Lawrence Malstaf, Nemo Observatorium , 2002. Photo Otto Saxinger, courtesy: OK Offenes Kulturhaus, Linz/ Austria and Maria Falkinger. 

Context in source publication

Context 1

... in Linz in 2005, contrary to other works of art rewarded there, was only presented in form of documentation. In case of works of this kind there is no form of dispositive that could be placed in the gallery environment as a whole and then become a place of existence for an artwork-event. For its complete development, they require public spaces. This also means actual, final for this strategy, doing away with the role of a receiver-observer of the event; participation is here the only form of a genuine, full experience. Recent appearance of numerous interactive artistic phenomena which made me outline the last one strategy in this typology * the Strategy of Spectacle, seems paradoxical, spiral return of interactive art to traditional esthetics founded on reserved, contemplative experience, esthetics that was quite firmly rejected in the context of interactive art and defied by its creators in the whole early period of its history (by many of them up to the present moment). In the very center of this strategy is the event itself, which * as a result * takes on a form of a spectacle. In the context of the Strategy of Spectacle comes back the position of an observer contemplating a spectacular event, so firmly declined from the Strategy of Network. This position, however, is significantly redefined here. Interaction required by spectacles of such sort, various activities undertaken by the participants for the spectacle to actually take place, activity expected from them (even though minimal), makes them eventually a part of such event. This property did not characterize the classic observers of a spectacular event in the slightest, because in this case the distance separating them from the watched spectacle was of basic and non- measurable within space character. This being- part-of-an-event status of a participant with reference to the Strategy of Spectacle is quite particular and this property results from the character of relation occurring between two sides. This participant has very limited possibilities of having any real influence on the course of an event. Or she/he determines just the beginning and the ending of the whole event, either she/he is solely a person to whom it happens, yet * and this should be stressed * the event takes place in his/her own world shared of course with the dispositive of an artwork, and it occurs with a minimal participation on their part. This eventually causes the position taken by the receiver of the work organized around the Strategy of Spectacle, joining participation with observation, take on a well-known form of participating observation. It is precisely because of that fact that I would not include an otherwise spectacular installation by Rafael Lozano-Hemmer Vectorial Elevation (2000) among the works created with the use of the Strategy of Spectacle. An event organized as its part, from majority of participants required only observation, with no possibility to mark their participation in any way. Lozano- Hemmer’s work is an example of recent, telematic projects within which the audience is divided into groups and their members are attributed with various possibilities of behavior (I mentioned that before while discussing Strategy of System). Such artworks, from the point of view of their participants, may refer to various strategies at the same time. The installation cited here, Vectorial Elevation , for a small but active group of participants who, on the Internet, designed a spectacular event taking place in reality, takes on a form of a work connected with Strategy of Instrument. For majority of the viewers, however, it is more of an indication of starting the Strategy of Network. What differentiates observation taking place in the context of interactive art from the one that is appropriate for social sciences is the fact that the first one aims at an esthetic experience, whereas the latter one remains within the cognitive one. In both cases the experienced sphere sustains significant autonomy and the experience itself gains its final shape and brings certain results depending on attitude and behavior of a participant-observer. It is also worth recalling here the (v)user category, suggested simultaneously by Mirosl aw Rogala and Bill Seaman, created from a combination of observer/viewer and user ( viewer/user ). Placing more stress on observation aspect transforms the ‘‘(v)user’’ into the participant of an event created around the Strategy of Spectacle. An example of a work connected with the Strategy of Spectacle, in case of which the participant of an event defines its frames, could be an installation of a Belgian artist Lawrence Malstaf’s Nemo Observatorium (2002). In this work, the receiver, by taking place in an armchair placed in a cylindrical construction and using a buttons placed there (connected to five fans and polystyrene foam particles) can cause (and finish) an artificial typhoon or a cyclone that he/she safely contemplates from its very center (Figure 16). This work received in Linz’s Ars Electronica 2009 competition the main prize of Golden Nica in category of interactive art. This fact forcibly shows the scale of notes received nowadays (the installation dates back to 2002!) by works of art representing the Strategy of Spectacle. On the other hand, an example of a work representing a difference in which the viewer is faced with participation in the event, is an installation by Yoko Ishii and Hiroshi Homura It’s fire, you can’t touch it (2007). In this work which appoints the active environment, onto the hands reached out by the participants, miniature light signs are projected * a Japanese tanka poem is running through, glyphs change form, fuse together, move. Here we deal with a poetic spectacle in which the perspective of cognitive interactivity, set off in contact with poetry, is complemented by tactile sensations and poems themselves are as if extracted from the environment by interactive gestures of receivers-readers (Figure 17). I do not perceive of course as the final and definite one the typology of art suggested here. Develop- ment of new technologies in this area of artistic activity, but also going through its current achievements with reference to other categories than quoted by me, to other criteria of division, may bring a different picture of the analyzed phenomena. Classification of interactive art presented in this study gains, to my mind, a methodological coherence due to the fact that while characterizing individual strategies, I always remain within the same set of indicators of interactive art, which play here the role of division criteria. Interface, interaction, the used data and the way in which they are organized (in this case it is the alternative possibilities * database, hypertext, cybertext * they all become factors of systematic), inner technological order, the created social network, and the event itself * they are basically the factors of each interactive work-event. Differences in interactive art variations where identification is the basis for outlining individual strategies lie mostly * as I mentioned already * in organization, each time different, and arrangements in hierarchy of those factors. These differences lead to the many other differentiations still shaping on the level of general arrangements and not with reference to individual realizations concerning, for example, interactive tactics possible to undertake or recommended within particular strategies, their aims and environments in which they develop, relations between participants of the events, the characteristic array of the issues. And it is only on the basis of these further differentiations that are still a part of differentiation systematic that individual works of art-events appear, developing and inter- preting their eventful frames. Among the latter ones, which must be stressed, the merging of strategies is a very significant tendency nowadays * numerous works are created today on the edges of many strategies. This is the result of hybrid character of contemporary interactive art, the progressing virtualization and telematization, and of course the developing individual artistic attitudes that correspond to this tendency. Changes that take place in the area of interactive art, which is outlined by identified here and singled out strategies, are * to my mind * of triple character. Firstly, interactivity is no longer explored in a way abstract, only for itself, but is more and more often entangled into various problem contexts: social, political, ecological, etc. It is not the interface constructions then, but the events taking place in the area specified by interactive strategies that begin to be the main field of interest of the artists. Long gone are the times of fascination just with the phenomenon of digital interactivity itself. Secondly, transformations taking place in this area bring interactive art closer to institutionalized gallery-museum system. This brings certain consequences concerning the character of the work, dispositive’s construction, environment in which it is located and its relation with artistic tradition. Thirdly, higher and higher number of interactive works is located in public space, transforming it and combining in many ways with virtual environments. These transformations are significantly connected with the processes described in point one. Many works realized in public environment takes on a form of locative art. They reach out for network strategies and by pushing interactive digital technologies aside to the background (which does not necessarily have to mean irrele- vant), they subdue them to social tasks, or they analyze the consequences of their presence for the life of individuals and ...