Step 1 Final Project
A. Upon visiting the chronic exhibition where we saw technology based art pieces, I realised how important it was for the art’s purpose to be explanatory without having us, the creators, explaining the project by itself. For the final project, I really want my piece, whatever it is, to be understood as explicitly as possible without needing me saying “no, do that, not here, go here, yea that’s it”. The interesting thing about interactive exhibitions is that our first reaction is based on the physical aspect of the piece and trying to make it work, and then trying to understand its purpose and how it achieves it.
B. An interactive project that I find compelling and useful in real life is a new game that is at the nike shops such as the one on Nanjinglu in Shanghai. It is an interactive a game because it lets one person play basketball on an interactive basketball court by himself as if there was another player there.
https://www.fitness-gaming.com/news/fitness-and-sports/nike-rise-digital-basketball-training-court.html
“basketball training system that combines an interactive digital court with advanced tracking technologies and a coaching app to track, assess and improve players’ performance.” (fitness&sports website)
They use LEDs to light up the floor to let the player know where the defence is, track the steps the player makes, and when he scores which enables the device to assess how effective the player was. I find this a good research project as it really shows that interaction is a advancement of our human capacities through technology as technology replaces other players who are absent and replaces the coach who trains them in a more accurate and effective way as a coach can be wrong, but the trackers can’t. This inspires me to find a project that can be useful and fun for people to try and enjoy.
Another interactive project is an interactive blackboard where there are small men displayed on the board who walk along the board from one side to the other, when they get to the other side, they reappear on the first end of the board. From there, when the people draw on the board, this affects the little people, so if they draw a wall, then the men won’t be able to walk to the other end of the board, or a little bump, the men will walk over it.
https://www.teamlab.art/w/blackboard/
A less interesting project in my opinion, although still interactive device is this device which shows the level of theartifical landscapes which does impact the people as they realise about climate change and the effect on the landscape, but the fact that they can’t touch the device really makes it less interesting in my opinion. So in my final project, I would like something to do with actually touching and having a reaction from that motion.
C. My definition of interaction in the first research project was as such: “In my opinion, interaction is a repetitive process between two agents where a thought turns into an action with a response. It is a prolongation of our senses through means of advancing technology.” (from research project). Following my own definition, I would say that what makes it more interesting is not necessarily that the audience learns something new, but that there is some sort of motion and creativity for the audience to feel free to explore and play around, not just a repetitive “I do this so the reaction is that” kind of project. This is what I’ve seen when analysing the “blackboard project” which is a lot of fun as you get to be creative. The basketball device from nike is an interesting combination of both teaching and challenging the player, but also just making it fun for him to visualise the defence and think in a short amount of time how he could react.