The articles “Physical Computing’s Greatest Hits (and Misses)” and “Making Interactive Art: Set the Stage, Then Shut Up and Listen” provide many insights and advice for artists and designers who want to create interactive physical computing projects and installations.
In “Physical Computing’s Greatest Hits (and Misses)”, the author reviews some of the most common themes and project ideas that take place in physical computing classes. What stood out to me is how he encourages students not to be discouraged if their ideas have been done before. As he points out, these themes are popular precisely because they offer room for originality and surprising variations. Even if the core interaction (e.g. theremin-like instruments, gloves, floor pads) has been explored, there are always opportunities to put new spins on it through the specific form, aesthetics, narrative, and context.
His different project types made me reflect on my own tendencies and biases when brainstorming IM concepts. I tend to gravitate toward certain projects which have the most creative and interesting aspects in sight. I don’t want to just satisfy assignment requirements but have the project with a certain goal in mind to have a certain effect on the user.
“Making Interactive Art: Set the Stage, Then Shut Up and Listen” article offers advice that somehow conflicts with my instincts as a designer. Author advises interactive artists to avoid pre-scripting the participant’s experience and interpretations. Let the audience discover meaning for themselves through open-ended interaction with the work.
This is quite different from other design contexts like UX, where the goal is often to carefully guide the user through a curated experience towards a specific goal. But with interactive art, you get more authentic audience engagement and emotional resonance by leaving room for ambiguity, surprise, and personal interpretation. It requires the artist to give up some control, which can feel uncomfortable. But the end result is a richer dialog between the artist and the audience. For example, when I was designing my midterm project, I left players with a choice (e.g. pick up the ring or not) so players could act accordingly. For communications lab projects, we also try to design concepts that actively consider user input (e.g. alternating storyline and so on). I still feel like there is some level of prediction that needs to happen, nothing is truly open world experience as we don’t have enough resources or computing power for that, but we can try to get as close as possible.
Author’s advice to “shut up and listen” – pay close attention to how people interact with and react to the work – also struck me as highly relevant to interaction design in general, not just artistic contexts. We can learn so much by observing where our creations fail to improve in the future. Therefore, staying open to that feedback is essential for refining the work. This is something I did for my midterm as well by asking my friends to play game and provide constructive criticism.
In conclusion, these two articles provide many thought-provoking ideas to anyone trying to overcome the challenges of creating meaningful interactive experiences. While some of the advice may be particular to media art contexts, much of it feels widely applicable to interaction design as a whole. These are things I already take into account in my assignment, and now I feel even more aware moving further into complex projects.
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