Dear all,
actually, I share GH's sentiment about you all here entirely, 
and a show with the 60 or 65 participants we've had in this month's immensely lively and passionate debate
would seem feasible, no?   Might be a rather interesting program to curate?

A small comment on Victoria's commentary, re:  audience- (she calls them user) behavior and how it adapts or conforms.

This whole question of the recipient behavior (and what principles inform the recipient's action, behavior or performance)
to interface-objects or interface-instruments -- whether designed for trained performer-artist or for an audience attending an exhibit --
was part of a longer discussion I had today with visiting researcher Vanessa Vozzo from Turino who had worked in the past
with artists such as Marcel.lìAntúnez Roca, for example on "Matthias", a robotic head created for the performance/installation “Pseudo” (2012/2013).

She also asked me how some of the interface-instruments or interactive costumes we designed in the DAP-Lab create specific challenges
or affordances to the performer (they do), in the same sense in which Marcel.lì  would not really assume that the immensely complex
exoskeleton he sometimes wears in his performances could simply be strapped on by a "user".   
Vanessa compiled a few questions that she shared:

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE OBJECT/INTERFACE AND THE AESTHETIC EXPERIENCE

a) Did you design the object/interface along with the artwork concept?
b) Did you change the object/interface design during the artwork creation process?
c) How is the object/interface related to the artwork concept?
d) How is the object/interface related to the artwork matter/material?
e) How is the object/interface related to the concept of space in your artwork?
f) How is the object/interface related to the concept of time [duration] in your artwork?
g) Do you think that the object/interface is also a bearer of meaning?


Now Victoria speaks about watching/looking and acting/enacting, and what interests me there is the situational
side (context) and whether a viewer can "catch" or want to catch the "code" of the rule/behavior  (to use game design language
or play concepts) of the interface objects -- and it seems that Vanessa is separating out the looking/enacting at interface instruments
in an (always, or sometimes) larger narrative or cultural context or performance-installation architecture, where there might be a lot more to deduce.
 Folks in game design probably have to think of strategies of engagement (same for artists building installations)  for people playing games or willing to
play games; how is such strategy aimed at something sensorial, intuitive, or cognitive, and critical to the extent of what Walter Benjamin
refered to as "optical tests" (viii of the Work of Art essay) - meaning the audience or user becoming critical of the "camera" and its angles or
framings...... 

> learning the tool and finding out what works and what doesn't - the machine and the user would be creating their own language
that finds a middle ground of functionality/understanding...>

Yes that often seems to be the behavior (the "user" trains herself?) -  empowerment through understanding, whether that's building an understanding of rule systems
(systems thinking) or understanding different points of view (camera/ identificaton/ empathy). But in performance art contexts, that include theatrical strategy  (irony, deceit, 
allegory, and other provocations)  I assume the potentials to be critical of these understandings become even sharper or realized in multiple ways, and with more than one
interface object in larger aesthetic or narrative plot. And then I imagine there to be audiences who wish not to be complicit or not be taken for granted (that they
understand/appreciate the strategy of engagement, especially when such strategy is carried by an awareness anticipating/calculating all possible receptions of the work
including every possible critical objection that might be leveled at the work).


regards
Johannes Birringer
dap-lab



>>

Recently I went to the Whitney Biennial here in New York.
There were two "New Media" works or maybe it was three.
What I'd like to see is an exhibition of all the people on this list!
Can you imagine that show?  It would be killer!
I am hugely impressed and in awe of all my colleagues on this list!
Wow! /gh
>>


[Victoria schreibt]

Thanks for your perspective with examples Johannes. I hope to attend one of
your future performances but can't make it on the 3rd of April. Thanks Jack
for your explanation of your works and a bit of history (glad this
discussion is getting you thinking/creating), and thanks Ami for piping in
and telling us about Banner Repeater and your exploration of transport and
language performativity ....

GH - On your comments regarding *Toast - *Text-to-speech is so little used
because it still hasn't been perfected to work smoothly.  I like your
comment about the user altering his behavior to conform to how the
translation works, learning the tool and finding out what works and what
doesn't - the machine and the user would be creating their own language
that finds a middle ground of functionality/understanding......

Jack, you mention "enacting versus watching".  In some of my works,
including *Vacant Quarters* http://blurringartandlife.com/vb/wallace.html,
the visitor's face and act of looking are the interface that
starts/continues the interaction (which here results in a conflagration of
circus wagons).  In *Vacant Quarters* I am exploring looking itself as
a destructive act ......

And GH - an exhibition of the 1400 list members would be epic, and based on
this discussion and others, q u i t e - b r o a d in subject matter and
approach.

Victoria