INTERACTIVITY AND NARRATIVES

STUDENT NAME: Benjamin Low Teck Hui STUDENT ID: EMAIL: 12406 LTHBEN@gmail.com

An essay submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Diploma of Media Arts (Interactive Art) Date of submission: 14 Sep 2010 LASALLE College of the Arts Benjamin Low Teck Hui

Signed Statement This essay represents my own work except where otherwise indicated or acknowledged. No part of this essay has been or is concurrently submitted for any other qualification at any other academic institutions.

Signed: ___________________ Name: ___________________ Student ID number: ___________________

Introduction This short essay discusses two interactive artworks by 1) comparing and contrasting how their narrative is experienced through interactivity, 2) examining their relevance to culture and the use of space, and 3) surmising the effectiveness or limitations of the works in communicating the artists intentions. This essay argues that both works involve socio-cultural communication, with one being more engaging than the other. Abstract Selected artworks:1. Jonathan Harris and Sep Kamvar, I Want You To Want Me (IWYTWM), screen installation, MoMA New York, 14 Feb 2008, as part of the Design and Elastic Mind show, website: http://iwantyoutowantme.org/ The following extract is taken from the statement in the abovementioned website:I Want You To Want Me explores the search for love and self in the world of online dating. Over the past several years, online dating has entered the mainstream, drawing over 50 million visitors per month. En masse, people have condensed their identities into page or paragraph-long descriptions, sometimes complemented by a handful of photographs or peppered with responses to canned questions. These personal profiles are modern messages in a bottle, short statements of self, telling not only who people are, but also what people want. In these advertisements for new human relationships, people package and present their most loveable qualities to help complete their quest to be loved. I Want You To Want Me chronicles the worlds long-term relationship with romance, across all ages, genders, and sexualities, gathering new data from a variety of online dating sites every few hours. The system searches these sites for certain phrases, which it then collects and stores in a database. These phrases, taken out of context, provide partial glimpses into peoples private lives. Simultaneously, the system forms an evolving zeitgeist of dating, tracking the most popular first dates, turn-ons, desires, self-descriptions and interests. The data is presented as an interactive installation, displayed on a 56 highresolution touch screen, hung vertically on a wall in a dark room. On screen is an interactive sky, whose weather (sunny, cloudy, rainy, snowy, etc.) can be controlled by the viewer. Through the sky float hundreds of blue (male) and pink (female) balloons, each representing a single dating profile. The brighter balloons are

younger people; the darker balloons older. Trapped inside each balloon is one of over 500 video silhouettes, showing a solitary person, engaged in any number of activities (yoga, jumping jacks, nose-picking, air guitar, etc.). The viewer can touch any balloon to select it, causing its photo to dangle from a string and its sentence to appear in a thought bubble overhead. Touching any balloon a second time pops it. The balloons move through the sky along different paths and at different speeds, bumping up against each other, sometimes traveling together for a time, but only ever getting so close, as each silhouette is ultimately confined to its own balloon. I Want You To Want Me aims to be a mirror, in which people see reflections of themselves as they glimpse the lives of others. It was commissioned by New Yorks Museum of Modern Art for their Design and the Elastic Mindshow. The piece was installed at MoMA on February 14, 2008, Valentines Day. 2. Krzysztof Wodiczko, "The Tijuana Projection" (TTP), public projection, Centro Cultural de Tijuana (CECUT), Mexico, 2001, as part of In-Site 2000, website: http://web.mit.edu/idg/cecut.html The following extract is taken from the statement in the abovementioned website:The purpose of the Tijuana Project was to use progressive technology to give voice and visibility to the women who work in the "maquiladora1" industry in Tijuana. We designed a headset that integrated a camera and a microphone allowing the wearer to move while keeping the transmitted image in focus. The headset was connected to two projectors and loudspeakers that transmitted the testimonies live. The women's testimonies focused on a variety of issues including work related abuse, sexual abuse, family disintegration, alcoholism, and domestic violence. These problems were shared live by the participants, in a public plaza on two consecutive nights, for an audience of more than 1,500, via projections on the 60-foot diameter facade of the Omnimax Theater at the Centro Cultural Tijuana(CECUT). The CECUT Project was part of InSITE2000 a bi-national contemporary arts project based on artistic investigation and activation of urban space in San Diego, United States, and Tijuana, Mexico.

Fig 1. Picture of a participant putting on the headset and preparing to speak live, the video image of her face can be seen projected onto the
1

Fig 2. Picture of a user interacting with the IWYTWM touchscreen.

Factories in Latin America that employ about 1.3 million Mexicans in assembly line-type manufacturing. They are located along the US-Mexican border. They are seen as low cost out-sourced factories from developed and richer countries.

facade of the CECUT Omnimax Theater building behind her.

Interactivity and the narrative The narrative of IWYTWM is told through the snippets of text extracted from the online public profile information of people looking for other people. The user of IWYTWM is offered a glimpse into the private lives of others (as mentioned in the artist statement) by clicking on the balloons which represent real people, on the touchscreen. On the other hand, the narrative of TTP is experienced as a form of direct storytelling as the audience watches and listens to a woman as she relates her story, with her voice being projected over loudspeakers and a camera view of her face projected onto the dome of the CECUT. While IWYTWM requires strong participation by the user who is involved in a series of decision-making on which balloon or menu selection to press, TTP merely requires a passive audience as they absorb the narrators story. In this regard, IWYTWM tends to lose the audience more easily since it requires more effort for the user to consciously create an input for the interactive system to respond. Although both artworks allow the audience to engage and disengage at any one point of time, the longer narrative arc of TTP tends to make the audience stay longer in order to gain a complete understanding of the story, since structure demands wholeness. The indefinably numerous, fragmented, coded, ephemeral and discrete narrative arcs in IWYTWM has more in the way of offering opportunities for disengagement. The use of space The use of space is dramatically different for the two artworks. While IWYTWM is installed in a museum which is within a form of shared private space, TTP is experienced in a plaza - a big public space. While only one person at a time can operate the IWYTWM touch screen, with perhaps a few others looking on, the TTP

light projection can be seen simultaneously by thousands of people due to the large public space that it occupies. Hence, TTP is more accessible and the experience more replicable for a larger audience. The use of public space also allows for an immersive experience replete with sound and visuals. An immersive experience is one of the ultimate goals for any interactive artist, with virtual reality being the pinnacle of current technology that allows for this kind of experience. The time of the day plays a significant role in TTP as well. Apart from the technicality that the light projections cannot be seen in daylight, night time, with its association of darkness, mystery and the unknown, creates an atmosphere of intimacy suited for the sharing of personal stories, and this also adds to the immersive experience. TTP transforms architectural space from the merely functional to one of a sociocultural significance. Never before has this particular urban space be used for such a purpose - an artistic investigation and activation of urban space to translate it into a socio-cultural context. There is feminist ideology at work here. There is symbolic significance in having a womans face projected onto a traditional symbol of patriarchal power that of a building, as represented by its faade. Buildings define the political and social spaces around us, and our relationship with buildings are like our relationship with larger society and the invisible power of institutions. Traditional masculine space is hence invaded and manipulated by a feminine presence as a symbolic representation of female empowerment. Level of engagement In any artwork, the overriding influence of emotion, or affectivity, is a determinative factor in assessing the artworks effectiveness. IWYTWM is an excellent example of data visualization which has a cognitive sort of affectivity for the user, initiating an intellectual response. TTP, on the other hand, hits the audience on a viscerally emotional level, through the affective corporeality of

having a real human presence seen and heard live. Hearing a real humans voice narrating a story, with its emotional overtones and inflections, has more emotional currency than looking at disembodied text snippets culled from profile information of faceless and anonymous people online. The impact of IWYTWM has a higher latency, as one needs time to digest and make sense of the data presented. There has to be some form of intellectual thought process in order for one to reach some form of conclusion about what one thinks of the artwork. The artwork does not direct this thought process, except to present raw data. Certain users may never be able to appreciate the hidden message behind the work, which is intended to be a mirror, in which people see reflections of themselves as they glimpse the lives of others through an act of voyeurism. The senselessness and ridiculous nature of the text snippets indirectly communicate to the user of the downside of Walter Benjamins famous saying - technology as an extension of man. Socio-cultural relevance The type of social exchanges, its reach and effectiveness of communication taking place as facilitated by the artwork, is a measure of its cultural impact and relevance. In both artworks, there is a shift of the exchange of narratives from the private to the public domain, whereby snapshots of individual reality are raised onto the public consciousness and awareness. IWYTWM exposes the social exchanges between individuals on the internet to its user, a member of the public, while TTP exposes the personal narrative of an individual - its narrator - to its audience. In both cases, there is also a social exchange between the user or viewer of the artwork and the artist, as the artist communicates his intention or message behind the work. In IWYTWM, the artist is reminding the user of their own behaviour as reflected in the artwork. In TTP, the artist is informing the audience of social problems within their community. By exploring the narrative, the audiences perception is influenced by the artworks

context. For IWYTWM, the user becomes aware of how people present themselves on an online profile when they are alone, and how they use their online identities to modulate their interactions with others. For TTP, the marginalized of society are empowered with a voice to reveal truth via parrhesia2. IWYTWM is narrowly targeted at the museum-going audience which represents a small but privileged slice of the overall population, namely someone who is highlyeducated, internet-savvy, and also likely subsumed by the artwork as one of the faceless online personas represented by the balloons filling the screen. TTP is by contrast, for the common man in the street, passer-bys or people who live around the area, and is targeted at the local community. While both artworks are culturally relevant to their audience, TTP has a wider reach of social communication due to its larger physical scale and use of public space. Summary TTPs narrative in the form of direct storytelling operates on an emotional level of engagement; whereas IWYTWMs narrative as an abstraction of text data taken from the Internet operates on an intellectual level. TTPs use of public space allows it to be physically accessible by a larger audience. In addition to this, its immersive environment makes for a stronger experience. Conclusion IWYTWMs value as an artwork is in its use of data visualization to facilitate a weak form of socio-cultural exchange whereas TTP has dramatically more impact as a vehicle for socio-cultural communication.

Michel Foucault: To summarize the foregoing, parrhesia is a kind of verbal activity where the speaker has a specific relation to truth through frankness, a certain relationship to his own life through danger, a certain type of relation to himself or other people through criticism (self-criticism or criticism of other people), and a specific relation to moral law through freedom and duty. More precisely, parrhesia is a verbal activity in which a speaker expresses his personal relationship to truth, and risks his life because he recognizes truth-telling as a duty to improve or help other people (as well as himself). In parrhesia, the speaker uses his freedom and chooses frankness instead of persuasion, truth instead of falsehood or silence, the risk of death instead of life and security, criticism instead of flattery, and moral duty instead of self-interest and moral apathy.