Making Interactive Art: Set the Stage, Then Shut Up and Listen reads like meta commentary for this class. For all the work that we have done in the past weeks, we’ve produced supporting documentation backing our inspiration, thought process, methodology, and everything in between. The author speaks of such artists with disdain. “They pre-script what will happen. When you do that, you’re telling the participant what to think, and by extension, how to act. Is that what you wanted?” That is actually not what I want, and for my final project, I would like to work on this author’s terms. I don’t have an idea for my final project yet, but I think I want to create something expansive; something that houses at least the potential for serendipity. The projects that I am making right now are rather limited in functionality, so essentially I have already defined the scope for interactivity before the first interaction with my projects can even happen. But my goal for my final project is to design, for each individual user, unique experiences which exist in a larger permutative space.
The other reading offers some good ideas for thinking in this direction. Furthermore, even though most of the works listed are popular project ideas in the interactive art community, I liked how the author addressed this at the get-go. “So if you’re new to physical computing and thinking to yourself “I don’t want do to that, it’s already done,” stop thinking that way! There’s a lot you can add to these themes through your variation on them.” Usually, when I’m looking for inspiration on the blog for my weekly projects, I look at other people’s work and immediately close off ideas pertaining to the use of similar tools or methods. But looking at projects that use “body-as-cursor” or “hand-as-cursor”, it seems I don’t have to be that restrictive in my thinking. Everyone used Javascript to create all these cool projects in the first half of the semester — but every project came out so unique and with the emblem of each person’s individuality. So, if I see someone using an LDR for their project, I don’t think I should turn away from using LDRs in my project altogether. I can also probably make something cool with the same tools.