Devising & Positioning Interactivity in net projects.
see also notes
The intention of this paper is to examine ways in which artists are developing strategies to use interactivity as an essential component within net projects. It also aims to consider ways in which artists are able to engage with interactivity as an aesthetic form in itself.
I won't attempt a comprehensive overview of the role that interactivity has played in this field of digital arts but I would like to identify some of the concerns and issues that arise out of our understanding of what interactivity represents.
The issue for practitioners at this point in the development of a net based arts practice is not whether interactivity can be used conceptually and practically within the structure of work but to identify how to utilise it in such a way that it can become an integrated and challenging aspect of the work.
- How can the artist use interactivity to empower the audience and facilitate their involvement in the artwork?
- How to achieve this without operating at the expense of the integrity of the artwork itself?
- How can interactivity enable the artist to retain direction or control while simultaneously enabling creative input from the audience?
... These are some of the pertinent questions facing artists.
Looking back over the last few years I think it is fair to say that the development of net projects has fulfilled most theorists' and commentators expectations with a extraordinary vigor. Some of the identifying characteristics of web projects would be that:
- Web projects are increasingly constructed around notions of a space which is navigated in a non linear way;
- projects are process based so that the act of navigating a site and engaging with the interface is often of greater consequence to the piece than the aesthetic values of the subject; projects frequently evolve through collaborative development - which may be determined by a ideological standpoint or a practical one - or both ;
- the art project is no longer static for frequently projects are constructed as on-going ones, in a constant state of re-appraisal and modification;
- lastly, and very significantly, projects are frequently constructed - not as collections, publications or exhibitions of grouped artworks - but as integrated spaces or environments in which there is rarely a single stand-alone component.
As a curator and Internet project organiser, I find that ,easily, the greatest number of projects proposed to me or brought to my attention are self defined as interactive projects, and that this in fact has become a crucial part of the identity sought by artists for their work. These will range from projects which are heavily reliant upon programming or applications, to others which derive their content or are made operational when they receive contributions or feedback from their audience.
However, it needs to be said that the terminology is a very broad one and the all encompassing and unspecific nature of the term could be said to be a disadvantage. 'Interactivity' is used to define work which at one end of the scale may be described as exhibiting processes with limited prescribed responses - such as a button activating a plug-in. And at the other end of the scale are the more challenging - and problematic - demonstrations of interactivity presume that the status of the artwork is not absolute or fixed and allow the audience to determine the outcome of the work or at the extreme to become a participant and contributer, leading in some way to the modification of the project itself.
However, by looking too critically the way the terminology is used there is a danger in proposing a 'scale' of interactivity that becomes technologically specific and doesn't take into account the ambiguity of the experience of the audience. Despite the way in which interactivity is realised it may be valuable to address it from the point of view of the receiver, and not the creator, and thereby assess the viability of interactivity by the degree of presumed negotiation that it enables. For though the options available to the audience may be restricted, the implication of interactive work is that the process of viewing or receiving is about being able to engage and thereby exercise a degree of control. To be a viewer of an interactive project equates with becoming an active participant. Though the audience never has absolute control over the site the extent to which they move from passive consumption to involvement comes about through their ability to negotiate with the project.
I t also needs to be said that we need to consider the terms in which we are defining interactivity quite carefully, and maintain a critical distance. Don Ritter, writing about his work in the recent Ars Electronica, provided a useful reminder when he said "Perhaps interactivity is neither a medium nor a movement, but rather a new method of communication between persons and media" .
The communication, or negotiation, that is enjoyed by the audience may be conceptual. It may not always be in direct proportion to the actual degree of technical interactivity that is taking place. I think here of a site like Jenny Holtzer's Truisms on Adaweb, where the most interactive part - click on a truism and add your own variation of it to an ever growing list- is arguably the least satisfying where as the random selection of a Holtzer truism as the text on the front page - maybe a piece of perl scripting- is compelling and in keeping with the intellectual rigor of the piece and teases the audience into returning for the joy of reactivating the random selection. The Dreamscape site by Susan Hiller on the DiaCentre website is possibly a very simple construction technologically yet it offers the viewer a very subtle opportunity to navigate through a series of colour fields while listening to a real audio file: the interactivity produces an effect as close to a immersive environment as possibly a single screen can offer.
If we think of interactivity in terms of engagement with the media it becomes irrelevant whether the interactive process is immediate - as in a programmed response - or a result of gradual evolution over time. The loyalty and heightened identification that audiences have with long-running projects like the Tele-garden or Technosphere, which invite repeat viewing, indicates that the psychological significance of interactivity can be that it is not just a brief encounter, but that it leads on to a longer term involvement. Similarly, the significant interactive activity may take place outside the boundaries of the Net project, through email or activating links for example, and the project may be constructed to act as a catalyst to enable that.
If interactivity and the ability to negotiate gives an audience greater agency then a very significant part in devising a project is in anticipating and projecting the probable response of the audience. Is it reasonable to assume that any audience will respond to and engage with the interactivity of a work? One of the particular issues around Net projects is that they apparently purport to address universal audiences - or are assumed to by the nature of the accessibility of the material - but this may not be the case. The symoblic associations and navigational skills they rely on may in fact be very culturally specific or relate primarily to particular, local audience behaviour.
When we were originally discussing this panel, a suggested title was 'is anyone there'. It came in a rather bleak and cynical moment, of overwork on websites, but underling it was the awareness that the audience is illusive, unpredictable and hard too quantify. It is not only the cultural point of view of the audience that needs to be acknowledged but also their behavioural and viewing patterns. A high number of hits does not guarantee the engagement of the audience. If the interactive process is structured to enable a negotiation, to give access to the audience, then the audience's participation has to be not only facilitated but inspired.
Maybe there is a contradiction here that needs to be recognised, between the idealised audience that is eager to participate and the actual audience that, if anecdotal evidence in the absence of harder research is to be accepted, is characterised by passive viewing and surfing through links rather than a sustained committment..
I'd like to hope that we will address some fo these questions.
But I'd like to leave on one final issue: completing the job. Is it desirable for projects to be left indefinately on the net? Or might it be more desirable for the audience and for artists to have a sense of completion of a project, that the artist has moved onto other things and so to. maybe, should the audience.
Peter Ride. June 97.
Notes on presentation:The major issues dealt with were around interactivity on the internet and the fact that we assume a particular kind of interactivity because of the nature of the technology used. By inference the technology requires cooperation and that the receiver rather than creator should be taken into account when considering the interaction. Having been involved in many websites this issue is seen as key and it was suggested that another name for the paper should be Is anyone there? - who are the audience?
In identifying a new internet based arts practice, it is important to take into account the receivers' negotiation of the site and also the non-linear, process- based form of the internet. Another point to recognise is that it is likely that users of the net represent many diverse ideologies, and may have very different expectations than say the visitor to an art gallery.
Negotiation of space on the internet is seen as key and often is represented by metaphors of the real such as architectural and urban space.
A selection from ARTEC's Channel commissions for the internet underlines this concern in that the commissions work under the theme of Metropolis.
Sites identified under the channel commissions:
David Bickerstaff working with The Laboratory, Oxford - This piece entitled Ubiquity will be launched in July. It uses the metaphor of the alienation experienced through geographical immigration for learning process of negotiating the net. In order to work through this piece the user has to make up a code. Users are given cues for things which need to be responded to intuitively. The whole process is intentionally difficult, but once achieved seems incredibly easy - just like so much interactivity but this deliberately deals with that form. The overall effect of sound and image operates partly as graphic abstraction, and partly as urban or geocultural representation. Heath Bunting working with Folly Gallery, Lancaster - World Wide Policing. Using images grabbed from CCTV surveillance systems all over the world, the visitor is asked to report crimes via an internet fax link to the police station nearest to the CCTV camera. World Wide Policing. The links are really made to the police stations so presumably they are receiving unwanted faxes. This is intended as a critique of the current Òshop your neighbour mentalityÓ as well as focussing on censorship on the net. Marion mentioned that there is a Ôreal' website run by the Fraud Squad encouraging people to do this. URL?Other sites referenced
Jenny Holzer - Truisms on http://www.adaweb.com/home.shtml. People can add to list of truisms drawn up by Jenny Holzer. Rory sees a negative in that the added truisms dilute. She is good at coming up with truisms but it is only any use to see the added ones if the user can relate to her previous work.
Carey referenced Julia Scher's architectural approach to her site also on adaweb.
Susan Hiller - Dream Screens. Her highly aesthetic though limited allowance of interaction on the site at Dia in New York. Hiller is known for her investigations into the limits of a medium and the often subconscious approach we take to compensate for those limits.
The Telegarden and Technosphere groups are important for their simplicity and the encouragement of an ongoing time-based relationship. Simplicity, high levels of interaction and on-going feedback from sites is seen as of paramount importance.
URLs?