To be held at the Dana Centre, Science Museum 13th April, 7.00pm

Many, perhaps most, questions about the aesthetics of interactive art are still open.

For instance, a number of artists have said that the properties of the visual or musical product (if any) are irrelevant. What matters is the nature of the interaction itself. But is that a reasonable position? Even so, just what sort of interaction is to be valued here? (A number of different criteria have been suggested, some of which are opposites.)

Perhaps the fundamentally new technologies involved demand a radically new aesthetic? If so, to what extent should that reflect specific properties of the technology as such? Or perhaps we can/should rely, to some extent at least, on familiar principles of aesthetics to evaluate interactive art?

These questions are relevant to discussions of interactive art as such. But they're also relevant in a discussion of "Creativity and Cognition," not least because one's theory of the psychological processes involved in creativity may affect one's aesthetic judgments.

If (as I believe) there are several different ways of generating creative ideas, are these differentially aided by the technologies involved in different examples of interactive art? And if so, should that influence our aesthetic judgments of artworks in this new genre?

Margaret A. Boden is Research Professor of Cognitive Science at the University of Sussex (Centre for Cognitive Science). She was awarded an OBE in 2002, for "services to cognitive science," and holds honorary DScs from Bristol and Sussex. She is a Fellow (and former Vice-President) of the British Academy; member of the Academia Europaea; Fellow of the American Association for Artificial Intelligence; and a past Chairman of Council of the Royal Institution.

Her research is highly interdisciplinary, of interest to practising artists, students of the humanities, and scientists of various kinds. She holds degrees in medical sciences, philosophy, and psychology, including a Cambridge ScD and a Harvard PhD. She has lectured world-wide, and her work has appeared in nineteen languages. Her major current project is a history of cognitive science.