Interactivity Reflection

It has been in making this sculpture that I have felt a personal liberation with working in three dimensions. In drawing, what really attracts me is how it allows the impossible to become possible in a fictitious space. The objects and occupants of a drawing are not subject to any physical laws; in fact, there isn't even the precondition that what is drawn has any physicality at all. By in a way escaping this universe human beings are subject to, the contents of a drawing can transport a viewer into a sort of second, fanastic living. WIth the sculptural work I've down, I have grown increasingly comfortable with the physicality of the materials - materials bound by the laws of my world - but I have also missed the sort of second animation that drawing can immediately offer a viewer. I believe that interactive artwork can collapse this distance, especially work that participants manipulate, or is manipulated by the presence of an individual.

Interactive work does this by introducing layers of possibility. A viewer can share in the same impetus to create that the artist surely carries, having a dimension open up before them in the artwork, which is greater than the artwork, which is also a place to be transported to and move around in. Where with other forms of work that are strictly observed and where a relationship between work and observer may be innocuous or tangential to the more important reception of a message, interactive work makes this relationship the central focus. The work 'interactive' presupposes a mutual influence between two things. IN artwork this could be between artist and artwork, artwork with space, artwork with audience, audience with artist, or even audience with itself. All these relationships can be intensified through interactive artwork. So such work has a sort of sociality as its cornerstone. We no longer live in an age where the few masters of the art world bestow their grandeur upon the common man. No, we line in an age of communication and exchange, and so interactive work is inherently characteristic of our times.

With the piece that I created, I feel possibilities open up. No longer am I dictating the experience of the viewer with a static image, a viewer who is no longer a viewer but a participant. I am no longer expected to have a profound artistic understanding, though I am no more ignorant than I would otherwise be creating work in another vein. All I have done is establish a relationship. Just as when a man and a woman enter a relationship - when they have opened the doors to one another, and created a venue of disclosure - there is not yet an expectation that everything just neatly falls into place; it is just the beginning. Static work is too quickly seen as an end  when the eye is done wandering, the relationship concludes: "I've gotten all I can out of this," a viewer thinks. People don't have the attention span that they once did. They rarely see old mediums with new eyes. People assume they understanding a painting for the fact that it's a painting, a photograph that it is a photograph, a pile of I-beams that it is a pile of I-beams. Interactive work provides a near bottomless magical bag of materials in that the subject isn't the material, but the relationship that occurs between materials or people.

My piece offers a direct - and perhaps perfect - relationship with the body. It moves proportionally with the participants movements. The viewer has no opportunity to feel daunted by it, or overwhelmed by it, or frightened by it, or that they are doing all the work in relationship, or that they aren't getting a return on their investment. It is really a mirror, yet as a cloth. That the entire apparatus functions through the head is a particularly profound fact. This is where the brain is housed, where for of the five senses operate from, and where people most sharply experience the 'self'. I'll observe that my work only responds to the body movements, not sight, sound, or anything else, and even then somewhat feebly, but its response is the beginning of life, of relevance. Ironically, that that relevance would be the simple raising and lowering of a cloth is curious, but that cloth and its movements are powered by the participant imbued with a profundity unable to be dismissed. Questions emerge: "What is beyond this curtain surrounding me? Where am I being revealed or concealed? Where is the outside world opening to me?" The movements of the participant are duplicated around him or her, almost as an extension of the body, but now that the body has become something bordering on the theatrical, inextricable from the body of the curtain, the individual becomes intensely self-aware. I see the achievement of these sensations in my piece to be a great success, while the may just be the beginnings. I still need to explore the implications of this relationship, of the additional possibilities that it opens up, the opportunities to communicate participant to piece, participant to self, participant to an outside world that is varyingly concealed and exposed based on his or her movements.

Interactivity-Intention Statement

Interactivity analysis

In class we discussed whether some forms of interactive sculpture were works of art or just science projects. Where is the line drawn, does it depend on context, intent, or the creator? At times, I feel like there is not much of a difference between the two.
In trying to construct an interactive sculpture, I feel as if I have been undergoing the same processes as a scientist; it reminds me a lot of my science fair projects in high school. To do a piece, one must have a basic knowledge of the phenomena or action in question. If not, they must do research to gain an understanding of what goes on and what they would like to happen in the sculpture, and in an effort to know into what context they are placing their piece. The artist’s desired outcome of the project would be similar to the hypothesis, and the action in question would be considered the problem. In the case of Tim Hawkinson’s “Emotor” the hypotheses would be his mental conception of the piece, and his problem would be making motors move based on light from a television screen.
Next in the scientific method, a scientist’s materials would be similar to the artist’s medium. The materials and medium are the physical objects that are required for each project to work. However, in a write up of an experiment, every material or object used is usually all written out, while in art, sometimes the materials are not so clear. In a final interactive sculpture piece, all the materials may not be evident, and some will be purposefully hidden in order to create a longer read.
Process is exactly the same in both cases, although the requirements placed upone process are more stringent in the scientific community. It is the course of action taken to produce the finished product. To produce results, scientists must have a series of controlled variables, and only one independent variable. The independent variable can change, but the controls are not allowed to. This may be how some artists operate, but it is not how I suspect most do. Process to artists is more their path to creation. It may be exhibited in sketches, exploration, experimentation, or models. It really just depends on the artist.
Results are exactly that, the final product of the actions taken in the process. In science, the results in relation to the process are the most important pieces of information that can be gleaned. They study what happened, and whether it answered the initial question, in an effort to find how to apply this new knowledge. If not, they will tend to go back and start the whole experiment over. In interactive art, the results are usually the most important aspect of the piece, as they speak to more than the artist’s technique; I believe a non-interactive piece would usually be more of a dialogue between the technique and the process. In “Emotor” the whole physical piece is the result. It could be argued that process is constantly occurring in this piece in the diodes reading the TV’s signals, and the results are the various expressions made by the face, but I see the infinite range of expressions as the results and thusly the dialogue between the light source and the face to be included in this.
Interactive art is kind of a vague term, but so are most categories of art. There are blurred boundaries in what defines different forms of art. At one point art could only be done by those with intensive training, and went hand in hand with the sciences. But then new paints were discovered, making it easier and cheaper for the common person to create. Certain sciences became art then like other sciences may be becoming art now. The fact that artists are able to use motors, computers and forces of nature to produce works, says a lot about the ease of acquiring technology and its role in this day and age.

Project 2 Analysis - Kelton

With every artwork, the viewer has some form of interaction with a piece, whether its a visual, emotional, or physical experience. This experience can be enhanced by the artist by having the audience have more or less participation with a piece. Sculpture seems to be on the leading end of more interactive more, by being able to exist within the three-dimensional world. Paintings, prints, and drawings have a form of interaction that exists between the work and the viewer. However with sculpture, especially with advances in technology and the advancement of new media art, the viewer is able to interact more physically with work.
With the developments in sculpture; and such branches of its as installation, new media, and public art, it has a greater impact of the viewers involvement with the piece. This turn away from the singular image, and towards something that is tangible and is able to have a deeper connection drawn is an important change in contemporary work. Because of our media and communication saturated market, artwork today needs to be something beyond the easily visually recognizable object. Work for me that becomes impressive is work that begs the question of how it was made. Works like Tim Hawkinson's Uberorgan or Mel Chin's Revival Field work to go beyond what we recognize as art, as a way to visually make connections through the world. By doing this they are employing more that paint or ink, and even going beyond the standards of sculpture, by involving other fields of study, such as science, mechanics, and technology, as a way to stay connected to an ever changing audience. The things that we are drawn to today in our everyday
By connecting the viewer through these various new developments in sculpture, artists are able to connect and impress upon the audience with a scene of bewilderment. This then becomes the connecting point between audience and the interaction of them involving themselves in the work. Some works use the audience specifically to make the work move or change, such as Krzysztof Wodiczko, while others use performances, kinetics, and mechanics as a way to imply interaction as the subject matter of the work. Rafael Lozano-Hemmer is an interesting artist, who in his work Vectorial Elevation, he employs many of these interactive elements together into one monumental work. In the piece, he uses a computer program, and invites the public to create a performance for a series of lights. The lights are shown through spotlights throughout a city, and are able to viewed from miles away. This work, are works similar, are important because they begin to bridge a lot of the gaps within the art world. They are using new media technologies such as programming and GPS as way to control and manipulate the lights. By using these technologies they are able to create some of the largest public based artworks to date, but are dependent on the audiences interaction, around the world and at their computer to create the work.

Interactive work lends itself to being more in tune with the audience, as it can allow them to have some participation with the work directly, or allow them to think about the implied interaction within the piece. Interaction also allows work to communicate between different areas of study within the world such as science, technology, and mechanics, which broadens the scope of artistic audiences, and they way they are able to personally connect to the work. Many people feel intimidated by work that they have to stand back from and ponder, but by making work interactive, they are able to involve the audience in the process, which makes them more comfortable to reflect on the work they are viewing.

Interactivity Analysis - Neal

                Art created in the vein of interactivity lends itself to a more complex investigation of its subject than those that are not. Interactive art presupposes two separate variables within a piece – the artwork and another, whether artist, audience, or natural element. Often, the extent to which the artwork is noteworthy is aligned with the extent to which this relationship has been made evident, or how thoroughly the relationship has been explored.

For instance, Tim Hawkinson’s piece “Emotor” uses light seonsors to respond to images in a screen, which then in turn manipulate the individually photographed organs of a face. This shows a portrait responding to a television. In “Drip,” water is released from a height onto pie tin filled pails in accordance with the rhythm of a musical piece. This shows water responding to music. In both cases, two disparate concepts are brought into direct engagement through an intermediary mechanism, in this case, an artwork.

                In a somewhat more abstracted understanding of art, Allan Kaprow’s Happenings break down completely the distinctions between artwork, place, audience, and object. They all work together in creating an irreproducible moment that itself is the artwork. This is the utmost of interactivity. Even the genesis of the art form itself came as a reaction to what was happening in the art scene at the time. Kaprow was fascinated by Pollock’s seemingly choreographed movements as he pained, and as he regarded his work. Then, the resulting painting seemed more of a space than an object. Kaprow wanted to create these spaces through what would be called his Happenings, later occurrences.

One mark of interactivity is dependency. With a painting, it could be said, it will continue to exist and be itself even when hidden in a closet. Interactive objects not only cease to function when placed in a void of input, but also cease to be the artworks they were intended to be. When the proper variables are not present, interactive art loses character, just as music to a deaf man, or an engine without gas. It seems interactive art has its greatest impact when that vital element is the audience itself. When working on public art projects, this was the most challenging element to both anticipate and engage. To bring an individual who you have never known into interaction with a created object is a daunting task. Simply doing this successfully is testimony to the fact that an artwork has been carefully considered, because the work is subject to a public that is increasingly broad in its backgrounds and origins. Work must gain a universality while not sacrificing a personal relevance. Allowing dependence dictate where a project goes is an incredibly difficult thing – more difficult than creating an autonomous work, seemingly eternal and standing alone. Creating interactive work that steps out and engages the culture, its members, and its changes is a daunting task, but a necessary one, and one that is increasingly expected by a popular culture demanding relevance for its artists.

Kate Interactivity

Kate Pollasch Interactive Response

“Where and how does art occur? Art-this is nothing more than a word to which nothing real any longer corresponds" Martin Heidegger, The Origin of the Work of Art (1)

It interesting to consider how western culture has organized and categorized art and artists. Our western culture has institutionalized the artists and artwork into galleries, museums, wall space, and portfolio cases. While not all contemporary artists have stayed within the gallery environment, western culture has created an artistic environment that tends to encourage categorizing art and labeling artists. Our society has a tendency to elevate the artist into a creature of enormous creative energy who is removed from everyday society. For a long time within art history, artists have been depicted as powerful people within our society who seem to have an organic ability to create artwork. We have allowed for the act of creating art and being artistic to become institutionalized, best left to those who have had rigorous education or ordained higher ability. The question then becomes, how does our society break free from the institution of the gifted artists, or is art-making only for a select few? This is not to say that the artist should die so as to liberate society from their imagined creative impotence, but by addressing the institutionalized artists, one can examine what art allows for the breakdown of the institution. Interactive art could be seen as a means to ground the artist within society, a way to fuse the disconnect between artist and viewer, between leader and followers.
Art that directly engages the audience, interactive art, blurs the defining line that separates artists and audience. It allows for the viewer to become submerged in the process of creating art. Therefore, I would have to argue that all who engage with an interactive piece should be considered artists working to create art. This equalizes the artist and audience by changing the artist from mythical creative creature to a facilitator for which creativity and interactions can occur.
By merging the artist and viewer there are undeniable differences in the intent of the artwork, art as an object, and exhibition of artwork compared to non-interactive art. Interactive art changes how much the artist has complete control over their work. How their work is changed by those who interact with it becomes a factor that the artists must consider. For example, Rebecca Horn’s interactive work titled Spiriti di Madreperia is a magnetic environment within an Italian city square, which is constructed with the intent that people will enter the space and activate the magnetic energy. The artist within this work is simply a facilitator for bringing the environment to others for them to engage with. Furthermore, the artwork becomes susceptible to change based on those who interact with it: it is no longer the artist who has complete say over the final object of the work. Like in Felix Gonzalez artwork Untitled (Portrait of Ross in LA), which consists of pile of candy on a gallery floor, which is meant to be taken by the people who interact with the work. The interactive element within this work creates components such as which candy is chosen, how much candy is taken, and how the object’s shape changes due to the removal of the candy and removes them from the hands of the artist. Interactive art can also encourage the artistic creation and expression of others to continue beyond the initial interaction with the piece of work. The owners of the candy from Felix Gonzalez can create new artwork from the candy pieces they chose. Whatever they choose to do with the candy pieces could in fact be considered art because it stems from an origin of art.
What process art provides is the ability for the concrete definition of art and artwork to be melted into a communal pool of creative energy. This, within our extremely structured society of art and art history, would allow for art to become a process of action and interaction on the terms of creativity. Even if the interaction is nothing more than an audience member pushing a button to turn an artwork on, without the engagement of that one audience member the work is lost. This need for interactivity creates a space for unity and community on the grounds of creativity.
It is also interesting to explore how interactive art changes the economic component of art making and selling. If interactive art, much like process art, is not always concerned with creating a final object to be viewed, then the economic value of art could be altered due to the element of interactivity. One cannot buy Rebecca Horn‘s Spiriti di Madreperia; that magnetic field, that created space, is for anyone who chooses to engage with it. Furthermore, Felix Gonzalez’s candy artwork completely erases a large amount of the economic value from his work, because the artwork is free for anyone to take. Gonzalez’s work is still within the confines of the gallery, which involves contracts and money, but his artwork, as an object, cannot be bought and sold. Anyone can take the candy for free. If the monetary component of the art object could be minimized, through interactivity, then this could further perpetuate the equalization of artist and audience, of creator and buyer. Interactive art provides a means for some of the institutional elements within art to become challenged and broken, therefore allowing art to be redefined by the people who interact with it.
Another element when examining interactive art is how the voice of the artist does not get lost through the process of interactivity. It is undeniable that artists are creating visual objects that serve as translators for their own ideas. Even if an artists is purely formalist, and not conceptual at all, their art is still a physical manifestation of their formal ideas and skills. So, for an artist creating interactive art they must factor in the element of interaction into their initial planning process. This is interesting because the artist, depending on the level of interaction within their work, is blindly planning how people will hopefully engage with their work. If no one picked up a piece of Gonzalez’s candy, felt the piece in their hand, knew that they were taking a physical representation of him, had to make the conscious decision about what to do with it once they left the gallery, and brought the candy into their personal domain, then the work would never be activated.
The way art has become institutionalized creates the illusion that creativity and creating art occurs only at specific times and by specific people. From education all the way up to artweek magazine, art and artist are separate components within society. Interactive art had the ability to allow for the structured concepts of art and artist to become mixed and molded within our everyday society. Interactive art allows for making art to become a universal act of creativity. It could allow for the economic concerns, institutionalized creativity, and title of artist to become dismantled simply by devaluing the importance of artist, object, and removed viewer.






Citation

1.) Preziosi, Donald. The Art of Art History: A Critical Anthology. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.