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.