted exhibition or performance can invigorate traditional CS programs such as ours and both attract and help retain CS majors.
Notes
[1] This work is supported by NSF Award No. CNS-0722161, “CPATH CB: Performamatics: Connecting Computer Science to the Performing, Fine, and Design Arts.” Principal Investigator: Jesse M. Heines. Co-Principal Investigators: Fred G. Martin, Gena Greher, Jim Jeffers, and Karen Roehr. Senior Personnel: Sarah Kuhn and Nancy Selleck.
[2] Yanco, H.A., Kim, H.J., Martin, F., & Silka, L. (2007). Artbotics: Combining Art and Robotics to Broaden Participation in Computing. Proc. of the AAAI Spring Symposium on Robots & Robot Venues, Stanford Univ., CA.