Participatory Public Media Arts for Social Creativity

New technologies and materials bring new opportunities to the forms of public arts. In this paper we look back to the three generations of public art forms, from traditional ones with static forms to newer ones with dynamic and then, interactive forms. We look forward to the fourth generation - participatory media arts, for which the artists and designers do not create the public media arts as a final result, but create them as platforms and growing systems for the public to participate and for social creativity to contribute to the artifact - the creation process, together with the results of this process, forms the dynamic media artifact that grows over time. The fourth generation is illustrated with an example of public media art installation designed for the Science and Education New Town, Taicang, China.