What defines interactivity? Interaction is when you can affect something and got a response and this response affects you too. In addiction, this interaction spawns another interaction: between people. Like when you are interacting with one project and at the same time or later it causes you to connect with other people. For example, you see one interesting project, you interact with it, than you want to talk about this project with someone else and you interact with this person because of the project. So it connects people and become well-known. And also it gives you the emotion – it makes you happy or exited or shocked or even scared. It affects you so much that you want to affect someone else by it. It can even make changes in your character or in your views. One project which somehow aligns with my explanation of the word “interactive” is the puppet parade by Emily Gobeille and Theo Watson. It’s the project where people can not just interact with the screen and “puppies”, they also interact with each other. It is kind of a game. People are using their hands to control the puppies – they can change their size and feed them. Puppies on the screen are moving, eating and interacting with people. The video will describe better the concept of this project.
I can’t say that there are any projects that would not align by my description. Maybe it is because of subjectiveness. Like I can be fascinated by something and other people can just go by it and don’t be surprised. But interaction is a dialogue, so not just the project affects you. You need to be able to somehow change it too. So there are many projects that can’t offer you this opportunity. For instance Light Leaks from Jonas Jongejan and Kyle McDonald. First, let me talk about this project. It is a room which is full of lights. It is the installation of fifty mirror balls which are projecting the controlled light in the room (Kyle McDonald | Jonas Jongejan) This project is really beautiful. It moves you like to the another universe. So, it aligns the first part of my definition – it affects me. It will be incredible to go to this room and these spectacular lights and be exited by this beauty. But you can just watch it. So that’s a monologue. You cannot interact with it. As a result, interactiveness consists of many factors. The most important for me is that the person can affect the installation and that people can interact with each other by the help of interactive projects.