Yesterday, we learned that MishMash has been funded. Many people are asking about our plans, so here is a quick overview based on those outlined in the application. What? MishMash will be a large Norwegian centre dedicated to exploring the intersection of AI and creativity. Our primary objective is to create, explore, and reflect on AI for, through, and in creative practices. We will investigate AI’s impact on creative processes, develop innovative CoCreative AI systems, and address AI’s ethical, cultural, and societal implications in creative domains....

Yesterday, I received a brief phone call from the Research Council of Norway, where I was asked to come to UiO’s University Library today. The very pleasant message was that our bid for a Norwegian AI centre had been selected by the committee: MishMash Centre for AI and Creativity will be a reality! Today’s press release was a high-profile event with both the Norwegian Prime Minister, Jonas Gahr Støre, and Minister of Research and Higher Education, Sigrun Aasland, present....

At RITMO retreats we often use case studies to discuss relevant topics. I have blogged about some of these before: the Coauthorship Case and Confession Case. This semester’s retreat focused on project development and management. I developed a new case study that was successfully used for group work and plenary discussion. A challenging project Consider the following scenario: Professor Penelope has received external funding to start a new interdisciplinary research project....

On a visit to Milan, I came across a stair close to the famous Bosco Verticale that interested me. I passed these stairs several times and struggled with walking them each time. It was equally difficult up and down; they just did not seem to work for me. That inspired this blog post about stair walking. The biomechanics of stair walking Walking up and down stairs is an everyday activity we often take for granted....

Some years ago, I was heavily involved in the development of NOR-CAM (Norwegian Career Assessment Matrix), a framework designed to support the assessment and recognition of a broad range of academic activities and competencies. This work aimed to promote more comprehensive and transparent evaluation practices in academia. One thing is developing high-level policies; another is trying these things in practice. I am fortunate enough to direct a research centre (RITMO), which involves a significant amount of career development work daily....

Kristina Socanski Celik touched upon the relationship between creativity and spirituality in her PhD defense earlier today. She has written a dissertation about the music of two 20th-century composers, Arvo Pärt and Ljubica Marić, who have used ancient religious chants in their modern compositions. The relationship between creativity, spirituality, and religion surfaced several times during the disputation. This was particularly because both composers have a spiritual approach to their compositions, while only one (Pärt) is religious....

I am working on RITMO’s annual report for 2024. Typically, we include world maps showing where people at RITMO are coming from and the various countries we have collaborators in (check out last year’s report for example). These maps are usually made by hand, but I was curious to see if MS Copilot could help. After a little bit of tweaking, I have created a nice Python script that does the job!...

Many researchers have requirements for publishing their articles Open Access. However, what that means in terms of licensing may be unclear to many. Two common options are CC-BY (Attribution) and CC-BY-NC-ND (Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives). Here is why you should choose CC-BY over CC-BY-NC-ND. Creative Commons licenses Creative Commons licenses are a set of public copyright licenses that enable creators to grant the public permission to use their creative works under specified conditions. These licenses provide a standardized way for authors, artists, and other creators to share their work while retaining some control over how it is used....

Today we submitted the proposal “MishMash - Centre for AI & Creativity” to the Research Council of Norway’s call for Norwegian AI centres. If we get funded, the goal is to create, explore, and reflect on AI for, through, and in creative practices. Preparing this proposal has been a fantastic journey. More than 100 researchers from 16 Norwegian higher education institutions, 4 research institutes, and 3 artistic research centres have partnered with the National Library, the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK), the National Museum, and several other museums, institutions, organisations, and industry partners both within and outside of Norway....

This summer, I got a phone call from TEDx Arendal asking about whether I would like to hold a lecture for this year’s event. Of course, I had to accept! The excitement of being asked turned to awe when they asked me whether I would like to stand still in silence for the whole talk. This request did not come out of the blue. I have spent the last 15 years researching human standstill and have gotten some attention for my stillstanding project last year when I stood still for 10 minutes every day for a year....