Definition:
Edmonds defines a qualifying interactive process as the “Dynamic-Interactive”: which ensures the ‘viewer’ has “an active role in influencing the changes in the art object”, as the work gives different feedback to what the person does. And then there’s a more complicated version of that named Dynamic-Interactive (Varying). In this situation, the feedback from the second stage of Dynamic-Interactive has “a modifying agent that changes the original specification of
the art object”, which allows it to learn from the precious engagement with the user and create a cycle of responses.
Edmonds’ depiction of an interactive installation can collect a history of experiences that fits in with my previous understanding of an interactive installation. The midterm project I made succeed in letting the user explore the instrument on their own, but did not produce enough secondary feed back to keep them engaged. In my final project, I will try to add more in this “stage 3” to really engage with the user in a more stimulating manner.
Researched Project 1
Firewall–Aaron Sherwood & Michael Allison
Firewall is an interactive media installation, the main body of which is a stretched sheet of spandex “acts as a membrane interface sensitive to depth that people can push into and create fire-like visuals and expressively play music”.
The artists revealed their inspiration as from “death and experience of reality”, as the membrane “represents a plane that you can experience but never get through” between the rigid boundary of life and death. The piece was made using Processing, Max/MSP, Arduino and a Kinect. When someone presses into it the visuals react around where the person presses, and the music is triggered. An algorithm created with Max allows the music to speed up and slow down and get louder and softer, based on the depth. This provides a very expressive musical playing experience, even for people who have never played music before.
What I take away from this work is how it produces intricate instant feedback, and how the constantly changing responses from light and sound can intrigue a player for a long time, and even allow them to figure out an effective way of playing this installation like a real instrument. If I want to incorporate sound with light effects in my project, this is a very good model to learn from.
Researched Project 2
Rafael Lozano-Hemmer: Bilateral Time Slicer, 2016
The main body of this mirror-like installation based on a “biometric tracking system finds the axis of symmetry of members of the public using face detection”, which allows the computer to splits the live camera image of the users into two slices mixed with previous users’ images. When no user is occupying the camera, these previously recorded slices “close and rejoin creating a procession of past recordings”. This installation is inspired by time-lapse sculptures and masks in ancient traditions.
I believe this successfully re-enacts the idea of maskin in the current age of digital identity, and the memory function allows it to reflect on its interaction with different users to produce profiling of identities in modernity. If I want to continue my idea on a project that can regenerate a personal image for the users that challenges their current belief of identities, I will think about how to collect samples and data from the users and mixed them in an effective way to produce an image that can produce constant feedback to intrigue the user.