In Crawford’s article, interaction is defined in three steps. He used an example of two people talking to illustrate these steps, listening, thinking and responding (Crawford 5). Simpler, it can be concluded as input, processing and output. Indeed, these steps are necessary to interaction. But are they sufficient? No, I don’t think this definition depicts the full picture of interaction. In Igoe and O’sullivan ‘s Introduction to Physical Computing, the figure of “How computer sees us”, which is a finger with one eye and two ears, enlightened me (xix). I consider that besides the basic definition, high-level interaction should always be related to human. It is human who can really feel the sense of interacting. This is what really matters.
Let me explain my definition by giving an example, which has low level of interactivity. This project is an automatic plant waterer. It is made up of three parts, a soil moisture sensor, which reads the moisture as an input. An Arduino UNO as a computation unit. And a DC motor to control the water valve. Is it interactive? Sure, it involves input, processing and output. It also is quite handy to save your plant from drying to death when you are absent for a long time. But obviously we can see that this project is not as interesting as we would imagine interactive to be. Why? Because there is no human involved in. In fact, I personally prefer defining this kind of low-level interaction as a part of automation.
So, what is high-level interaction then? I also have an example here. It is called Volume, designed by Filip Visnjic. This project is an array of mirrors that redirect light and sound to “spatialize excitement”. It reads the distance and angle of the user and moves the mirrors accordingly. It is also made up of three parts, depth cameras, Arduino controller and motors to drive the mirrors. But when I looked at this project, immediately, it gave me a different feeling. This project is sensational, not only because it is a piece of art. Most importantly, it involves human. We can feel it moving according to our inputs, this feeling creates a strong sense of interacting. In this way, we can call this device a high-level interactive device.
Having defined interaction in my own way, I would like to show what are we doing in our group project. We discussed about some simple devices, including some what I called “automation” device before. Then we decided we would fix our core on human. Also, having looked at some fancy projects, like the mirror one I mentioned above, since we are working on Interactive Media Art, we decided to do more art related stuff. Guided by these ideas, we came up with our “Paint Your Day” device. The project derived from an idea of creating a picture by voice pitch. It sounds like an interesting idea, but it may be a bit difficult to paint with only one parameter. Then we thought about multiple inputs, and finally decided our plan. This device focuses on human. All the data are from the user him/herself. Though the input part is automatically done by our wearable devices, but the key is that we want our users have a sense of being cared when using our device. The idea is that when the users got the final picture, they will be happy/astounded… to see what their day looks like. By doing these, I think our final project aligns with my definition of interactive well. This might be a combination of interaction and art in the real future. I am happy to develop on this project and explore more about it.
References:
Automatic Plant Watering System: https://create.arduino.cc/projecthub/neetithakur/automatic-plant-watering-system-using-arduino-uno-8764ba
Volume: https://www.creativeapplications.net/processing/volume-interactive-cube-of-responsive-mirrors-that-redirects-light-and-sound/
Crawford, “What Exactly is Interactivity,” The Art of Interactive Design, pp. 1-5.
Igoe and O’Sullivan, Introduction to Physical Computing.