Chris Crawford’s definition of interaction is a cyclic process where two persons listen, think and speak alternately. I would totally agree with him except that there is one term called interactive art. If interaction only takes part between people, then this term should not exist. So here comes my definition, interaction is way of communicating among people, whether using objects for intermediating or not. Here I emphasize the usage of objects, because it could be considered interaction if one person wants to send Mores code using the refrigerator light to another person, however, certainly few people would really do that.
I invested two interactive art projects. RE:PLACES namely ‘Recycling PLA Closed-Circuit Extrusion Shaper’, Created by Carolin Liebl and Nikolas Schmid-Pfähler, is a complex robot that excretes plastic substances around the floor. The heated materials twist and finally cool down to its shape. As the author emphasizes in the post the creative experience raise a question of “the thematic complex of plastic and the problems arising from its use”. Considering my definition, this interactive art project apparently doesn’t fell into the category. RE:PLACES is simply desposits the twisting art around the floor, laeaving the audience to guess a big question. One might also point out that the creative machine is communicating with humans through making those excretions. However, it is my definition that excludes the interaction beteen machine and humans.
Though it disagrees with my definition, it also offers me an opportunity to reflect on my problems. Does the such interaction count as interaction? Crawford states that the interaction among human and an emotionless object is a interaction with high value. Nevertheless, he admits the process is a way of interaction. In the case of RE:PLACE, it definitely interact with people. Under this circumstances, I think whether it’s interaction or not should also includes the value contains in it not merely excluding it when the interaction happens between man and objects. But value judgement is rather a subjective thing, because the interaction one considered meaningless, may be fruitful to another. Therefore, let’s change the definition to the mutual conversation between two individuals (man or objects) that conveys messages with each other. Surely, we don’t want a subjective value-judgement to be in the definition.
The second interactive art is ‘Returning the Gaze’ created by Behnaz Farahi. It explores the discrimination and harasssment women recieves in the fashion industry, by capturing the movement of the model’s eyes and displaying it on robotic arms.
In this case, the model is interacting with the audience through the roboic system. But this rather concrete and strong way of interacting also triggers my thoughts. I start to think whether the way of conveying message need to be considered. Does it need to be as apparent as the ‘Returning the Gaze’ is? Or it can be implicative? As far as I’m concerned, the way of interaction can be all kinds of things, whether in the refrigerator case, it interacts through the light, or dump materials just like RE:PLACE, therefore, the way of doing it in the definiton is not limited.
Finally, our definiton of interaction becomes a conversation between two individuals (man or objects) that conveys messages with each other without limimtation. It is quite interesting that Tom Igoe thought interactive art should be a process of you building things and the audience do whatever they want to discover your hidden messages. Therefore it is appropriate to assume that interaction must convey certain messages, just as I define it. There are definetly people who believe that interacting with a dead thing is obscure, but when dead thing one day come to alive, when they have their own thoughts, like the artificial intelligence, will the definiton of interaction change?
References:
- Crawford, C. Art of interactive design : A euphonious and illuminating guide to building successful software. January 1, 2002, pp.1-5http://s3-ap-southeast-1.amazonaws.com/ima-wp/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2017/08/05164121/The-Art-of-Interactive-Design-brief.pdf
- Tom Igoe, Making Interactive Art: Set the Stage, Then Shut Up and Listen,21 AUGUST 2012, https://www.tigoe.com/blog/category/physicalcomputing/405/