Final Project: Preparatory Research and Analysis (Nov. 7, 2019) – Jackson McQueeney
Fito Segrera’s The Form of Becomingis a project at the Chronus Exhibition consisting of a string on top of 50 arms controlled by motors. The project runs on a code that continuously attempts to straighten the string by moving each motor, raising or lowering its corresponding arm. It seems that the machine somehow detected tension on the strings, and adjusted accordingly. From my point of view, I don’t think this project was interactive at all, or even reactive for that matter, since it executed its function regardless of the inputs of a human actor. In this regard, this project was not very different from an art piece in a traditional exhibit, like a sculpture or a painting, in that it was purely visual.
The first piece I researched is called TAMI, which stands for “Tangible Mathematics Interface”. This project aims to teach the user basic trigonometric principles using the user’s inputs. The device’s intended audience is students who struggle with math, since it visualizes mathematical concepts in a more tangible way than a traditional classroom. A teacher facilitates the communication between the student and the machine by teaching the student some basic concepts, with which the student translates into visual representation using TAMI. The device is interactive, by my definition, since the student gives mathematical inputs, which the device translates into visual outputs. Additionally, there is another layer of interactivity in the teacher, who provides the student with more potential inputs. The student optimally learns from TAMI’s outputs. Next, the bomb is what the creators describe as “an immersive film, music, and art installation that puts viewers at the center of the story of nuclear weapons”. The project is designed to put the viewer in the center of nuclear history, particularly the Cold War era, using intense visual and aural experiences. Like The Form of Becoming, I don’t see this project as interactive or reactive, since the only communications are screens and speakers communicating an especially immersive film to a passive viewer.
In my previous definitions of interaction, I described it as the communication of two or more actors through the medium of inputs and outputs. My first definition that I developed during the research stage of the group project was not very nuanced, only describing interaction as “two actors who respond to and influence each other”. By the time I had progressed to the midterm project, this definition evolved into “communication between two or more actors, including machines and humans, in the form of inputs and outputs”. At this point, I would update this definition to “the communication between two or more organic or machine actors, facilitated by an interchange of inputs and outputs between the actors”. An interactive project is one that facilitates communication between (perhaps more than one) human actor and a machine, which relies on the mutual exchange of input and output between these actors.
As I said before, I believe the first project from part B is a good example of interactivity between a human actor and a machine actor (or in this case two humans and a machine). TAMI accounts for the inputs of the student and uses these inputs to generate visual outputs. Additionally, there is interaction between the teacher and the student in the form of basic mathematical instruction. However, both the project from part A and the second project from part B are not, by my definition, interactive, nor are they reactive. The project from part A conducts a series of programmed actions until it achieves a desired result, and then it resets. The second project from part B is really just a film, though it is playing on a panoramic screen with more immersive sound effects. For these reasons, neither of these projects are interactive at all, though they do have artistic value.