CfP: “Silicon Dawn: Creative Computing in Europe 1970–2000”

Europe has a particular, but shared digital heritage, leading to a simultaneous, but divergent history in the use of computers for creative means and ends.  Creative computing is understood as a result of any creative process that requires a computational platform.  Examples of results that arise from using computers creatively include – among many others – cracking, chiptunes and demos.  While the creative process is central to the ‘creative’ aspect of computing, there are extensive and embedded deep and broad communities and cultures that have formed around these.  Some of these were specific to  the time, such as cracking communities, others continue to this day, such as demoscenes and others have manifestly altered while maintaining their definition, such as school computing clubs. It is held that it is unlikely that creative computing in its historic or contemporary forms could not exist or be sustained without individual, group, community, institutional and cultural support at the local, regional, national, international or transnational level.   

As early research results in the EU funded Cooperation on Science and Technology project ‘Grassroots of Digital Europe’ has shown, certain areas of Europe have received intensive analysis in the formation of computing at grassroots levels.  This tends to follow a linguistic inclination towards Anglo-American studies of creative computing.  These areas are important reference points and their influence is acknowledged.  Nevertheless, there remains extensive geographical and topical areas throughout Europe where the use of computers for creative purposes has not been subject to sustained investigation.  This collection seeks to address this gap and provide original insight into the unique features and formation of creative computing in Europe.     

Recent years have seen an increased interest in the histories of creative computing, with university presses dedicating series’ towards exploring its influence in shaping the digital society of the 21^st century.  While welcome, US sanctioned histories of creative computing tend to skew the publication of academic research to specific audiences and can knowingly or unknowingly obfuscate the importance of overlooked or minority groups in the creation of a culture that had specialised characteristics due to its own eclecticism.  This collection, published by a European university press, looks to address these structural and content gaps. 

We anticipate submissions that report on results of primary research; archival research; methodologies of creative computing; theoretical and conceptual aspects of creative computing or a combination of some or all of these.

With this to the fore, we seek submissions to the edited collection, including, but not limited to, the following topics relating to creative computing in Europe: