Abstract
The ideological and technological frames of reference for the changing paradigms of interactivity are presented in an overview. The topics range from the early days of media and modernism to a typology of interactive art in the 1980s and 1990s and include the mass media interactivity models of the last decade.
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References
Duchamp in his lecture “The Creative Act” from 1957. cf. Duchamp, M. (ed.) Museum Jean Tinguely, Basel, p. 43 (2002)
Ibid
Duchamp in a letter dated 1956. cf. Duchamp, M., Schriften, D. (eds.) Serge Stauffer, Zurich, p. 202 (1981)
Baudelaire, C.: Critique d’art, Paris, p. 358 (1992)
Baudelaire, C.: Œuvres complètes, Paris, vol. 2, p. 782 (1976)
cf. Daniels, D.: Kunst als Sendung: Von der Telegrafie zum Internet, Munich, p. 168, 189 (2002)
Duchamp, p. 239 (1981) (see note 3)
Umberto Eco points out that the stimulus for his theses stems from New Music, without, however, mentioning John Cage. cf. Eco, U.: Das offene Kunstwerk, Frankfurt am Main, p. 23 (1977)
The socioscientific concept of interaction can be traced back to the theory of symbolic interactionalism developed by George Herbert Mead in the 1920s. This theory examines the reciprocal conditionality of social action and communication. For a detailed conceptual history of interaction/interactivity see the essay by Katja Kwastek in this volume
Brecht, B.: Der Rundfunk als Kommunikationsapparat. In: id., Werke, Berlin and Frankfurt am Main, vol. 21, p. 553, 557 (1992) Due, among other reasons, to Hans Magnus Enzensberger’s renewed treatment of Brecht’s theory of radio, which was noted by Marxist theorists like Todd Gitlin and artists like Douglas Davis, Brecht was similarly a point of reference for discourse on media and art in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s
Turing, A.M.: Computing Machinery and Intelligence. Mind LIX 236, 433–460
cf. Cage, J.: Composition as Process: Part II; Indeterminacy. In: Frieling, R., Daniels, D. (eds.) Media Art Action, Vienna and New York, pp. 27–33 (1997)
Cage wrote in 1966: Are we an audience for computer art? The answer’s not No; it’s Yes. What we need is a computer that isn’t labor-saving but which increases the work for us to do ...turns us (my idea) not ‘on’ but into artists. Cage, J.: A Year from Monday, London, p. 50 (1968)
Gates as cited in Friedrich Kittler’s lecture at the 1999 conference Wizards of Oz 1, Offene Quellen und freie Software, in Berlin
Söke Dinkla writes on this subject: “The motto ‘art and life’ is transformed into ‘art and technology’.” She disregards, however, the associated shift in ideological paradigms that far surpasses the framework of art or technology. Equally, it is impossible to equate interaction based on a score written for a Happening or a Cage composition with interaction incorporated into a computer program without addressing the basic issue of human-machine interchangeability. Dinkla, S.: Pioniere Interaktiver Kunst von 1970 bis heute, Ostfildern, p. 41 (1997)
Umberto Eco, For instance, in the final chapter of The Open Work (1962) examines the openness of a live TV broadcast as the mass-media counterpart to the open structures of the avant-garde. His hope with regard to the open structures: “These digressive annotations would then jolt the viewer out of the hypnotic spell woven by the plot, and, by distancing him from it, would force him to judge, or at least to question, the persuasiveness of what he sees on the screen.” Eco, U.: The Open Work, trans. A Cancogni, Cambridge, MA, p. 122 (1989)
Enzensberger, H.M.: Constituents of a Theory of the Media (1970) In: Hanhardt, J. (ed.) Video Culture, Rochester, p. 97 (1986), Reprinted from The Consciousness Industry, trans. Stuart Hood, New York, pp. 95–128 (1974) cf. Jean Baudrillard’s critique of this utopia, in which he objects to a view of the media merely “as the relay of an ideology” determined by the powers of capitalism, saying they must be grasped as “effectors of ideology.” Baudrillard, J. “Requiem for the Media” (1972), in Hanhardt 1986, op. cit., p. 128. Reprinted from For a Critique of the Political Economy of the Sign, trans. Charles Levin, St. Louis, pp. 164–184 (1981)
cf. Levy, S.: Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution, p. 52, New York (1994)
Ibid., This ‘hacker ethic’ appears on the Web site of the Chaos Computer Club to this day, p. 39
Here lies also the problem of the interference between scientific visualization and media art, as is investigated by groups like Knowbotic Research
In Understanding Media, for instance, Marshall McLuhan describes television as an instrument of synaesthesia (1964)
Kittler, F.: Fiktion und Simulation. In: Ars Electronica (ed.) Philosophien der neuen Technologie, Berlin, p. 57 (1989)
Benjamin, W.: The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (1935) In: id., Arendt, H. (ed.) Illuminations, New York, p. 251, note 30 (1969) Enzensberger carries on where Benjamin left off when he writes, in regard to the 1960s: “This is where the prognostic value of otherwise inessential productions, such as happenings, fluxus, and mixed-media shows, is to be found.” Enzensberger, p. 122 (1970) (see note 17)
Umberto Eco, too, explicitly takes contemporary music as his point of departure and refers to Karlheinz Stockhausen, Luciano Berio, and Henri Pousseur, although John Cage is not mentioned. Eco (1962/1989) (see note 16)
If an electronically modified TV set is fitted with a microphone, for instance, visitors can generate an oscillating pattern on the TV screen by making sounds and noises. cf. Frieling and Daniels 1997, p. 62 (see note 12)
Naumann, B. (ed.): Joan Simmon, exh. cat. Walker Art Center, Minneapolis and Basel, p. 77 (1994)
Upon entering this installation, the viewer sees him- or herself at the other end on one of the two video monitors, while the other monitor shows the empty corridor in a previously recorded video without the viewer. Attempting to convince oneself of one’s own presence in the image and/or space is utterly impossible, since as soon as one moves through the corridor to the video monitors, one moves away from the camera installed at the entrance and thus disappears from the video image
Export, V. (ed.): Peter Assmann, exh. cat. Oö. Landesmuseum, Linz, p. 258 (1992)
Valie Export’s expanded-cinema project “Ping Pong, A Film to play with/a player’s film” (1968) in which the viewer is asked to aim a ball, with the aid of a ping-pong paddle, at the black dots that emerge on, and disappear from, the film screen. This, according to Export, illustrated the “relation of domination between producer and consumer,” since even as a participant, the viewer remains wholly dependent on the specifications of the film
For a more detailed description of the technological development, see for instance. Weibel, P.: Virtuelle Realität: Der Endo-Zugang zur Elektronik. In: Rötzer, F., Weibel, P. (eds.) Cyberspace: Zum medialen Gesamtkunstwerk, Munich, pp. 15–46 (1993), cf. the excerpt of the text in Rudolf Frieling and Dieter Daniels, Media Art Interaction: The 1980s and 1990s in Germany, ed. Goethe Institute, Munich, and ZKM Karlsruhe, Vienna and New York (2000), and the comprehensive study of interactive art by Dinkla, pp. 50–62 (1997) (see note 15)
cf. Sutherland, I.: The Ultimate Display. In: Proceedings of IFIPS Congress 1965, New York, vol. 2, pp. 506–508 (1965), id. “Computer Inputs and Outputs,” Scientific American (September 1966). Rötzer and Weibel, p. 18, 25 (1993) (see note 30)
Wiener, O.: Die Verbesserung von Mitteleuropa, Reinbek (1969/1985), p. CXXXIX. cf. translated excerpts In: Weibel, P. (ed.) The Vienna Group, Vienna and New York, pp. 666–698 (1997)
Ibid., p. CLXXV
Schoeffer, N.: Die Zukunft der Kunst—die Kunst der Zukunft. In: Schoeffer, N.: exh. cat. Städtische Kunsthalle, Düsseldorf (1968)
cf. the “E. A. T.” (Experiments in Art and Technology) program at Los Angeles Country Museum from 1967 onward, and Cybernetic Serendipity: the computer and the arts. Reichardt, J. (ed.) exh. cat. Studio International, London, New York (1968)
cf. Hartwagner, G., Iglhaut, S., Rötzer, F. (eds.): Künstliche Spiele, Munich (1993)
One rare example of congruence of technology and content was one of the first computer-controlled interactive visual artworks, namely the program Random War by Charles Csuri, which on the basis of a randomly generated constellation simulates the progress of a battle between two groups of soldiers. Reichardt, p. 81 (1968) (see note 35)
Rötzer and Weibel, p. 27 (1993) (see note 30)
Most of the examples only briefly mentioned here are documented on, http://www.mediaartnet.org
A linkage of popular culture and interactivity was introduced very early by the Austrian group Station Rose
Even before interactivity boomed in the 1990s, Ann-Sargeant Wooster wrote the following in the commendable article “Reach out and touch someone—The Romance of Interactivity”: “Most uses of interactivity will probably be confined to mass-market populist entertainment ...and rigidly controlled by media merchants.” In: Hall, D., Fifer, S.J. (eds.) Illuminating Video, New York, p. 302 (1990); See also on this subject Regina Cornwell, “Interactive Art: Touching the ‘Body in the Mind’,” Discourse 14.2, p. 209 (Spring 1992)
From 1993 onward, Jeffrey Shaw collaborated with engineers and computer scientists at the Kernforschungszentrum in Karlsruhe on developing the project “EVE—extended virtual environment,” which corresponds to a viewer-interactive panorama. In 1997, Shaw and the Frauenhofer Institut, Stuttgart, jointly carried out the “confFIGURING the CAVE” project in a “Cave Automatic Virtual Environment” (a 3-D simulation developed for research purposes and able to be physically entered)
Oliver Grau investigated this development in the Deutsche Forschungsgesellschaft research project “Kunstgeschichte und Medientheorien der Virtuellen Realität” conducted at the Kunsthistorisches Seminar, Humboldt University, Berlin, www.virtualart.at
Peter Weibel participated as a ‘crowd-warmer’ in Valie Export’s action
cf. Weibel, P.: Der Vorhang von Lascaux. In: First Europeans: frühe Kulturen—moderne Visionen, exh. cat. Orangerie Charlottenburg, Berlin, p. 78 (1993)
Plewe in an e-mail to the author
Kriesche, R.: Artificial Intelligence in the Arts, Graz, p. 13 (1985); see text in Frieling and Daniels 2000 (see note 30)
Stenslie, S.: Cyber SM, and Kirk Woolford, “A touch at the end of the century,” both in Lab 1: Das Magazin der Kunsthochschule für Medien, Cologne, pp. 40–43, 72–75 (1994)
Douglas Davis, interviewed by David Ross. In: Schneider, I., Korot, B.: KorotVideo Art, An Anthology, New York and London, p. 33 (1976)
Krauss, R.: Video: The Aesthetics of Narcissism (October 1, 1976)
Shaw, J.: Reisen in der virtuellen Realität: Gespräch mit Florian Rötzer. Kunstforum 117, 295 (1992)
Such virtual museums are only beginning to become potential sites of communication in the late 1990s thanks to the incipient synthesis of 3-D graphics and the Internet. cf. Grassmuck, V.: Das lebende Museum im Netz. In: Schade, S., Tholen, G.C. (eds.), Konfigurationen zwischen Kunst und Medien, Munich, pp. 231–251 (1999)
cf. Roy Ascott’s theses on art and telematics, which although written as early as 1983, were comprehensive and concrete. Grundmann, H. (ed.) Art Telecommunication, Vienna and Vancouver, pp. 25–59 (1984)
Lyotard, J.-F. (ed.): Les Immatériaux, vol. 1, Epreuves d’écriture, vol. 2, Album: Inventaire, exh. cat. Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (1985)
cf. Turkle, S.: Live on the Screen, New York (1995)
The last part of the essay refers only to art works before 2003, when it was first published in German
Manifesto on Web site of the “Internationale Stadt Berlin” (1994) (offline)
cf. Kerscher, G., Blank, J.: “brave new city,” Kritische Berichte 1, pp. 10–16 (1998); special issue on Net Art
Staehle in Vera Graf, “Kunst im Informationszeitalter,” Süddeutsche Zeitung, p. 11 (March 22, 1994)
cf. Daniels, D.: Utopia—What For? In: Rennert, S., von Wiese, S. (ed.) Ingo Günther: Republik.com, exh. cat. Kunstmuseum Düsseldorf, Ostfildern, pp. 48–61 (1998)
Äda-Web and Public Netbase both went online at the start of 1995 and in a collaboration with artists produced WWW-specific works that were then embedded in a theoretical context. After its sponsor, a telecommunications company, withdrew its support, Äda Web ceased operations in 1998 and was sold to the Walker Art Center as an archive offering access via the Internet. Public Netbase was forced to stop its activity in 2006 due to lack of funding and will be documented as part of the netzpioniere. at project by the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute Media. Art. Research
cf. on this subject the debate, telling for the misconceptions on either side, conducted on Net art between Isabelle Graw and Tilman Baumgärtel: Graw, I.: “Man sieht, was man sieht: Anmerkungen zur Netzkunst,” Texte zur Kunst 32, 18–31 (1998), Tilman Baumgärtel, “Das Imperium schlägt zurück!,” Telepolis (on-line journal) (January 20, 1999)
While Olia Lialina’s Net-art gallery Art Teleportacia in Moscow has received plentiful press coverage, it has so far sold only one work of art (by the gallery owner). The online version of the New York Times did at least find worth a notice the purchase of the project, www.antworten.de by Holger Friese and Max Kossatz by the private collectors Hannelore and Hans-Dieter Huber
Agentur Bilwet has published the following books: Bewegingsleer, 1990 (engl. Cracking the Movement: squatting beyond the media, 1994); Media-Archif, 1992 (engl. The Media Archive, 1997); Der Datendandy, 1994; Elektronische Einsamkeit, 1997; also Geert Lovink, My First Recession, 2003; nettime, Netzkritik, Bosma, J., et al. (eds.) (1997); Read Me! filtered by nettime: ASCII culture and the revenge of knowledge, New York (1999)
cf. Römer, S.: Interaktivität ist die größte Lüge. Texte zur Kunst 32, 70–73 (1998)
Baudrillard in Hanhardt, p. 129 (1986) (see note 17)
Pfaller, R. (ed.): Interpassivität: Studien über delegiertes Geniessen, Vienna and New York (2000)
Valie Export’s first interactive video installation Autohypnose, likewise shows the conditioning of the viewer by means of a systematic behavioral program and his or her being rewarded with applause from the videotape (1973)
Whenever they attempt to break away from the passive status of compulsory consumers and ‘activate’ themselves, they succumb to pseudoactivity.... Their ecstasy is without content. That it happens, that the music is listened to, this replaces the content itself. Theodor Adorno, On the Fetish-Character in Music and the Regression of Listening. In: Arato, A., Gebhardt, E. (eds.) The Essential Frankfurt School Reader, New York, pp. 270–299, p. 292 (1987)
cf. on this subject Armin Medosch in the on-line journal Telepolis (June 1, 1999)
cf. also Jean Baudrillard, in whose view the media produce an ideology as opposed to merely being the means of the latter (see note 17)
Peter Weibel in 1989 expressed the view that modern art as a whole was undergoing a development towards the ‘inter’ principle, and announced his own program of concentrating “on the actual, utopian social possibilities ...offered by technology, such as participation in and interaction with the artwork as a model for emancipationist communicational forms.” Peter Weibel, “Momente der Interaktivität,” In: Kunstforum 103, p. 87 (1989)
cf. on this subject: Richard Barbrook and Andy Cameron, Californian Ideology, first published in 1995, The authors call for a specifically European position in which, in opposition to the US enthusiasm for technology, the “hi-tech artisans” re-connect with the theory and practice of the visual arts, http://www.hrc.wmin.ac.uk/theory-californianideology.html (accessed November 10, 2007)
Brecht, p. 556 (1992) (see note 10)
Bilwet, A.: Elektronische Einsamkeit, Cologne, p. 11 (1997)
In November 2000, the major German TV broadcasting stations RTL and ZDF launched Internet series that attempt to translate the tried-and-true television format of the soap opera into an interactive, Internet-based form. RTL’s Internet soap opera Zwischen den Stunden comes from the producers of the TV series Gute Zeiten schlechte Zeiten and is shown at designated “airtimes.” With etagezwo, ZDF developed a more intricate Internet-specific presentation, but the viewing audience is also unable to influence the plot. ARTE, a joint Franco-German cultural TV channel, even offered an interactive novel, where the audience was supposed to write the complex plot for actors provided by the TV station. Although each of the stations takes great pains to win over the target group of young, future-oriented audience, none of the projects are successful, and all of them are eventually discontinued
Steve Case and AOL manager Myer Berlow, cited in Christian Tenbrock, “Online sucht Inhalt,” Die Zeit, p. 32 (September 14, 2000)
Product placement in reality TV also leads to a duplication of the medium in reality instead of to a depiction of reality in the medium. The media theoretician Douglas Rushkoff speaks of an “ossification of the interactive capabilities” of the Internet due to marketing strategies. Rushkoff, D.: Virtuelles Marketing. In: Maresch, R., Rötzer, F. (eds.) Cyberhypes, Frankfurt am Main, p. 103 (2001)
Weibel, P.: www.zkm.de/you (accessed November 10, 2007)
Brecht, p. 516 (1992) (see note 10)
Negroponte, N.: Being Digital, New York, p. 221 (1995)
In 2001, the theme of the Transmediale Berlin was “do it yourself,” and the theme of the Ars Electronica Linz was “take over”
Cartoon by Peter Steiner, The New Yorker, vol. 69 (LXIX) (20), p. 61 (July 5, 1993), The cartoon did not receive much attention at the time, but in 2000 it is the most reproduced cartoon ever from the New Yorker. The sentence ... has slipped into the public consciousness, leaving its source behind ... and the saying has become practically an industry of its own. Fleishman, G.: Cartoon Captures Spirit of the Internet, The New York Times (December 14, 2000)
Duchamp, p. 242 (1981) (see note 3)
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Daniels, D. (2008). Strategies of Interactivity. In: Sommerer, C., Jain, L.C., Mignonneau, L. (eds) The Art and Science of Interface and Interaction Design. Studies in Computational Intelligence, vol 141. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-79870-5_3
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