Group Research Project Step1 (Research Part)
Based on the readings and my own life experiences and research, I would like to define “interaction” as an event which two or more sides are involved in and each side has the ability to sense others’ movements or changes and then form its own response accordingly so that the whole incident will be looked different from a third party perspective.
To test whether my definition can distinguish different art designs, I mainly compare two projects with my definition.
The first project is Sinusoidal Noise created by the Kai Lab. This is a very impressive project, but I think it doesn’t fit my definition of “interaction”. The project is there for the visitor to see how the 98 pixels of lights changed their light and during this process, visitors can enjoy the continuously changing pattern. In this case, 2 sides are involved in the event, visitors, and the project itself. However, the project itself won’t respond to whatever the visitor is doing. It just keeps changing color according to its initial programming rather than being responsive to another side involved in this event. Though it’s not the interactive project I am seeking, it does do a great job in using these pixels of lights to form countless impressive patterns. So I want to just describe the experience as a visual experience full of pleasure.
The second project is Wetlands created by the LHStudio. A wearable headset was used to monitor some test data from the user. (I am not an expert in this field. So I generally call all the data which belong to the neuroscience field test data) And then, these test data are compiled into an axis of stimulus and material qualities, which are exhibited in a 360 dimension digital space. The user wearing the headset can see these images created by the test data generated from himself. In this case, the whole process involves 2 sides, the user, and the project. But unlike the project mentioned before, it’s not only generating pictures by its initial program, it also uses the real-time test data collected from the headset. In this way, we can say that this project is responsive to the changes in other sides. In conclusion, this project fits my definition of “interaction” and the experience of it is interactive. I am happy to see these patterns changing simultaneously with my mind thinking of other things.