The artists and engineers of creativeX embrace the excitement of the unknown. We thrive in the spaces between disciplines, encouraging the Princeton faculty who make up our collective to explore, question, and take risks. This unique platform for experimentation leads to innovative ways of thinking and doing.
CreativeX fosters intellectual exchange, creativity, and collaboration among engineers and artists in what is best described as a “rigorous undiscipline.” The creativeX research agenda brings together the questions, perspectives, and approaches of the engineer and the artist to confront novel and complex problems, which, in turn, further advances the work of our faculty in their own disciplines. Our shared agenda has also been transformative for Princeton students, who participate in engineering-and-the-arts research and take part in courses created and taught by creativeX faculty.
We make space for projects to emerge from wide-ranging and unexpected questions. How can collective decision-making models derived from nature guide the choreography of a contemporary dance? What can a group of dancers, choosing their steps on-the-fly, teach us about the role of communication through movement and individual differences in collective behavior? What would heat-mapping thermal radiation add to the experience of hearing music and what would the development of the experience teach us about the heating and cooling of public spaces? Could the gentle rhythmic movements of robotic sculptures provide a calming meditative space? What new musical territory can be accessed through a musician’s real-time responses and adaptations to perform in partnership with an unyielding simple machine? Much of our work is tactile and human-scale, with the potential to transform the way we interact with art and technology.
Our passion and curiosity fuel our commitment to developing a research agenda that spurs innovation and discovery at the intersection of engineering and the arts. Our open-ended approach shows how embracing creativity’s free-flowing nature and pushing beyond traditional boundaries unlocks new potential.
The consortium was born out of informal lunch gatherings attended by more than a dozen Princeton faculty members working in civil engineering, mechanical engineering, computer science, architecture, visual arts, music, dance, theater, and creative writing, who would share their current projects with the group.
The excitement generated by these discussions led founding director Naomi Ehrich Leonard to advocate for more dedicated opportunities to collaborate.
CreativeX is made possible through a generous grant from Princeton University’s School of Engineering and Applied Science Dean’s Fund, with additional funding from the Department of Music and support from the Lewis Center for the Arts. We thank our valued partner, the Council for Science and Technology, for its critical early and sustained role in incubating ideas and building community.