Interactive art should be designed as a conversation (or workshop seminar) instead of a speech. The clearest takeaway from the two pieces is that affordances and arrangements matter more than artist statements. If the system communicates its possibilities through handles, hints, and constraints, the audience can complete the work through action. When artists over-script, they collapse the range of possible meanings and behaviors into one narrow path.
Physical computing’s “greatest hits” list is useful because it exposes where interaction often stalls. Video mirrors and mechanical pixels are beautiful, but they rarely push beyond “move, see response.” Gloves, floor pads, and utilty controllers introduce a structured gesture vocabulary that people already know, which shortens the learning curve. Across categories: where gesture has meaning, interaction retains depth; where mappings are shallow, novelty fades quickly.
These pieces prompt two design questions. First, what minimal cues will help a participant discover the interaction without text? Second, what state changes will keep the system from settling into a single loop? In practice, that means compositional choices, such as discrete modes, cumulative effects, and recoverable errors.
For attention sensing, presence is not engagement. Designers should think of for signals that correlate with intent, then treat them probabilistically. Use the audience’s behavior as feedback to adjust affordances, not narratives. If the work does not evolve under interaction, you likely built a display, not a performance.
