A Week in Dagstuhl
I recently participated in the Dagstuhl Seminar “Computational Creativity for Game Development” (it’s actually been a month or so, I must get better at keeping up with the posts!), and I want to share a few lines on this amazing experience.
I got this invitation in the mail almost a year ago. At first, I didn’t even want to go. I was a bit confused about what was being proposed to me. I understood it was not a standard academic conference, and no “article” was going to be published out of that (there actually will be a report, but that’s not a peer-reviewed paper). Usually, when I go to conferences or workshops, having a publication is a must: it’s also a way to justify the expenses with a funding agency. But this seminars are different…
In the end I decided to go only because my Supervisor, prof. Wiggins, endorsed the event (also mentioning copious amounts of food). I trusted his judgement, and was not disappointed.
The way these events work is indeed very different from how conferences work. Instead of having people presenting the work they did prior to the event, the seminar encourages discussion on work the attendees may do after the event. It invites the bottom-up formation of work groups to discuss idea, exchange experiences, and possibly form new collaborations to explore the themes that emerge in those days once everyone is back to their office. And indeed, the food is available in generous amounts, as well as coffee machines at every corner, willing to provide hot beverages throughout the day.
The theme of this event was Computational Creativity for Game Development. Indeed, most of the folks there came from the Game AI and Game Development Research side of things, with a lot of people even from Videogame companies. So I was one of the few people there that came strictly from the Computational Creativity side, and pretty much the only one that specialized on Musical Creativity. Nevertheless, over the week I participated in work groups with interests very close to mine:
- Distance and Density in Various Spaces
- Meaningful Acoustics for Board Games (I actually chaired this one!)
- AI for Voice Acting Generation
- AI for Speedrunning The last one in particular was loads of fun. And in all of these I have had the opportunity to meet new people, and find out about different approaches on ideas I have encountered in the past. Getting in touch with different scientific communities is always stimulating!
I will post again about this when the report from the seminar is published. For now you’ll have to wait. But as a final note… If you receive an invite for a Dagstuhl Seminar, remember to seriously consider the offer, you will not regret going!
Ad maiora!
- Filippo Carnovalini
