Week 9: Reading Reflection of “Physical Computing’s Greatest Hits…” and “Making Interactive Art: …”

Hey there! 👋

Tom Tigeo’s article “Physical Computing’s Greatest Hits (and misses)“, mentions many of the physical interaction systems commonly found in interactive projects. While this was published in mid 2008, and there have been numerous advances since then, I don’t think we’ve unlocked any revolutionarily new (or sufficiently different) input interfaces (with the exception of VR & AR), so this is still a pretty good list of possible interaction elements someone could include in their project (though obviously heed his warning and suggestions). I also really liked the 2nd paragraph. Though all of these have clearly already been done (and likely several more ideas, even ones that you might think are totally brand new), it’s still worth pursuing them, as there is still a lot of room for originality and creativity, with your unique variations on them.

 

Moving on to another one of his articles, “Making Interactive Art: Set the Stage, Then Shut Up and Listen“, I find that it’s a good reminder of the difference between classic artwork and interactive art. While traditional art is your expression or a statement, interactive art is a conversation, between (you through) the artwork, and those interacting with it, so don’t prescript or prime people into one way of thinking, but rather design the system well, so they can explore it themselves, and also come up with creatives uses of it. Luckily this is something we’ve been reminded quite often in this class, especially during user testing, so I’m now more often thinking about the affordances and signifiers, and the system of play and interactive between people and my work.

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