Design For Interaction

Our second brief focuses on design for interaction.

"....Design boundaries can be thought of as very elaborate systems of control".

'The users of new media are becoming the content of the form'. (P. Marshall, 2004, New Media Cultures, Arnold Press: London Pp.18)

The brief is to design/develop an interactive project that plays with the above concept. We don't necessarily have to do something computer based - which excites me, and ideas can include; a game, an experimental website, an interactive art piece (which is what I'm going to focus on), a non -linear story, or a design for an interactive environment, such as a retail space, a museum, a learning zone, or as a response to a public arts commission.

As mentioned earlier, I want to create an interactive art piece, except that my piece wont necessarily be interactive when it's complete, I want the interaction to be the creation of the piece/pieces.

Part of my inspiration for this comes from a visit from Gavin Peacock, a Brighton based artist, who made a series of works using 'flat packs'. There are a few variations on his flat-pack works, all of which rely on other people.


"flat pack one comprised of 1200 manufactured plastic modules that allow unique structures to be created each time they are used. The structures are intended as proposals as opposed to finished autonomous art works. Each one is just one example of a multitude of structures that can be made by anyone. They exist in order to allow an event, belonging to Fluxus notions of play and self-sufficiency of the audience, to take place. The distinction between artist and audience is blurred. There is an exchange that must take place, not in the monetary sense of commodity but an exchange of actions and time, the sharing of a space and an experience." Gavin Peacock.


I really enjoyed Gavin's talk, and all his ideas, I thought it was great, and the thought of art that lets the viewer get involved is a lot more appealing than just walking around a gallery.


There was another exhibition recently in the Tate Modern which involved a lot of interaction.


To the left you can see the installation by German artist Carsten Höller. Using the full height of the turbine hall at the Tate, Höller wanted to test a hypothesis he has been investigating for some time concerning the possible effects of sliding. Höller wanted to know what the result would be if sliding became part of the daily routine, and if slides could ever become part of our architectural life.

Höller felt that a slide was a sculpture which you could travel inside of, but that you could also appreciate the work without having to travel inside it.

"Looking at the work from the outside is a different but equally valid experience, just as one might contemplate The Endless Column (1938) by Constantin Brancusi. From an architectural and practical perspective, the slides are one of the building’s means of transporting people, equivalent to the escalators, elevators or stairs. Slides deliver people quickly, safely and elegantly to their destinations, they’re inexpensive to construct and energy-efficient. They’re also a device for experiencing an emotional state that is a unique condition somewhere between delight and madness." Carsten Höller.

Höller called this exhibition "Test Site" because he wanted people to test the functions of differently shaped slides, mainly to see how they were affected by them. Höller didn't necessarily think of his slides as art-work at all, he really wanted to 'test' the visitors reactions, to see if slides could become a commodity, in the same way as cars.

Although Peacock didn't initially intend for other people to create the artwork, (he told us that he used to take all the pieces to the gallery and spend hours setting up the sculptures) and Holler doesn't see his slides as artwork, both projects need the interaction from visitors to see their concepts through.

I also want to use the idea, that without the help of other people, I won't be able to create my art piece. My initial ideas for this are to really go back to basics, and the ideas of chain letters, and balloon messages.

I either want to send a letter to six people, each with six stamped envelopes inside, and a note about what to do. The six people I send the letters to would be instructed to take a photograph which they would then email to me. I would either enclose something in these envelopes - to be included in the photographs, give a theme for the pictures, or just give my recipients free range (I have not quite decided). Once they have taken their photo, and emailed it to me, I would want them to send the instruction card on to someone else-including the stamped envelopes, so that their recipients would then (hopefully) do the same thing. This would then reach 36 people, resulting in 36 photographs.

The balloon messages idea stems from childhood memories. I remember that when I was young, we once did an experiment on 'weather' and to track which direction the wind was blowing in, the whole class got a helium balloon, to which we attached a note with our name, address, and instructions written on. The object of the experiment was to ask whoever found the balloons to send us a letter/postcard with where they found the balloon, so that we could chart these findings on a local map, and, if the experiment worked, they'd all be in roughly the same area, so we'd know which way the wind was blowing.
I like the idea of setting off a certain number of balloons with my objective written on them, and asking whoever finds the balloon to take a photograph and then email that to me, with their name/location also included, which would then generate my art piece.

There are pros and con's to each of the above methods, which I need to look at more closely, and then define the criteria further.