Monday, September 18, 2006

Poetics of Interactivity

Ah, the Poetics of Interactivity. The first thing that came to mind as i read the first few sentences, was an elongated moan. That's right, i moaned in my mind at the same time thinking; "what is this person trying to prove using complex words when perfectly good and understandable words could be substituted?" I don't find a problem with larger vocabulary, but when it comes to a webpage that is "interactive" and accesible to the world; i expect it to be understood by the masses and not a select few quasi-genius individuals.

so, getting to the meat of the topic, this poetics of interactivity is trying to explain the relationship between man and installation, focused on electronic media rather than standard general art forms(ie: painting, sculpture, etc...). Margaret uses many examples on different forms of media(computer, camera, television) all have a form of interactivity in it's own right. She then gives a long winded definition of interactivity and breaks it apart and explains it's latin derivitive, which goes on for a good paragraph or two. I guess you can consider it a lot of fluff, maybe she wrote this just to make herself look intellectual, with more fluff meaning more superiority. Who Knows; i am only speculating.

she did give a few good examples on how diferent people react to different things, like a dollhouse and a human body split up into sectiosn on a tv monitor; and gave some observations and relatively plausible speculation on why people react so differently.

i would assume the meat of this "essay?" would be trying to pursuade the reader that no matter how "interactive" a piece is (ie: computer, tv, etc...) it is not it's own entity and the interaction is only one way. No matter how believable the interaction is, the interactive thing is only reacting to what it is designed to do. One way. Person to piece. People try to have the piece interact with people, but margaret says that only people are actually truly 100% interactive, not inanimate peices of work.


THOUGHT OF THE DAY: The world is only as loud as you think it is.