Long-time reader, First time writer.
I have two comments about Beryl's posting, both based on experiences working in a Museum. First, I think in her taxonomy of interaction types she ignores real physical interactivity. Now, I admit to having some Catholic blood and perhaps suffer a bit from a mind/body dichotomy but nowhere in her list is the role of hands, feet, knees, and/or bellies listed.
For me, the paradigm of interactive art work is a Fluxus labyrinth installed at The Walker Art Center a number of years back. The visitor walked through a series of very small rooms each designed by a different artist with its own challenge. These ranged from a room of ever decreasing sized doors, a room with only a piano and no way out until you hit middle e on the keyboard, a room with a floating floor, an upside down room and much more. And, to provide the very real conversation Beryl speaks of in number 5, all was monitored on closed circuit camera. When a visitor got stuck and started to panic a monitor's live voice would come on to offer clues. Now this was all very entertaining and I got in line to go through as often as possible, but we should not discount the very real way we learn, experience, and communicate with parts of our body not connected to language. Some people think cafes in museums are about generating revenue. The real reason is that people's bodies need to be relaxed for the mind to be open.
Second, regarding moronic audiences prompting moronic interchanges. Almost ten years ago I was involved with a retrospective of the work of Jenny Holzer. In the lobby of the Museum we put a large LED sign and keyboard and invited visitors to input their own message. After about three weeks we removed it due to some of the comments that were posted. These ranged from obscene to mean. The types of things one might find on public bathroom stalls. As an educator and in retrospect, the problem was that the interaction was divorced from the exhibition. That is, it was in the lobby. Adolescents visiting an adjacent theater on a school field trip with no connection to the work of Jenny Holzer were dominating it. You readers are probably groaning at this point by the obviousness of the problem. I too slapped myself hard on the forehead. However, it was a learning experience. Since then, when asking for interaction with audience I have found it important to set some parameters for the dialogue and do so after visitors have had interaction with the art/idea. In other words, ask yourself what you really want from the interaction and make sure the audience knows it. Unless you like moronic.
>>> [log in to unmask] 11/30/01 09:09AM >>>
Dear List,
On the final day of November, I'd like to thank all the very
thoughtful responses to this theme, and to offer some personal
positions to balance my starting role as 'devil's advocate'.
Patrick Henry quite rightly challenged me on my use of the word
'richest', as I don't believe that 'more interactive' means 'better
artwork', and nor do I believe that, 'higher technology' means 'more
interactive'. My interest in this theme actually stems from the
interesting poverty of interaction offered by technology, and how
people manage to work around that, rather than assuming that the
technology is offering any claim to 'democracy'.
I do however believe that some artworks are more interactive than
others. As for a taxonomy of 'levels of interaction 'something I've
found useful as a curator and a consumer of interactive new media
art is a very rough and crude metaphor of 'conversation'. Is this
artwork:
1. A monologue?
2. A choice of monologues? (navigate through choices)
3. A dialogue with a fruit machine? (push buttons, get responses/ rewards)
4. A dialogue with a voicemail system? (audience can leave own
'message' within a template)
5. A real conversation? (complex, equal, elaborating, responsive,
developing, creative)
Number 5 is what an interaction with a programmed artwork and an
audience member cannot offer (due to the failure of AI to arrive).
What a programmed artwork CAN do, however, is act as a skillful host,
providing the context and the stimulating monologues so that
audience members can have the 'real conversations' between
themselves. These may be visual conversations such as Lozano-Hemmer's
<http://www.lozano-hemmer.com> Rotterdam public installation, or
visual/audio such as Toshio Iwai's Resonance of 4. They can happen
in public spaces, in museums, or on the net. The 'quality' of these
artworks depends not only on the artist, but on the quality of the
audience response, and on the quality of the context that a curator
can provide in order for the audience to participate effectively. I'm
interested that Lozano-Hemmer's background is also in performance,
which, compared to the museum, tends to have a different ideology of
whether its audience is singular, collective, passive or active.
Educational museums also have a different ideology to art museums.
So, lots of people have to be brave, in order to face what might go
wrong by handing over this control; the adolescent enthusiasm for
obscenity being one of them, the fact that moronic audiences will
produce moronic input, and, as Josephine Bosma and Mathew Kabatoff
point out, the fact that the physical equipment may also be hijacked.
Artists spend a lot of time watching how people interact with their
artwork, and if artists are brave enough to offer the audience
conversation between themselves, then so should curators. Offering
physical interaction with Patrick's example of a suspended
steamroller is an interesting thought though!
All this doesn't mean that I don't value artworks in Number 1. We
listen to artists' monologues because they have very interesting
things to say. It's just that curators need to be technically and
conceptually prepared for the challenges of 4 and 5.
Conversation welcome!
Beryl Graham
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