Remarks and<br >Acknowledgments<br > I began this book thinking I was writing about "the creative<br >uses of computers." Gradually， I began to realize that most uses of<br >computers are "creative." It thus occurred to me that I had to nar-<br >row the topic， and I came to focus on the creative uses of computers<br >in the creative arts. While computers are being used in the arts on an<br >international scale， I felt it necessary to concentrate on computers<br >in the arts in North America. Even that was too large a topic，<br >though， since computers are used in so many， many areas of<br >creative art--in choreography， stage lighting， special effects in film，<br >and so forth. I narrowed the topic further to consider four kinds of<br >creative arts: visual arts， music， literature， and what I call the par-<br >ticipatory arts [games].<br > It is very clear that entire books can and have been written on<br >any one of those four topics. By including all four， then， I have<br >chosen breadth at the expense of depth. I have not been able， for in-<br >stance， to write about all the important visual artists， or all the im-<br >portant musicians in North America using computers. Instead， in<br >writing about individual artists， I have selected from among the top<br >ranks--according to my own idiosyncratic sense of both ac-<br >complishment and representativeness.<br > /x<br >