Week 1 - Defining Interactivity

Defining Interactive Media Arts

Definitions are tools. When we find a tool that isn’t working for us, it’s important for us to learn to mold, shape, and adapt that tool for our own needs. In class we've been reading and discussing a variety of definitions for this thing we're calling "Interactive Media Arts." (And more specifically, a definition for Interaction, as it pertains to the arts.) The definition which possibly has the most clarity comes from Chris Crawford in Designing Interactivity, by way of this fantastic Tom Igoe write-up.

“Interaction: a cyclic process in which two or more actors alternately listen, think, and speak.”

While lovely in its simplicity, this definition still doesn't quite resonate with me. One of the case studies that I keep returning to is that of the type designer. There is a tremendous amount of work and conscious care that goes into the development of a typeface designed for readability. To create a typeface capable of the magic trick of allowing a reader to convert into automatic reading is not a happenstance. Type is an intentionally interactive form. It in no way meets the above definition. There is no cyclic process, or back and forth conversation. It is a one-sided conversation, traveling over space and time, allowing for the transportation of (what is often) a third person's ideas. There is a triangulation stretching between type designer, the author, and the reader. Imagine you were able to convey this same relationship with a medium other than type. I have no doubt that it would yearn to be classified as interactive.

In one of the videos we watched for Interface Lab, there was mention of how everything actually is a circuit; it’s just that air is such a strong resistor that most of these circuits just aren't doing much [BETH, return here with a reference link!]. There is a spectrum. Similarly, two-dimensional art always has some level of dimensionality.

This feels like an apt framework in which to re-evalaute a definition of “interaction”. As Craig phrased it in class, there are“quantifying levels of interactivity.” With that in mind, I think the more important thing to consider is the content of the work, rather than trying to find one definition for the form of the work. For example, with the above definition, I could imagine a project that actively prevents an actor from participation. Imagine a great big shiny red button that looks like it desperately wants to be pushed, and it doesn’t budge. You can have a piece of interactive media art that does not allow for “interaction.” The only throughline to categorize artwork that holds for me is intention. This can be broad. I don’t think that’s a bad thing.

I think to define interaction, you need two or more actors. Actors can be people, machines, or one person or machine at a different moment in time. OK, so two or more instances of actors.

Then, borrowing from PHYSICS definition for interaction from Oxford Language (see screenshot below), the word “affect” feels appropriate.

I’m not sure I have a good handle on “media arts,” so I’ll rely on the definitions of others there.

• “Similarly, the National Endowment for the Arts defines media arts as “all genres and forms that use electronic media, film and technology (analog and digital; old and new) as an artistic medium or a medium to broaden arts appreciation and awareness of any discipline. This includes projects presented via film, television, radio, audio, video, the Internet, interactive and mobile technologies, video games, immersive and multi-platform storytelling, and satellite streaming.” “ https://www.davisart.com/blogs/schoolarts-room/what-is-media-art/

Interaction: The way that two or more instances of an actor affect one another.

Interactive Art: Art (Form and content) that has been created with specific consideration for interaction (the way that two or more instances of an actor can affect one another.)

Interactive Media Art: Interactive Art (Art that has been created with specific consideration for interaction) that uses “electronic media, film and technology (analog and digital; old and new) as an artistic medium.

Which brings us to an annoying, hard-to-decipher verbose definition of Interactive Media Arts as…

Interactive Media Arts

A combination of form and content that has been created with specific consideration for the way that two or more instances of an actor can affect one another, that uses “electronic media, film and technology…as an artistic medium.”

Timestamped on July 15, 2021. Let’s see if this holds water one year from now.