Tuesday, October 2, 2007
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So in reading a catalog of Paul Pfeiffer (the purchase of which was a result of the fabulous Symposium Books in Providence) I came across this quote:
This lead me to think about Interactivity in Art. Interactivity in art is something that I have a very hard time with, and yes all art is interactive in some way, but I am talking about the stuff that asks you to play with to make it do something. And it might be in that relationship that I have a problem. As a viewer I have a hard time engaging an interactive work with the same sobriety that I tend to approach non-interactive objects or installation. As soon a person is asked to do something with a work of art a whole slew of problems can (and do) come up. The user interface begins to take a front row to the content. Since that is a person's primary level of communication with work of art, it will be the thing that makes the first impact, and thus the most significant one. Now, I think an interactive work can be successful when the method of interaction is so smooth and seamless that it manages to disappear. But then the temptation is to create something so slick and seamless that everybody stands around and says "Gee Whiz, that is slick" and again the attention is drawn away from the actual work of art.
I suppose then the challenge is to find something that treads a middle ground. A solution perhaps is to employ methods that are extremely familiar and are part of our social context. On a small scale, putting on headphones. While a very low level of interactivity, and perhaps it isn't even a from of interactivity, it requires the viewer to perform an action. Headphones can be used quite fluidly, they are not gimmicky, they are not intrusive, and they are very familiar.
A method that follows a similar model has a greater chance of succeeding.
Another problem I think I have with interactivity in Art is that the viewer is now positioned with a set of options. With a painting, you have very few options 1) Look At it, 2) Don't Look at it. With an interactive piece the viewer now has to choose what to do. Since there is that choice, the authority of the author and the intent of the author come into question.
There are many other problems that I have with interactive art, and I am sure my opinions will continue to develop over time. It may be that I simply have too narrow of a vision of what interactivity in art is. We shall see.
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"I've often thought of making artwork in terms of providing an entry point for the viewer. How to draw the viewer into a dialogue? That's the challenge every creative person has to face: that there are things you want to say and do, and you have to find a way to say them in the idiom of your time and place. The work can't exist outside a given context. So there's a labor involved to make sense of your relationship to the conditions and constraints you live in . It seems to me to be a labor of translation, or mediation."This is a constant challenge, especially in Digital Media/New Media. Work that can be so technical and so wrapped up in its own technicalness that it pushes the viewer out.
This lead me to think about Interactivity in Art. Interactivity in art is something that I have a very hard time with, and yes all art is interactive in some way, but I am talking about the stuff that asks you to play with to make it do something. And it might be in that relationship that I have a problem. As a viewer I have a hard time engaging an interactive work with the same sobriety that I tend to approach non-interactive objects or installation. As soon a person is asked to do something with a work of art a whole slew of problems can (and do) come up. The user interface begins to take a front row to the content. Since that is a person's primary level of communication with work of art, it will be the thing that makes the first impact, and thus the most significant one. Now, I think an interactive work can be successful when the method of interaction is so smooth and seamless that it manages to disappear. But then the temptation is to create something so slick and seamless that everybody stands around and says "Gee Whiz, that is slick" and again the attention is drawn away from the actual work of art.
I suppose then the challenge is to find something that treads a middle ground. A solution perhaps is to employ methods that are extremely familiar and are part of our social context. On a small scale, putting on headphones. While a very low level of interactivity, and perhaps it isn't even a from of interactivity, it requires the viewer to perform an action. Headphones can be used quite fluidly, they are not gimmicky, they are not intrusive, and they are very familiar.
A method that follows a similar model has a greater chance of succeeding.
Another problem I think I have with interactivity in Art is that the viewer is now positioned with a set of options. With a painting, you have very few options 1) Look At it, 2) Don't Look at it. With an interactive piece the viewer now has to choose what to do. Since there is that choice, the authority of the author and the intent of the author come into question.
There are many other problems that I have with interactive art, and I am sure my opinions will continue to develop over time. It may be that I simply have too narrow of a vision of what interactivity in art is. We shall see.
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Monday, February 5, 2007
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In thinking about the way that I work I have begun to see, what I think, is a good pattern. I spend time in the studio thinking and developing projects, not so much making them, but planning them out. I like to get three or four on the drawing board, so I can bounce between them, but also so if one does not work out, I have other things to do. Have a pile of planed out projects is like a roadmap, it lets me know that I always have things to do....I can't just go into the studio and stare at the wall, I have work to do.
After getting a plan, I then go into production. Of course during this period much of the project is fleshed out and developed, but I the foundation is there. It is exciting, but difficult. I enjoy the freedom of thinking about stuff, but when you actually have to start writing the code, spending the money, building the widget, it can get a bit daunting. I still throughly enjoy it, but I have to start taking responsibility for my plans.
In reality it is not that structured, but I noticed while I was in Connecticut at I-Park I spent a lot of time sketching out projects and not building them. That was partly due to having limted resources, financial, material, and otherwise, but more so due to having a lot of uninterrupted time. Long, slow thoughts were able to develop and and idea could build over several days or weeks without "real life" events getting in the way.
I am in a planning stage right now, I have been looking at my recent projects and where there are going trying to see the next stage.
I will talk about that in the next post.
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After getting a plan, I then go into production. Of course during this period much of the project is fleshed out and developed, but I the foundation is there. It is exciting, but difficult. I enjoy the freedom of thinking about stuff, but when you actually have to start writing the code, spending the money, building the widget, it can get a bit daunting. I still throughly enjoy it, but I have to start taking responsibility for my plans.
In reality it is not that structured, but I noticed while I was in Connecticut at I-Park I spent a lot of time sketching out projects and not building them. That was partly due to having limted resources, financial, material, and otherwise, but more so due to having a lot of uninterrupted time. Long, slow thoughts were able to develop and and idea could build over several days or weeks without "real life" events getting in the way.
I am in a planning stage right now, I have been looking at my recent projects and where there are going trying to see the next stage.
I will talk about that in the next post.
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An Installation as a Passive Performance. Or, Something that doesn't make sense now will make sense later.
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
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In considering an upcoming installation that Brett Walker and I are doing, I began thinking about "passive performative installations" (for lack of a better term). A work that is created and exhibited, but the viewers are not given the necessary information to completely understand the work. However, later in the documentation and supplementary text the visual and conceptual elements are completely explained and the viewer's response and confusion become part of the work. A tension is created with the initial viewer experience and it is resolved in the presentation of the documentation. I find the situation interesting where seeing the exhibition is not as important to experiencing the work as seeing the documentation.
This is a far from new idea. Many people use this strategy, Maurizio Cattelan comes to mind as does a recent installation at The Wrong Gallery by Michael Elmgreen & Ingar Dragset. These types of things can come off as one-liners, but a good one-liner is very hard to make.
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This is a far from new idea. Many people use this strategy, Maurizio Cattelan comes to mind as does a recent installation at The Wrong Gallery by Michael Elmgreen & Ingar Dragset. These types of things can come off as one-liners, but a good one-liner is very hard to make.
Labels: art, brett walker, ideas
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