Interactive art

Interactive art is a form of installation-based art that involves the spectator in some way. Some installations achieve this by letting the observer walk in, on, and around them. Works frequently feature computers and sensors to respond to motion, heat, meteorological changes or other types of input their makers programme them to respond to. Most examples of virtual Internet art and electronic art are highly interactive. Sometimes visitors are able to navigate through a hypertext environment; some works accept textual or visual input from outside; sometimes an audience can influence the course of a performance or can even participate in it.

Interactive art can be distinguished from Generative art, Electronic art, or Immersive virtual reality in that it constitutes a dialogue between the art work and the participant; specifically, the participant has agency, or the ability to act upon the art work and is furthermore invited to do so within the context of the piece, i.e. the work affords the interaction. In an increasing number of cases an installation can be defined as a responsive environment, especially those created by architects and designers. By contrast, Generative Art, which is interactive, but not responsive per se, tends to be a monologue - the artwork may change or evolve in the presence of the viewer, but the viewer may not be invited to engage in the reaction but merely enjoy it.

A hybrid emerging discipline drawing on the combined interests of specific artists and architects has been created in the last 10-15 years. Disciplinary boundaries have blurred, and significant number of architects and interactive designers have joining electronic artists in the creation of new, custom-designed interfaces and evolutions in techniques for obtaining user input (such as dog vision, alternative sensors, voice analysis, etc.); forms and tools for information display (such as video projection, lasers, robotic and mechatronic actuators, led lighting etc.); modes for human-human and human-machine communication (through the Internet and other telecommunications networks); and to the development of social contexts for interactive systems (including but not limited to utilitarian tools, formal experiments, games and entertainment, social critique, and political liberation).

Interactive architecture has now been installed on and as part of building facades, in foyers, museums and large scale public spaces, including at airports, in a number of global cities. A number of leading museums, for example, the National Gallery, Tate, Victoria & Albert Museum and Science Museum in London (to cite the leading UK museums active in this field) were early adoptors in the field of interactive technologies, investing in educational resources, and more latterly, in the creative use of MP3 players for visitors. In 2004 the Victoria & Albert Museum commissioned curator and author Lucy Bullivant to write Responsive Environments (2006), the first such publication of its kind. Interactive designers are frequently commissioned for museum displays; a number specialise in wearable computing.

There are number of globally significant festivals and exhibitions of interactive and media arts Prix Ars Electronica is a major yearly competition and exhibition that gives awards to outstanding examples of (technology-driven) interactive art. [SIGGRAPH|Association of Computing Machinery's Special Interest Group in Graphics (SIGGRAPH)] , DEAF Dutch Electronic Arts Festival, Transmediale Germany, FILE - Electronic Language International Festival Brazil, and AV Festival England, are among the others. CAiiA, Centre for Advanced Inquiry in the Interactive Arts, first established in 1994 at the University of Wales, Newport, and later in 2003 as the Planetary Collegium, was the first doctoral and post doc research centre to be established specifically for research in the interactive art field.

ee also

* Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival
* Contextual Theatre
* Installation art
* Computer-generated art
* Electronic art
* Interactive film
* Internet art
* Kinetic sculpture
* New media art
* Performance art
* Video Game Art

Tools

* Tollbooth Gallery interactive public art project involving video
* Max/MSP programming language for interactive media
* Pure Data - open source programming language for interactive computer music and multimedia works
* Processing (programming language) used for many interactive art projects
* Arduino physical computing/electronics toolkit for interactive objects and installations

Further reading

* Frank Popper, Art--Action and Participation, New York University Press, 1975
* Ascott, R.2003. "Telematic Embrace: visionary theories of art, technology and consciousness". (Edward A. Shanken, ed.) Berkeley: University of California Press.
* Roy Ascott. 2002. "Technoetic Arts" (Editor and Korean translation: YI, Won-Kon), (Media & Art Series no. 6, Institute of Media Art, Yonsei University). Yonsei: Yonsei University Press
* Ascott, R. 1998. "Art & Telematics: toward the Construction of New Aesthetics". (Japanese trans. E. Fujihara). A. Takada & Y. Yamashita eds. Tokyo: NTT Publishing Co.,Ltd.
*Barreto, Ricardo and Perissinotto, Paula [http://www.file.org.br/the_culture_of_immanence.doc “the_culture_of_immanence”] , in Internet Art. Ricardo Barreto e Paula Perissinotto (orgs.). São Paulo, IMESP, 2002. ISBN: 85-7060-038-0.
* Bullivant, Lucy, Responsive Environments: architecture, art and design: V&A Contemporary, 2006. London:Victoria and Albert Museum. ISBN 1-85177-481-5
* Bullivant, Lucy, 4dsocial: Interactive Design Environments. London: AD/John Wiley & Sons, 2007. ISBN 978-0470 319116
* Bullivant, Lucy, 4dspace: Interactive Architecture. London: AD/John Wiley & Sons, 2005. ISBN 0-470-09092-8
* Fleischmann, Monika and Reinhard, Ulrike (eds.). [http://netzspannung.org/media-art/publications/digital-transformations/?lang=en Digital Transformations - Media Art as at the Interface between Art, Science, Economy and Society] online at [http://netzspannung.org/index_en_flash.html netzspannung.org] , 2004, ISBN 3-934013-38-4
* Fleischmann, Monika; Strauss, Wolfgang (eds.) (2001). [http://netzspannung.org/version1/cast01/proceedings/index.html Proceedings] of [http://netzspannung.org/version1/cast01/index.html »CAST01//Living in Mixed Realities«] Intl. Conf. On Communication of Art, Science and Technology, Fraunhofer IMK 2001, 401. ISSN 1618–1379 (Print), ISSN 1618–1387 (Internet).
*Oliver Grau Virtual Art, from Illusion to Immersion, MIT Press 2004, pp. 237-240, ISBN 0262572230
* Paul, Christiane (2003). Digital Art' (World of Art series). London: Thames & Hudson. ISBN 0-500-20367-9
* Weibel, Peter and Shaw, Jeffrey, Future Cinema, MIT Press 2003, pp. 472,572-581, ISBN 0262692864
* Wilson, Steve, Information Arts: Intersections of Art, Science, and Technology ISBN 0-262-23209-X

External links

* [http://www.aec.at Ars Electronica Festival, Linz, Austria]
* [http://www.V2.nl V2 organisation and DEAF festival Rotterdam, The Netherlands]
* [http://www.ntticc.or.jp InterCommunication Center Tokyo, Japan]
* [http://www.citu.info CITU New Media Art Research Center, Paris, France]
* [http://www.storytellersinc.org The Storytellers Inc - Interactive Art Education]
* [http://www.strp.nl STRP art & technology festival, Eindhoven, The Netherlands]
* [http://www.bluelab.mine.nu art & technology laboratory, Rome, Italy]