Moving on: Using computational creativity to represent interpersonal relationships and their endings

This PhD explores how diverse digital materials created by individuals articulate representations of interpersonal relationships, and how these materials can be managed when a relationship ends. The student will develop innovative computational creativity techniques to (i) generate representations of one or more types of interpersonal relationships, and their endings, and (ii) to support an individual's transition out of such a relationship. Representations developed will aim to reflect relationships in rich, engaging, deeply personal forms - attending to questions of curation and significance in digital data. This research lies at the intersection of Human-Computer Interaction and Computational Creativity.

The project brings together research expertise from Moncur and Pease at the University of Dundee. Moncur draws upon her expertise in how people present themselves in digital contexts across the human lifespan and to a range of audiences (e.g. EP/L00383X/1 Charting the Digital Lifespan; EP/I026304/1 Digital Inheritance; EP/N02799X/1 TAPESTRY: Trust, Authentication and Privacy over a DeCentralised Social Registry). Pease expertise lies in computational creativity: exploring how computers can be autonomously creative, with the potential to provide and justify a novel perspective and understanding of digital materials (e.g. EU STREP project 611553, 2.1m Euros).

The project fits with the EPSRC Themes of Digital Economy (Information technology as a utility, Communities and culture) and Information and Communication Technologies (TI3 - Towards an intelligent information infrastructure, Artificial Intelligence technologies, Human Communication in ICT, Human-Computer Interaction, Information Systems). It will contribute to EPSRC efforts to "... address the deluge of data and deliver understanding from information that would have high impact for individuals and future society, with links to application areas and societal challenges" (EPSRC), thereby improving levels of privacy around personal data.