Computational Creativity: A Continuing Journey

As the final touches are being put to this very special issue of Minds and Machines, which showcases a selection of the finest contributions to the 2008 International Joint Workshop on Computational Creativity, Tony Blair has just unveiled his memoirs to a sharply divided public. As befitting this controversial figure’s polarizing legacy, reactions to his autobiography—entitled A Journey—have ranged from the painfully predictable to the creatively original. The jeering crowds that awaited Mr. Blair outside book signings and other public events were entirely predictable, as were the cries of ‘‘war criminal’’ and other lazy categorizations that have long since lost their creative bite. Slightly less predictable was the hurling of shoes at Mr. Blair, an analogical echo of another time when footwear was used as a cultural missile against George W. Bush. At a Dublin book signing, this minor act of analogical creativity was both enhanced and undermined by the cost-effective and very ironic choice of shoes—flip-flops!—since Mr. Blair is most often criticized for being unwilling to recant (or ‘‘flip-flop’’, in political parlance) for his involvement in the Iraq war. However, the most creative protest to greet the publication of A Journey was also the least noisome. Through a campaign launched via Facebook, protesters were encouraged to quietly and mischievously re-categorize Mr. Blair’s book in whatever bookshop they happened to find it. As reported in the British newspaper The Telegraph, employees in bookstores across the country were puzzled to find copies of the book migrating from its ‘‘official’’ home on the Biography shelves to sections such as Fiction and even True Crime. Euan Booth, the student who originated the Facebook campaign, explained himself thus to The Telegraph: