Preparatory Research and Analysis by Tya Wang (rw2399)

Throughout this semester, I have been guided through a series of experiences related to a variety of interactive and artistic experiences. This week, I made the visit to CAC and saw the art pieces there. The feelings I had was so weirdly similar to what I would feel in another contemporary art museum yet so different from my notion of digital devices although I had imagined it to be the other way around. For all six pieces there, I had to read the introduction closely to comprehend what its main idea is because just like other contemporary art, the meanings are made obscure and subtle with material that are common in everyday life. However, people often think machines there to make people’s life easier, and we are always taught that when you make a device, you should design it so that people can see it from a glance to know what it does. I rarely see machines put together for a sole artistic purpose instead of pragmatic. I found the idea of me as a human trying to understand the language expressed through cold, emotionless electronic devices laughable. I guess it only makes sense when the deeper social problems or the discussion around the capability of computers are delivered through these unconventional organization of electronic parts. Some exhibits there, namely the “Artificial Intuition” and “Rechnender Raum” pieces, actually brought me thinking about the relationship between human being and computers.

While most exhibits in CAC are more artistic than interactive, I encountered some great examples of devices that successfully provide interactive experiences to its users. One is the “Dancing Traffic Light” in Lisbon, Portugal. The idea is to keep the pedestrians’ attentions while they wait for the green light to foster traffic safety by making the red man on the light move, which is based on the dance moves made by users in a booth next to the crosswalk. When people dance in the booth, their motions will be transformed into pixel animation of a little red man dancing (“Dancing traffic light entertains pedestrians and improves safety,” 2014). Not only they can see the animation on a screen in the booth, the animation will also be shown live on the traffic light. I think of this project as a successful interactive one because it involves users’ information input through physical movement and it outputs information through animation. Since this flow of information is two-way and continuous (because showing and transferring movements is a continuous activity), this project did a great job in making its users’ experience interactive. Users also get involved deeply in such design knowing that when they are enjoying the interaction, traffic security is also promoted.

Another interactive experience offered to users that stood up to me while I was researching is a show by Sergei Tchoban in 2012 in Venice. He put up QR codes on the wall that luminate and allows his users to scan them to read about information about a high-tech city that was being built outside of Moscow. This can also be called interactive because people do get information from the show, and they are allowed to immerse in the environment because QR codes are all over the wall, glittering (Nadel, 2013). However, I think this experience is not as interactive as the first one because there is not an “organic”, or back-and-forth information transmission between users and the piece. Once users scan the code, which means they ask for the information contained in it, the internet gives it back, and it’s the end of this conversing cycle. Users will not make reactions based on the output of the device.

So from my perspective, out of the two things that’s essential to a successful interactive experience, the first thing is two or more parties responding to each other based on information they previously received, which means interaction is not something that goes once and for all, but people and objects reacts continuously. Just as in the first example, people can always see the moves they have made and how the computer transforms them into pixel animation. After they saw this information generated by the computer, they can adjust the next steps to fit themselves better as pixel characters. This is how a successful interaction needs a party in the relationship to give out information based on that they received. In a less interactive relationship, the information flow can be scattered and not internally related. Just as Tchoban’s design, information provided by each code may not lead the users to the next piece of information they want to see. What they get is merely separate news and pictures.

While I already came to the first point in my definition developed in my group project, during this research I realized the reason why a successful interactive experience needs more forms of information transmission. With more media such as music, picture, physical movement, scent, etc., people will be immersed deeper and devote more attention to the experience, making the goals of a device or product more achievable. I noticed during the users’ test that some groups’ design integrates sound, movement and sight for their users, which arouses great interest among the audience. Everyone was crazy for Ian and Changzhen’s game for two in class and the discussion is heated because they can really participate in it. However, my partner and I chose to do something that involves only one media of information flow. Our show seemed a little bit too quiet. Therefore, I think that giving the customers an immersive and multimedia experience when you want to be interactive is essential because this way, they can get your purpose better. Imagine instead of the interactive traffic light to propagate for traffic security, a speaker is placed there continuously playing a tape that asks pedestrians to look out. Nothing effect would have been reached this way.

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