So, here is a slightly more detailed outline of what I am doing. I wrote this down when I was doing my introduction to the Scale Up research sessions.
Developed question as it stands:
How do you provide intrinsic clues for the audience in order to improve the
engagement with interactive pieces of art, and overall the quality of
experience in a gallery setting?
Why is this research
important? This proposal is mainly based on my fascination with the digital
arts. This is now the information age, where interactions between people are
commonly established through a screen. Art is also changing in this way, and is
just as likely to be time-based, computerised and evermore interactive. There
are a lot of things about it that I would not know at this point. It could be due mainly,
perhaps, to this maintaining of the fine arts in this day and age. That’s what
I find fascinating, because people are less inclined to see the inherent value
in an artwork’s aesthetic qualities, at least where “Contemporary Art” is
concerned and there is an air of elitism that surrounds the scenes . Yet when I
see artwork that functions and reacts to the approach and engagement of a
spectator, there is far more engagement and animation. I know this from my own
experience with interactive media in a gallery setting and in video indie games which are seen more as an interactive art narrative than your generic shoot ‘em
up action game. I see other spectators approaching the artwork, or at least a
multimedia piece, a lot more often than the ones that only serve the aesthetic
function. I find it a bit ironic that aesthetics isn’t really a function, at
least as far as my own opinion goes. Aesthetic functionalism is a highly debated subject in the art world, but in fine art I am of the mind that aesthetics
and function are independent of each other. Fine Art is known for being subtle,
chaotic, complicated and difficult to dissect, especially by the public. This I
think ostracises a lot of people, which is why there is currently less
engagement within the gallery setting.
What have other
researchers in my field done? There are other artists who fit into this
context whose works have influenced my project, as well as my acquisition of a
place on the course itself. Artists in context include Brazilian musician and composer
Amon Tobin, who incorporated projection mapping and other visual aesthetics
into his live electronic performances, where he “integrated himself quite
literally” into the audio and visual presentation of his album, ‘ISAM.’ I have
drawn on ideas and pieces by Scott Snibbe, especially his ‘Boundary Functions’
piece. The piece ‘Avseq’
which was exhibited by Tom Betts at the Phoenix Arts, Leicester, improved my outlook in this
context, as well as online interactive works by Yuri Vishnevsky (silkweave). The other piece that convinced me to go onto this course and engage this project is the the 'Play?' video I had written in my first post.
Are there areas for
further exploration? Areas of further exploration would vary, I imagine.
There is a wealth of research not just in fine art but psychology, performance
art, video gaming, curatorship etc. that I still need to do in the library.
Further research can be done in other galleries, perhaps by talking to artists,
lecturers and those I already know in that line of work. I’m not sure about the
areas within this theme that have not been touched on enough yet. The practical
side of it will involve experimentation in a gallery setting and noting how
those who walk by react to an interactive piece of art vs. a traditional medium
like a drawing.
Can my study help
fill in these gaps or lead to a greater understanding? I’d certainly like
for this project to lead to a greater understanding of the issues I’m
addressing at hand, but I do suspect that a lot of what I am trying to achieve
has already been done. However, I still truly don’t know that yet.
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