Interactive art is a form of

art Art is a diverse range of cultural activity centered around ''works'' utilizing creative or imaginative talents, which are expected to evoke a worthwhile experience, generally through an expression of emotional power, conceptual ideas, tec ...

that involves the spectator in a way that allows the art to achieve its purpose. Some interactive art installations achieve this by letting the observer walk through, over or around them; others ask the artist or the spectators to become part of the artwork in some way. Works of this kind of art frequently feature

computer A computer is a machine that can be Computer programming, programmed to automatically Execution (computing), carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations (''computation''). Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic set ...

interfaces Interface or interfacing may refer to: Academic journals * ''Interface'' (journal), by the Electrochemical Society * '' Interface, Journal of Applied Linguistics'', now merged with ''ITL International Journal of Applied Linguistics'' * '' Inter ...

and sometimes

sensor A sensor is often defined as a device that receives and responds to a signal or stimulus. The stimulus is the quantity, property, or condition that is sensed and converted into electrical signal. In the broadest definition, a sensor is a devi ...

s to respond to motion, heat, meteorological changes or other types of input their makers have programmed the works to respond to. Most examples of virtual Internet art and

electronic art Electronic art is a form of art that makes use of electronic media. More broadly, it refers to technology and/or electronic media. It is related to information art, new media art, video art, digital art, interactive art, internet art, and electr ...

are highly interactive. Sometimes, visitors are able to navigate through a

hypertext Hypertext is E-text, text displayed on a computer display or other electronic devices with references (hyperlinks) to other text that the reader can immediately access. Hypertext documents are interconnected by hyperlinks, which are typic ...

environment; some works accept textual or visual input from outside; sometimes an audience can influence the course of a

performance A performance is an act or process of staging or presenting a play, concert, or other form of entertainment. It is also defined as the action or process of carrying out or accomplishing an action, task, or function. Performance has evolved glo ...

or can even participate in it. Some other interactive artworks are considered as immersive as the quality of interaction involve all the spectrum of surrounding stimuli.

Virtual reality Virtual reality (VR) is a Simulation, simulated experience that employs 3D near-eye displays and pose tracking to give the user an immersive feel of a virtual world. Applications of virtual reality include entertainment (particularly video gam ...

environments like works by Maurice Benayoun and Jeffrey Shaw are highly interactive as the work the spectators – Maurice Benayoun call them "visitors", Miroslaw Rogala calls them (v)users, Char Davies "immersants" – interact with take all their fields of perception. Though some of the earliest examples of interactive art have been dated back to the 1920s, most

digital art Digital art, or the digital arts, is artistic work that uses Digital electronics, digital technology as part of the creative or presentational process. It can also refer to computational art that uses and engages with digital media. Since the 1960 ...

didn't make its official entry into the world of art until the late 1990s.Paul, C: ''Digital Art'', page 67. Thames & Hudson Inc, 2003. Since this debut, countless museums and venues have been increasingly accommodating digital and interactive art into their productions. This budding genre of art is continuing to grow and evolve in a somewhat rapid manner through internet social sub-culture, as well as through large scale urban installations.

Interactivity in art

Interactive art is a genre of art in which the viewers participate in some way by providing an input in order to determine the outcome. Unlike traditional art forms, wherein the interaction of the spectator is merely a mental event, interactivity allows for various types of navigation, assembly, and/or contribution to an artwork, which goes far beyond purely psychological activity. Interactivity as a medium produces meaning.Muller, L, Edmonds, E, Connel, M: "Living laboratories for interactive art", ''CoDesign'', 2(4):3 Interactive art installations are generally computer-based and frequently rely on sensors, which gauge things such as temperature, motion, proximity, and other meteorological phenomena that the maker has programmed in order to elicit responses based on participant action. In interactive artworks, both the audience and the machine work together in dialogue in order to produce a unique artwork for each audience to observe. However, not all observers visualize the same picture. Because it is interactive art, each observer makes their own interpretation of the artwork and it may be completely different from another observer's views. Interactive art can be distinguished from

generative art Generative art is post-conceptual art that has been created (in whole or in part) with the use of an autonomous system. An ''autonomous system'' in this context is generally one that is non-human and can independently determine features of an ...

in that it constitutes a dialogue between the artwork and the participant; specifically, the participant has agency, or the ability, even in an unintentional manner, to act upon the artwork and is furthermore invited to do so within the context of the piece, i.e. the work affords the interaction. More often, we can consider that the work takes its visitor into account. In an increasing number of cases, an installation can be defined as a "responsive environment", especially those created by

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs, and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

s and

designer A designer is a person who plans the form or structure of something before it is made, by preparing drawings or plans. In practice, anyone who creates tangible or intangible objects, products, processes, laws, games, graphics, services, or exper ...

s. By contrast,

Generative Art Generative art is post-conceptual art that has been created (in whole or in part) with the use of an autonomous system. An ''autonomous system'' in this context is generally one that is non-human and can independently determine features of an ...

, which may be 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.

History

According to the new media artist and theorist Maurice Benayoun, the first piece of interactive art should be the work done by Parrhasius during his art contest with Zeuxis described by Pliny, in the fifth century B.C. when Zeuxis tried to unveil the painted curtain. The work takes its meaning from Zeuxis' gesture and wouldn't exist without it. Zeuxis, by its gesture, became part of Parrhasius' work. This shows that the specificity of interactive art resides often less in the use of computers than in the quality of proposed "situations" and the "Other's" involvement in the process of

sensemaking Sensemaking or sense-making is the process by which people give meaning to their collective experiences. It has been defined as "the ongoing retrospective development of plausible images that rationalize what people are doing" ( Weick, Sutcliffe, ...

. Nevertheless, computers and real time computing made the task easier and opened the field of virtuality – the potential emergence of unexpected (although possibly pre-written) futures – to contemporary arts. Some of the earliest examples of interactive art were created as early as the 1920s. An example is

Marcel Duchamp Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp (, ; ; 28 July 1887 – 2 October 1968) was a French painter, sculptor, chess player, and writer whose work is associated with Cubism, Dada, Futurism and conceptual art. He is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Pica ...

’s piece named ''Rotary Glass Plates''. The artwork required the viewer to turn on the machine and stand at a distance of one meter in order to see an optical illusion. The present idea of interactive art began to flourish more in the 1960s for partly political reasons. At the time, many people found it inappropriate for artists to carry the only creative power within their works. Those artists who held this view wanted to give the audience their own part of this creative process. An early example is found in the early 1960s "change-paintings" of

Roy Ascott Roy Ascott FRSA (born 26 October 1934) is a British artist, who works with cybernetics and telematics on an art he calls technoetics by focusing on the impact of digital and telecommunications networks on consciousness. Since the 1960s, Ascott ...

, about whom Frank Popper has written: "Ascott was among the first artists to launch an appeal for total spectator participation". Aside from the “political” view, it was also current wisdom that interaction and engagement had a positive part to play within the creative process. In the 1970s, artists began to use new technology such as

video Video is an Electronics, electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and display of moving picture, moving image, visual Media (communication), media. Video was first developed for mechanical television systems, whi ...

and

satellite A satellite or an artificial satellite is an object, typically a spacecraft, placed into orbit around a celestial body. They have a variety of uses, including communication relay, weather forecasting, navigation ( GPS), broadcasting, scient ...

s to experiment with live performances and interactions through the direct broadcast of video and audio. At this time, Gordon Pask came up with the "Conversation theory". This theory emphasizes the dynamic exchange of information between participants in a system. As a two-way dialogue, this concept of a conversation between the user and the system has shaped artists' thinking about interactivity. Interactive art became a large phenomenon due to the advent of computer-based interactivity in the 1990s. Along with this came a new kind of art-experience. Audience and machine were now able to more easily work together in dialogue in order to produce a unique artwork for each audience. In the late 1990s,

museum A museum is an institution dedicated to displaying or Preservation (library and archive), preserving culturally or scientifically significant objects. Many museums have exhibitions of these objects on public display, and some have private colle ...

s and galleries began increasingly incorporating the art form in their shows, some even dedicating entire

exhibition An exhibition, in the most general sense, is an organized presentation and display of a selection of items. In practice, exhibitions usually occur within a cultural or educational setting such as a museum, art gallery, park, library, exhibiti ...

s to it. This continues today and is only expanding due to increased communications through digital media. 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 joined 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,

laser A laser is a device that emits light through a process of optical amplification based on the stimulated emission of electromagnetic radiation. The word ''laser'' originated as an acronym for light amplification by stimulated emission of radi ...

robotic Robotics is the interdisciplinary study and practice of the design, construction, operation, and use of robots. Within mechanical engineering, robotics is the design and construction of the physical structures of robots, while in computer s ...

and

mechatronic Mechatronics engineering, also called mechatronics, is the synergistic integration of mechanical, electrical, and computer systems employing mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, electronic engineering and computer engineering, and also ...

actuator An actuator is a machine element, component of a machine that produces force, torque, or Displacement (geometry), displacement, when an electrical, Pneumatics, pneumatic or Hydraulic fluid, hydraulic input is supplied to it in a system (called an ...

s, led lighting etc.); modes for human-human and human-machine communication (through the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...

and other

telecommunications network A telecommunications network is a group of Node (networking), nodes interconnected by telecommunications links that are used to exchange messages between the nodes. The links may use a variety of technologies based on the methodologies of circuit ...

s); and to the development of social contexts for interactive systems (such as utilitarian tools, formal experiments, games and entertainment, social critique, and political liberation).

Forms

There are many different forms of interactive art. Such forms range from interactive dance, music, and even drama. New technology, primarily computer systems and computer technology, have enabled a new class of interactive art. Examples of such interactive art are

installation art Installation art is an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that are often site-specific art, site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior spaces, whereas exterior intervent ...

, interactive architecture, interactive film, and

interactive storytelling Interactive storytelling (also known as interactive drama) is a form of digital entertainment in which the storyline is not predetermined. The author creates the setting, characters, and situation which the narrative must address, but the user ( ...

. Since there is a presumed participant or agent in interactivity, interactive art has a deep connection with performance art.

Events and places

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. Others include

SIGGRAPH SIGGRAPH (Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques) is an annual conference centered around computer graphics organized by ACM, starting in 1974 in Boulder, CO. The main conference has always been held in North ...

(the Association of Computing Machinery's Special Interest Group in Graphics), ISEA (the International Symposium on Electronic Art), DEAF (the Dutch Electronic Arts Festival), Transmediale Germany,

Electronic Language International Festival The Festival Internacional de Linguagem Eletrônica (FILE; English: Electronic Language International Festival) is a new media arts festival that usually takes place in three cities of Brazil: São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Porto Alegre. It has a ...

Brazil, and AV Festival England. CAiiA (the Centre for Advanced Inquiry in the Interactive Arts) was first established by

in 1994 at the

University of Wales, Newport The University of Wales, Newport (), was a public university based in Newport, Wales, Newport, South Wales, before the merger that formed the University of South Wales in April 2013. The university was founded as a mechanics' institute in 1841 ...

, and later in 2003 as the

Planetary Collegium The Planetary Collegium (a.k.a. CAiiA / Centre for Advanced Inquiry in Integrative Arts) is an international transcultural and transdisciplinary new media art educational research platform that promotes on the doctorate level the integration of ar ...

. It was the first doctoral and post doc research center to be established specifically for research in the interactive art field. Interactive architecture has now been installed on and as part of building facades, in foyers, museums, and large scale public spaces, including airports, in a number of global cities. A number of leading museums, for example, the

National Gallery The National Gallery is an art museum in Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, in Central London, England. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of more than 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900. The current di ...

Tate Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the UK ...

, Victoria & Albert Museum, and

Science Museum A science museum is a museum devoted primarily to science. Older science museums tended to concentrate on static displays of objects related to natural history, paleontology, geology, Industry (manufacturing), industry and Outline of industrial ...

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

(to cite the leading UK museums active in this field) were early adopters in the field of interactive technologies, investing in educational resources, and more latterly, in the creative use of

MP3 player A portable media player (PMP) or digital audio player (DAP) is a portable consumer electronics device capable of storing and playing digital media such as audio, images, and video files. Normally they refer to small, battery-powered devices ...

s 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 specialize in wearable computing.

Tools

* Wiring – the first

open-source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use and view the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open source model is a decentrali ...

electronics prototyping platform composed of a

programming language A programming language is a system of notation for writing computer programs. Programming languages are described in terms of their Syntax (programming languages), syntax (form) and semantics (computer science), semantics (meaning), usually def ...

, an

integrated development environment An integrated development environment (IDE) is a Application software, software application that provides comprehensive facilities for software development. An IDE normally consists of at least a source-code editor, build automation tools, an ...

(IDE), and a single-board micro controller. It was developed starting in 2003 by Hernando Barragán and was popularized under the name of

Arduino Arduino () is an Italian open-source hardware and open-source software, software company, project, and user community that designs and manufactures single-board microcontrollers and microcontroller kits for building digital devices. Its hardwar ...

– physical computing/electronics toolkit for interactive objects and installations * I-CubeX – sensors, actuators and interfaces for interactive media * Max/MSP – programming language for interactive media *

Processing (programming language) Processing is a free graphics library and integrated development environment (IDE) built for the electronic arts, new media art, and visual design communities with the purpose of teaching non-programmers the fundamentals of computer programmi ...

– used for many interactive art projects * OpenFrameworks –

open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use and view the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open source model is a decentrali ...

tool similar to Processing, used for many interactive projects * Pure Data –

programming language for interactive computer music and multimedia works * TouchDesigner – a node based

visual programming language In computing, a visual programming language (visual programming system, VPL, or, VPS), also known as diagrammatic programming, graphical programming or block coding, is a programming language that lets users create computer program, programs by ...

for real time interactive

multimedia Multimedia is a form of communication that uses a combination of different content forms, such as Text (literary theory), writing, Sound, audio, images, animations, or video, into a single presentation. T ...

content

Interactivity in art

History

Forms

Events and places

Tools

See also

Notes

Further reading