When I began to create my own definition of interaction during our group projects, I stated that, “interaction is communication between objects, whether they be living or not”. While reflecting on this minimalist definition while I was writing my blog post for my midterm project, I was dissatisfied with it and added that an interactive project must also have what Lieberman calls, “the open mouth effect”. In order to prove that my midterm project, “Pooping Baby” provided the user with this interactive effect, I compared it with Lieberman’s interactive car driving project that he created. That being said, I feel that there is still something more that is lacking within this definition, particularly that it does not cover all types of interactions, nor explain enough about the basics of interaction.
To help me explain what I am looking to accomplish in further defining what I believe interaction to be, as well as providing imagery for my future final project I will present two processing programs. The first program is called “Painting With Pixels” and it provides the viewer with the ability to move and click the mouse on the screen, which gradually portrays a rainbow-colored Apple logo (https://www.openprocessing.org/sketch/179917). The reason I chose this project was due to the fact that it vaguely resembles what I would like to do for my final project, which is centered around the user using processing to draw or alter paintings. Despite satisfying most of my previous definition of interaction, I personally do not believe that it provides a significant enough interaction to create an “open mouth effect”. I feel like there isn’t enough variation in possible user actions because clicking and dragging the mouse all lead to the same possible image.
The next program I have chosen to analyze is entitled, “Splat Paint”(https://www.openprocessing.org/sketch/505847). The reason I chose this program is similar to “Painting With Pixels” in that there is a user interaction that involves digitally painting, yet I feel like this program differs more in that there are multiple options provided for users. Users may not be able to choose the random color of their “splat”, but they can chose wherever they would like to place it on the screen. That being said, I feel that this program lacks what the previously mentioned one has which is a clear objective. I feel as if the user’s purpose is weakened when they are not given a specific set of directions or tasks. If they were to draw a picture or be able to choose from a select set of recognizable paintings, I feel like the project would have been more effective. Thus, I also believe it is arguable whether the “open mouth effect” is prevalent here.
To help remedy my definition of interaction, I look to two separate readings from class: “Physical Computing” and “The Art of Interactive Design”. One thing that both of these readings have in common is that they both compare human actions with digital or computer actions. They both compare the words, “listening”, “thinking” and “speaking” with “input”, “processing” and “output”(Igoe and O’Sullivan xix, Crawford 5) . I believe that this is a fair assessment, particularly when trying to conceptualize our interactions with certain forms of technology. I also enjoy the repetition of words, such as “iterative” and “transduction” because I believe both are crucial to the interactive process(Crawford 5). Therefore, my new definition of interaction is, “a continued conversation between two or more persons or things that convert different forms of energy into the physical and virtual worlds”. I believe that it was imperative for me to add the latter part to this definition because it covered some of the things I am going to be programming for my final project. I want my final project to be using both Processing and Arduino to allow users to alter certain famous paintings and their expressions. I believe that it will go beyond the projects I have listed above and aim to provide the users with a significant “open mouth effect”.