I’ve been wrestling a little with the question of the body and interactivity over the past few days. It seems that the classic case of interactivity in art practice using new technology encourages the viewer outside of their body to achieve some kind of merging with a group of other participants or the external depiction of their body and it’s function. Classic examples could be something like Rafael Lozano Hemmer’s piece for the 2007 Venice Biennale http://www.lozano-hemmer.com/frequency_and_volume….. Although this piece draws the viewer’s attention toward their body by its depiction in shadow and frequency, I would argue that this experience is ultimately externalising and deals in a superficial surface level interactivity. I think what I like about George Khut’s Thinking Through the Body project is that it uses methods of body therapy to draw the viewer/user toward their own internal experience, heightening their awareness of their own body and it’s functions. This is still an experience of ‘interacting’ with the art work, but is also a way of becoming more body aware, more internalised and more centered from a different perspective.
Sid Volter sent me a link to this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ej9nchHoZkU&feature… piece by Laura Colmenares Guerra. It sparked an interesting conversation where I argued that I felt the piece focused on augmenting the viewer to a more externalised state where they are engaged in interpreting information from outside of the body, rather than focusing on drawing the viewer inward toward their own physical experience. Sid came back with a pretty intelligent argument about how in fact the piece potentially does both. I’m hoping he won’t mind me quoting him:
“The Guerra video was biofeedback as it was supposed to make you more aware of your breathing and rhythm, and with the group make some kind of group symbiosis. Was it worth the feeling of having a mask / goggles strapped onto you? How effective it was I don’t know.
I suppose the idea of biofeedback, like the thinking-body group, is to use what is already there and work with it – rather than setting-upon things and demanding things & in false situations like technology tends to do – that’s when the separation happens.”
I think this is a really interesting point. The biorhythm of the viewer’s body (breathing) being used both to make the viewer more aware of their own body and to also integrate them with a group. I’d argue that the integration and ‘symbiosis’ that the piece seeks to encourage/demand is actually something quite unachievable and goes against conditioned social behavior norms for groups of strangers positioned together in a darkened room (sounds a bit cynical doesn’t it??). However I do think that the breath could be key as a means of centering and internalizing the bodily experience and I say this more from the position of someone who practices regular yoga than as a spectator for interactive art!!
I’m keen to draw out some of this thinking for the conference at the Bluecoat in December. At the moment I have an idea for a programming strand looking at “New Body Therapies” which I think as a title in itself has it’s own power in the context of a conference on aging!! Lets see……
