Interaction in Installation Art By Rachel Feng

Transcription

1 Interaction in Installation Art By Rachel Feng Ever since the beginning of our project Illuminating the Imperceptible, and while discussing a suitable outcome, the majority of our group were keen to produce an installation of some kind. During the development stages, we continuously brainstormed on ways to add to the installation that would make it more interesting and adding an interactive element seemed perfect. Our installation was already allowing the audience to interact with it by sight and hearing, but adding participation would ultimately create a new experience. Enabling the viewer the participate in the installation would perk their interest in learning more about our project, the experience would be more fulfilling for them than viewing visuals and hearing sounds alone. After designing and creating our group art installation, I have researched specifically into interactions in installation art in more depth and would like to discuss it s importance in this article. Interactive Installation art Installation art started to become of importance in the 70s, although traditional artworks have take the form of 3D sculptures for thousands of years before, the medium used was still relatively simple. These artworks were for viewing pleasures only and the viewer would only experience a mental event. Installation art takes the form of many mediums such as video, sound, performance, virtual reality and the Internet. Although the viewer is already interacting with the work by viewing it, the mediums used in installation art can be more effective in evoking thoughts and images in the viewer s thought process. Human senses would be addressed in multiple ways and therefore creating a totally new experience for the viewers, they become more than just an observer. Interactive art is included in a larger genre of New Media Art which often strongly emphasises the interaction between the artist and the observer.

2 Allan Kaprow s Happenings in the 60s were one of the early forms of interactive installation art. These were relatively new ideas in the art world at that time. The performance installation allowed the audience to participate and also interact with the props that Kaprow set up. The artist wanted the audience to respond in creative ways and encouraged them to change a normal everyday routine through their own thoughts and ideas. The audience s movements and spoken words were interesting to see, as they showed a lot about how they interacted with objects in their everyday life and also how they reacted to the installation. The traditional sense of artist and audience was blurred. The Fluxus network encouraged a do-it-yourself aesthetic and many installation artworks emerged within the network. Yoko Ono s CUT PIECE 1965 was a performance where she knelt on the concert hall stage wearing her best suit with scissors lying in front of her. The audience were then invited up to cut a piece of clothing off of Ono to take away with them. A statement Ono makes about the performance is It was a form of giving, giving and taking as the audience were able to take away whatever they wanted, both mentally and physically.

3 Interactive art in the present day often includes the use of technology equipment such as computers and sensors. Due to computers coming into society, interactive art has become increasingly more significant in the art world. There are now limitless ways for communicating through digital media. There is something extremely interesting in the conversation between audience and machine. The techniques of obtaining input from the audience have also become more creative, human to human and human to machine communication can contribute to this input. Various different forms for displaying the information gathered from the input have also become more high-tech and creative, for example through video projection, lasers, LED lightings, and through music. The artist and theorist Roy Ascott sees art as an interactive system of morphological relationships Shanken (1997).

4 Interactive Design Although interactive design exists in many walks of life, I will be specifically talk about the ones that can be related to art. Successfully designed interactions should be simple, clearly defined actions, with strong purpose and an easily understandable interface. There are six components that should be considered when designing an interaction for an audience: user control, responsiveness, real-time interactions, connectedness, personalisation, and playfulness. I feel that in our own Illuminating the Imperceptible installation, we have successfully covered all of these, as our audience seemed to have thoroughly enjoyed it. Our interface on the ipad was well designed, easily understandable, and the user could easily make the connection between the buttons and the function. Also, touchscreens are something that the majority of people enjoy at the moment, there is a sense of futurism. The ipad was able to retrieve and process information, by projecting out sound, immediately. The media constantly changes depending on the option the user chose, this gave a strong focus on the user. Dialtones: A Telesymphony ( ) by Golan Levin et al. was a largescale concert performance. This was a period when mobile phones were rapidly making a huge change on society. The audiences participation was vital as they were a part of the production. Each member of the audience was required to register their phone number so that new ringtones could be transmitted onto the phone. Then, during the concert, the performance would dial phone numbers to generate the music. Up to 60 phones could have been playing at the same time. There was a great sense of enjoyment, playfulness, and curiosity at new technology.

5 Conclusion In conclusion, I feel that we will be seeing much more installation art that includes the use of interactivity in the future as technology continuously becomes even more significant in our everyday lives. It provokes thoughts and creativity in viewers who may not necessarily be able to have these thoughts and feelings in their everyday life.

6 References Higgins, H Fluxus Experience. Regents of the University of California Cotter, H The New York Times Archives. Available at: Cotter, H The New York Times Art and Design. Available at: Kaprow&st=nyt Concanon. K Imagine Peace. Available at: Flong Available at: Friedman, K Forty Years of Fluxus. Available at: Milevska. S. Participatory Art, A Paradigm Shift from Objects to Subjects. Available at: Shaken, E.A Leonardo-On-Line. Available at: