John Tsao

I have constructed this chapter using several sketches. These are accompanied by intermezzo schizzo and meditations from the post- and more-than-human multiplicity called the Nomadic Detective Agency (NDA, 2024). These brief accounts and reflections are based on my pedagogical transdisciplinary teaching experiences that I have created at the University of the Arts London (UAL), which I have been associated with in different guises for the last 44 years. As a multidisciplinary learner, artist, researcher and educator, I am often drawn to forms of experimental creative academic writing. They have become ways of showing how these educational events unfolded for students, colleagues in higher education institutions, and various collaborative communities such as museums, and art galleries. Each sketch and intermezzo schizzo has an element of transdisciplinarity within it or alludes to the transversal operations that are extremely useful, and inspiring, in art and design teaching and learning practices at UAL and beyond. I use the term ‘nomadic pedagogy’ to allude both to the way we can wander our world over the last 20 years with the advent of networked digital technologies, and to wonder about what other thinking we can use in our educational practices. Rachel Fendler (2013) describes learning with nomadic pedagogy ‘... as a process whereby learning is the change incurred when subjects enter into unfamiliar territory, in a process of discovery … [and] is inherently concerned with crossing boundaries; challenging established notions about what education, art, and research look like’ (pp. 786-793) ‘The chapter, Becoming a nomadic artisan: cosmos, streets and transdisciplinarity is strong; `nomadic pedagogy' adopts the same spirit of play promoted in the previous chapter. The detailed sketches provided in this chapter, with appropriately timed references to scholarly concepts, was particularly useful for getting a sense of how this nomadic strategy can actually be done and for readers to understand the methodology behind it.’

Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) is fundamentally transforming notions of creativity and creative production across disciplines, yet a comprehensive understanding of professional attitudes and integration patterns remains challenging. This scoping review examines how creative professionals perceive and integrate GenAI technologies across four domains: visual art and design, writing and literature, performing arts, and environmental and spatial design. Following PRISMA-ScR guidelines, we analysed 57 papers (2022–2025) from multiple databases, focusing mainly on empirically based studies of professional creative practice. We identify universal trends, including the shift from creation to curation and meta-creation, the emergence of new literacies (prompt engineering, AI evaluation), and the reconfiguration of expertise hierarchies. Career stage emerges as a critical factor: across domains, entry-level professionals demonstrate enthusiasm and view GenAI as a natural extension of digital tools, while senior practitioners express scepticism about expertise devaluation. All fields consistently position GenAI in early-stage conceptualisation rather than final production, developing hybrid methodologies that preserve human judgment in convergent creative phases. However, impacts manifest differently based on each field/ sub-field’s relationship to embodiment and materiality. Integration levels follow an inverse relationship with traditional notions of “pure” creativity—fields prioritising embodied practice and cultural authenticity (fine arts, literary fiction, classical music) show the most significant resistance. At the same time, commercially oriented domains embrace higher adoption for efficiency gains. Visual artists face “erasure by obscurity” from AI output volume; writers negotiate between nonlinear, associative language generation and AI’s tendency toward coherence and cliché; performers uniquely embrace computational unpredictability as a generative force; architects balance efficiency imperatives with concerns about cultural homogenisation effects of Western-centric AI systems. Our conceptual framework positions creative professionals’ attitudes along two dimensions: knowledge codifiability (tacit/embodied to explicit/codifiable) and output materiality (physical/permanent to digital/ephemeral). Key tensions include balancing productivity with meaningful engagement, volume with distinction, precision with serendipity, and individual with collective intelligence. Ultimately, our findings reveal complex patterns of ambivalence shaped by competing value systems. This review contributes a comprehensive mapping of GenAI applications across creative disciplines, potential disconnects between educational emphasis on critique and industry’s pragmatic adoption, and gaps for future research on longitudinal skill impacts, emerging AI-native practices, Global South perspectives, and forms of creative resistance.