Site/Place Research

Artist Research – Site/Place

                In the artwork of Louis Bourgeois site and place figure largely, yet not perhaps in the typical sense. In much of her work, Bourgeois is creating places. She creates rooms unified in that they seem to be lifted out of moments in her memory – perhaps scenes observable through little peepholes into her mind. In one piece, titled Cell, Bourgeois rests a set of sculpted hands atop a table surrounded by chairs all oriented towards them, with a glass sphere sitting in each. All these are surrounded by grubby windowpanes resembling the bars of a cell. These objects all work through association to create a place that never previously existed. Through assembly, Bourgeois is able to create a place. Cell has the double-meaning of both the building block of an organism, as well as a holding space for a prisoner. This scene seems to infer both, as it threatens to resemble a classroom setting, which is a venue for nourishment, yet also one where children are forced to be in for years out of their lives. By its ability to recall these associations, the viewers of Bourgeois’ Cell are brought to a place they may have once occupied in one way or another, yet one that has been manipulated. And yet, the viewer may not enter this space, and the objects contained within it may not escape, so there remains that untouchable aspect that every memory has.

It is the concept behind the objects and their grouping that works to create a space. If the objects were arbitrarily chosen antiques, there would be far less reason to feel the personal transportation one feels with the objects Bourgeois has chosen. In the same way, simply setting up four walls doesn’t create a place either. It may cut off space and demarcate an area, but it doesn’t necessarily breathe newness and separateness into a space, making it a site.

In Red Room, Bourgeois is doing something very similar to her work in Cell, yet the elements in the scene aren’t as figurative. The piece centers a red coated bed with red pillows in a room made of doors. Atop the bed sits a briefcase, the centerpiece in of a fairly empty room. Red Room works more through implication than Cell, as a bed and a briefcase are both objects of utility, yet there is no sign of their being used. The doors that comprise the walls aren’t being opened or closed, and no one is passing through them. So many doors should suggest activity, yet there is not activity, no traffic. The lack of occupancy in this room soon becomes distinctly felt. Here again the selection of objects is key in creating a sense of place. A bed demands to have a space around it, and as soon as Bourgeois abides to that demand by putting up a wall, the space becomes privatized. It belongs to the one or two people who rest there. Is not the bedroom the most private room in a house?  Yet this room is walled with doors, which seems to say that that sanctity is in question, or has been abused or broken.

Another artist who draws attention as one dealing with site and place is Gordon Matta-Clark. With a few of his projects in New Jersey, where he cut out large sections of houses, Matta-Clark interfered with what existed in a site. This subtractive method seizes on possibilities already present in what lays before you. His cutting, as in his work Splitting, opens up the house to the outdoors in a way that windows do not and cannot. It undercuts the function of the house as a haven, in a sense crippling it. Windows are a controlled opening to the outdoor, under the sanction of the structure of the building, yet Matta-Clark’s cuts expose and destroy the structure of the house. With the single cut, it reveals the vulnerability of the house.

research Project 3

Kate Pollasch
                                Illusions of History
        Museums have become an iconic element of society where those in the present can reflect and connect with the past. An environment that ranges from the educationally driven exploration of ancient cultures and lands, to the mournfully reflective places of historical moments past, museums have become places where time seems to fold back on itself and the present and past can create a relationship with one another. Furthermore, the visual layout of museums and monuments have become an institutionalized element of society. The presentation of artifacts, lighting, and mood that these environments create could be identified and described by most who have been to a museum.  So, what happens when the visual components that make up a museum/monument space become the elements of artistic creation? How does that special environment transform for the audience when it is used in artwork, or does it transform at all? Christian Boltanski creates sculptural based spaces that mournfully display objects and images with a museum style presentation(1). Working with images, light, space, found objects, and other elements, Boltanski creates space, and alters existing space, that at times produces an illusionistic atmosphere which emotionally commands mournful reflection from his audience(3). Looking at two specific works, The Store House and Inventory, this deceptive play with emotions through the visual application of museum-like qualities will become evident, and the question of audience manipulation for the sake of art will be addressed. 
       Born in Paris in 1944, as a child, Boltanski ended his formal education at age 12. Since the 1960’s he has been working as an artist, concentrating on the ephemera of the human experience(1). His created spaces have a reputation for flirting with mockery through the illusions of historical accuracy and specific imagery that entices that audience to engage in a mournful connection with the work. Yet when further investigated, his imagery and artifacts are nothing more then random materials complied and arranged into a space of synthetic historical accuracy(3). This is not to say that the sensations his spaces create for the audience is not to be valued, and does not provide an atmosphere for reflections on mortality, memory, and individuality, but what will be explored is how Boltanski uses deceptiveness to create those sensations for the audience. Illusion is the best means to approach his work, and an understanding that his spaces are alluringly historically accurate but are really mournfully ambivalent is nessesary.
       It has been reported that Boltanski’s work stems from stories of his life, yet like all elements of his work, where there is truth there is a mirage. While some of his art stems from true life stories, Boltanski has created an alter ego who steps into the picture when his real life does not match up to the work that he is creating. This altar ego has been reported as engaging in interviews and explanations where his real life would not so cohesively fit into the work(3). So, while Boltanski may have never experienced all that his work represents, his altar ego can fill in the historical gaps and always personally connect himself to his work.
               The first work which will be digested is The Storehouse, 1988, which is a created space consisting of seven photographs with seven electric lamps and one hundred ninety two tin biscuit boxes each containing cloth fragments. The boxes have been treated and weathered so that they looked marked by time and artifacts of old, and the cloth fragments appear to be archival preserves. The seven faces of young girls are spotted with electric lights, and the girls faces are blurred into semi-anonymous figures. The lighting resembles a technologically advanced devotional candle. The seven girls with their lights are arranged on the wall of the space in a horizontal line, while the tins are mounted directly below them in a grid-like compilation(4). It has been reported on many occasions that this space is an orchestration of signifiers that indicates loss and remembrance(3). The artist is using the institutionalized museum layout of space and mirroring that into a created space of anonymous images and items. The reality of the work is that the girls depicted are not victims of a genocide or holocaust victims, as is has been described as appearing, but they are random photos that Boltanski plucked from magazines, news papers, and other literary sources. Furthermore, the tin boxes and clothing are not relics but simply treated materials from contemporary society that serve as visual aids for the amplification of the memorial-like space(4).
        What is so interesting within this work is the duality that Boltanski has created between encouraging personal connections to the seven girls through the emotions sense of loss that the space creates, and creating a completely false space because these girls are anonymously chosen and place in this space with no real investigation into their lives or their experiences. He is using the institutional structure of museums and monuments, specifically Holocaust memorials, to play into the audiences normative emotional response(4). So, on the one hand he had exposed our need to connect with autonomous images and artifacts in ordered to feel a small sense of closure about historic events.  But on the other hand, he has devalued the need for that connection and the lives of the people he is using by turning their images into the punch-line of his “got-cha” joke.
        Another means for examining this work is that he has translated the individual person into a symbolic representation within a space that facilitated the viewer’s projection of his or her own mortality(4). So while one can sympathize with the seven girls, due to the assumption that each one has suffered a tragic experience worth being memorialized based on the space created, they also can empathize with their own existence and its eminent end. The artist has been quoted as saying “what drives me as an artists is that I think everyone is unique yet everyone disappears so quickly”(4). This is interesting to consider when examining his work, because in a sense he has deemed himself worthy enough to decide who out of history should not disappear but decorate the stage for a synthetically mournful audience. His work flirts with being a practical joke about the gullible sympathy of others and then uses that sympathy to educate the audience about their need to connect with anonymous objects and images in order to have a better grasp on their own mortality. Like his own altar ego, this work creates a fake façade; a space of illusion for audience deception.
        Another artwork that has an illusory relationship with museum/monument space is the artwork titled Inventory of Objects that Belonged to a Woman of New York. Within this specific sculptural space Boltanski presented furniture in what has been described as an archival mode. The archival mode consisted of name plates and glass separating the audience from the furniture of a woman who has just died. However, much like the last artwork, this space deceives the audience, because in actuality the furniture is randomly borrowed from personal acquaintances, and has no connection to the woman he has chosen(5). Again through the manipulation of the museum-like created space Boltanski creates a place where personal remembrance and connection is encouraged yet the space is a mirage of reality.
One could argue that the actuality of the objects within the space is not important for an audience connection, and that Boltanski is simply creating a space that encourages an audience reaction just like any other artist. But then the question arises why would he feel the need to pull back the curtain and expose the truth behind his artwork? If his space gets the audience reaction that he so craves, if his ability to manipulate museum-like environments allows the audience to engage with the objects and reflect on their own mortality, then why bother exposing the synthetic qualities of the work, other then to prove his intellectual ability to manipulate and trick people. His work seems to always stem back to his ability to trick the audience, and for that, it creates an undeniable question about if his work is anything more then a large scale place for him to prove his intellectual superiority over the emotional gullibility of his audience.  
               Bertoski is undeniably successful at creating engaging and compelling space. His ability to trap the audience into an emotional connection with the space is skillfully achieved. However, his work is built on deception, illusions, and manipulation. Perhaps what truly drives Bertoski as an artist is his undeniable ability to create illusions, both through his work and even within his own alter ego. The truth seems to be that Bertoski is nothing more then an illusionist who creates jokes at the expense of others.
 
 
 
 
 

                                     Home Wrecker

        Artists are chameleons. Ever shifting and molding into the role of laborer, thinker, organizer, designer, and commentator, the role of an artist within society is one of perpetual change and transition. Their ability to both reflect and alter the world around them is something that remains a steady variable within the problematic world of art and art history. The artist Gordon Matta-Clark has a distinct place within contemporary art history, specifically pertaining to the shift in the role that artists can have within society. Working within existing environments Gordon Matta-Clark sought after the forgotten side streets and houses within our industrial society and transformed them into unexpected shapes and spaces. The means to produce his work, the act that creates the art, is one that has been defined by its destructive technique, but what is so enigmatic about the work of Matta-Clark, is that through violent destruction he alters decaying isolated architecture into spaces filled with light, depth, and energy. His best known work involved cutting and chopping away at condemned buildings. Flipping our sense of architectural space on its back, he creates altered space where the skeletons of architecture are exposed and light seeps into the severed buildings(4). Through examining his work, as well as other components of Clark’s life, his ability to re-ignite forgotten spaces, and create conversations about social issues, will demonstrate how destructive acts of violence can be the best producers of positive environments that encourage cultural change.
Clark’s father was a surrealist artist, and so from birth he was raised in an artistic environment. Trained as an architect at Cornell University, Clark took root with art making in New York’s Soho in the early 1960’s. Working with an architectural background, Clark had a heavy hand in fertilizing New York’s Soho for artistic production and life(1). When commenting on architecture, Clark once said that “Far from addressing Humanities problems, most architects were not solving anything except how to make a living.(4)” With that perspective his use of architectural knowledge as a tool within his professional career can be better understood. Along with destructive building splicing, Clark has worked with film, photography, social projects, and restaurants, and the ever present theme of commenting on the forgotten elements of society can be threaded throughout each medium choice. Clarks artistic career ended abruptly when he died at a very young age of cancer, but his influential hand in transforming New York’s Soho into an artistic playground, and his renegade art style, are just two of the ever present imprints that Clark left on the art scene(3).
        The artwork titled Conical Intersect consists of a series of carved circles that penetrated through the abandoned structure of a town house in the working class section of Paris. Along with the carvings, two 17th century building, both intended for demolishment, were connected with a spiraling cone. This space has been recorded as creating a physical and visual instability for the viewer that opens unexpected angles and cuts space into the houses(2). What is so interesting about Clarks work is that he is choosing buildings meant for demolishment, un-used spaces within society, and reactivating them as living objects by cutting and chopping. What is even more interesting in that while Clark is re-activating these works their eminent destruction and demise goes unaltered. All of Clarks carved houses have been demolished, which adds the component of time, documentation, and impermanence to his work(5). It is as if he gives these houses one last breath, one last chance for those around them to reconnect with the space, before they are ultimately destroyed.
            Another work of Clarks, Splitting, consists of a house in Englewood New Jersey that Clark literally split in two, and the house corners are now in the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. This house was not only split down the middle but it was tilted back, so as to create a thin gap for light and space to separate the two sides of each house. This produced a line of natural light that seeps through the house and into each cut room, creating an illumination within the previously shut building(6).
            Clark’s cutting and slicing of buildings has been described as creating a dialogue with three elements of “cutting” society; cutting the middle class American dream, cutting the safety of shelter, and cutting his own family history of divorce(2). To approach the split house in New Jersey would be to approach a visual representation of destruction and invasion. As a symbol within society, the house represents safety, family, and love, and I think where the intense sensation that Clarks work creates comes from the ability to take that symbol and break it down so easily. He is taking a space that most Americans associate with safety, warmth, and shelter and cutting right through it. On the other side of things, these buildings are abandoned, they represent the lost spaces within our society, the forgotten deposits of production and consumption, and by giving them use and life again Clark seems to be creating a dialogue about what society discards and yet values at the same time(1).
            Some of the other projects that Clark has created further demonstrate his dialogue with forgotten spaces of society. One social project consisted of Clark and other artists moving into the arches under the Brooklyn Bridge and living with the homeless and discarded people of New York. Clark specifically created makeshift shelters out of wrecked cars for sleeping under the arches of the Brooklyn Bridge. The project ended with a pig roast and free sandwiches for everyone(3). Also, Clark, along with others, created a restaurant for artists within New York’s SOho, known as Food, the free restaurant was run and staffed by artists, for artists, as a place for creative energy and engagement to occur(4).
            Another element that add dimension to Clarks work is the thought of presentation. The spaces that Clark creates can be very visibility limiting. While he opens space and brings in energy to previously closed buildings, the majority of his work can only be seen from the outside(2). The viewers experience is limited because not all, or many, people can safely enter the cut up buildings to experience how the space has been altered. So, while Clark is opening space he is also closing it by creating environments that are only visible for some people. What this means is that to fully comprehend the spaces that Clark has created photography and video recording becomes a crucial element within his work. What is interesting, when viewing the photography that Clark has used to document the work, is that the photographs are presented in a compositional manner so that the instability and unexpected angles are incorporated into the presentation(6). The photographs are not displayed in a horizontal or vertical manner, but just like how the rooms are cut and sliced into each other, the photographs are displayed at unexpected angels and positioning. This element of presentation is quite intriguing because it is trying to translate a space into two dimensions, ether through video or photograph, Clarks taking the sight specific space of a building and providing a means for a broader range of people to engage(6). The question is can a space like the ones Clark created be effectively translated into two dimensions, or does the beauty of the space get lost in translation.
Perpetually working outside the institutions of society, Clark re-claimed the orphaned products of society’s suburban ejaculations. By working with such a strong American symbol, the house, Clark was able to create an environment whose physical instability reflects its conceptual intention. The cuts that Clark had made into houses, the pig sandwiches he had served to homeless people, the car shelters that he had slept under all make the underbelly of society a place for creativity, exploration, and growth. Clark was a founding influence in transforming Soho into an art environment, and while it would be interesting to hear what he thinks of Soho now, his influence within the community is still evident by its remaining artistic energy. Clark’s unique means for engaging with space transforms architecture into a vehicle for social commentary and the product allows for a conversation about abandonment, usefulness, and suburban life to be initiated.    




Bibliography for Christian Boltanski


1.) http://www.moma.org/collection/object.php?object_id=80857. Accessed March 28th, 2009
2.)Semin, Didier. Christian Boltanski. London: Phainun Publishing, 1997
3.)Godeau-Solomon, Abigail. “Mourning or Melancholia: Christian Boltanski’s “Missing House” in Oxford Art Journal. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.
4.)Marcoci, Roxana. “Counter Monuments and Memory” in MOMA. Published by MOMA, 2009.


Biography for Gordon Matta-Clark

1.) Ouroussoff, Nicolai. “Timely Lessons From a Rebel who Often Created by Destroying” New York Times, March 3, 2007.
2.) Lee, Pamela M. “On the Holes of History: Gordon Matta-Clark’s Work in Paris” in October, The MIT Press, 1998.
3.) Rosenberg, Karen. “Disappearing Act- Revisiting Gordon Matta-Clark” New York Times, February 2007.
4.) Attlee, James. Towards Anarchitecture: Gordon Matta Clark and Le Corbusier. www.tate.org, Accessed March 29th.
5.) Krauss, Rosalind. “Notes on the Index: Seventies Art in America” in October, 1972.
6.) McDonough, Tom. “How to do things with Buildings” in Art in America, November 2007.

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.