Learning to Art

Interaction in Art

March 21, 2017

What is interaction in art?

Could a comic book, or could some sort of mechanized artwork be considered interactive?

Is an artwork only interactive if it can move, or can it be static?

Static Interaction

Comic strips are one of the most interactive forms of art to have ever been conceived, and young men and women have poured countless hours over them with complete concentration. But what makes them so interesting?

‘ Static: The art object does not change and is viewed by aperson. There is no interaction between the two that can beobserved by someone else, although the viewer may beexperiencing personal psychological or emotional reactions.The artwork itself does not respond to its context. ‘

– Ernest Edmonds, Greg Turner, and Linda Candy. 2007. Approaches to Interactive Art Systems. Available at: http://bit.ly/2nG1svN.

According to this quote ‘static art’ (art that doesn’t move) finds its interaction in the viewers personal reaction to the work.

This means that interaction, in the context of work that doesn’t move, hasn’t much to do with materials or colour, and has more to do narrative and the emotions of the viewer.

So comic strips are extremely interesting and interactive, because they contain narratives that are very appealing to a young viewer, and contain strong feelings of nostalgia for the more mature viewer.

But what about art that moves?

Dynamic-Passive Interaction

George Ricky created many ‘Kinetic Sculptures’ that respond to the slightest air currents and move with them. These pieces are considered ‘Dynamic-Passive’, because the viewer is passive and the art changes by itself. The reason this is considered interactive is because the viewer is watching something that is interacting with the environment, and is experiencing the change it is making.

Dynamic-Interactive Interaction

‘Dynamic-Interactive: All of the conditions of the dynamic-passive category apply with the added factor that the human ‘viewer’ has an active role in influencing the changes in the art object. For example, by walking over a mat that contains sensors attached to lights operating in variable sequences, the viewer becomes a participant that influences the process of the work. Motion and sound capture and analysis techniques can be used to incorporate human activity into the way visual images and sounds are presented. The work ‘performs’differently according to what the person does or says.’

– Ernest Edmonds, Greg Turner, and Linda Candy. 2007. Approaches to Interactive Art Systems. Available at: http://bit.ly/2nG1svN.

So ‘Dynamic-Interactive’ art is something in which the viewer has an active role in manipulating the work, such as in Hannes Koch, Florian Ortkrass, and Stuart Wood’s – Rain Room

In the ‘Rain Room’ the viewer enters a room that is raining inside, and while they are moving through it the rain doesn’t touch them because it stops wherever they are going. Therefore they walk through a raining room without even getting wet.

This artwork would be considered ‘Dynamic-interactive’ because the work changes as the viewer interacts with it, and performs differently depending on where you go in the room.

Conclusion

So this short analysis on Interaction has found few things: It has found that Dynamic-Interactive Interaction is where an artwork is manipulated by the viewer, and performs in different ways depending on what they do, It has found that that Dynamic-Passive interaction is where the work is manipulated by the environment, and the viewer observes this passively, and it has found that Static Interaction is an artwork that doesn’t change, has a narrative, and only changes in the viewers perception of the work.

Joe Teather

The Priest & The Getaway

March 15, 2017

The Priest

This painting is very similar to ‘The Confession’ as it is an image of the same subject from another angle. I like this image quite a lot, however it doesn’t give off the same feeling as the other painting. I think that this is because it doesn’t have the same palette and range of contrasting colours, like red with the blue.

I painted this one to go alongside The Confession, and I think that the two look good together, however, I also think that The Confession has a better composition, and when they are put together, they look a little off balance. Not sure whether I like that, but I’ll try and keep them together in the show.

The Getaway 

I really like the yellow jacket in this painting, I think that it contrasts really well with the darkness of the background, and the colour of the face. However, I am not sure whether I like that the face is so obscured. While I have been making the faces abstract for the rest of my other drawings, I haven’t done one so close up before, and I think that the face may look a little ‘creepy’ and I don’t think that is the effect I wanted for this image, as I wanted something more mysterious than maleficent.

In my next painting I want to do something similar to this, without the closeup on the face. I was thinking of doing something like ‘The Chase’ in terms of composition, while making use of the contrast that you find in his jacket in ‘The Getaway’.

The Confession & The Chase

The Confession

I really liked this paintings composition. The starkness of the red on the grey haired man’s shirt in contrast to the darkness of the man opposite, the night sky, and the brightness of the blue seats definitely grabs my attention.

I think that the colour palette of the blue seats, and blood red soaked shirt looks really good, and the detail on the mans shirt and face is just enough to look good, and yet stay mysterious.

If I were to paint this image again however, I think that I would have spent more time on the man the black hoodie on the man opposite, and on the night sky too. I also think that I haven’t spend enough time making sure some of the lines are straight, and I think that I will definitely work on that in the future.

The Chase

I really like the simplicity in this image. The viewer is left in the dark wondering where the figure is going and what he is running from.

If I would paint this image again, then I would spend more attention to the lines, and making them straight as I think that they are the main thing letting this image down.

I’m not sure what I am going to paint next, but I think i’ll do something like ‘The Confession’ and try to  improve on the faults in the painting.

Joe

The Drive & The Waiting Game

Before the painting ‘The Fare’, I painted the image ‘The Waiting Game’, I liked this painting, and I think that it’s important that I show why I think that it didn’t give off the right feeling I wanted before I move on.

The Waiting Game

This image had a lot more detail in it than I first thought, the tree and the mans shirt, tie and hand took a lot of delicate work to depict, and I think it turned out well. However, the main reason I started this more simplistic style was to add a sense of mystery to the painting, and make it so that the viewer wasn’t completely sure what was happening in the painting. I think that this image shows too much of what is going on, and it’s quite obvious that the man looking at his watch is waiting for someone at a beach hut. I didn’t want that much to be portrayed in this image, and so in the future I will make sure that such complicated images will be simplified.

The Drive

I painted this right after I finished painting ‘The Fare’, and I think that it feels more like I wanted it to than ‘The Fare’ felt. By using less detail I think that ‘The Drive’ has a lot more mystery than the other painting. The viewer might wonder who the passenger is, and where the car is going.

I really liked the colour palette for this painting, the change from the light brown sky and car colour to the yellow of the street lights worked really well, and the black cab, and ‘TAXI’ sign really helped the image pop.

In the composition stage, I made sure to eliminate all non critical details, like clouds, cars, reflections, and shadows.

If I had to redo this painting knowing what I do now, then I think I would lower the contrast between the blackness of the taxi cab, and the driver’s face a little bit.

All in all, I like how this painting turned out, but now I want to try painting an image with a lot of light in it. I think that keeping the right sense of simplicity in the next painting will be hard as there is a lot that has to be conveyed.

Joe

Blue Paintings & Unwanted Detail

In these paintings I found that mixing colour is the part that takes the longest, and by applying many colours the painting takes far longer to complete.

When analyzing the choice of subject I have found that they have a similar feel to them as of the previous paintings. Because of the simplicity of the painting style by leaving out the faces the men in the blue painting could very well be the men in ‘Sanding in Blood’ and ‘The Exchange’. I really like this because it means that the viewer has to work harder to figure out what is happening in the narrative, and it also adds a sense mystery to the paintings just like there may be in a crime/detective thriller.

The Fare

I like this painting, however there are some things that didn’t turn out as planned, and if I were to paint the image again would change.

I really liked the composition of this image, and tried to get the feeling of a Los Angeles taxi cab through without adding too much detail, however I don’t think that it worked.

With the very simplistic style that I am going for at the moment, I have found it extremely hard to limit the amount of detail I have been putting into my paintings. In this case, I think that I failed to strike up the correct balance between simplicity and clarity. I believe that if you don’t add enough detail, then the painting is in danger of becoming abstract and devoid of narrative, however if too much detail is added then the image looses it’s mystery, and simply becomes another image and not a piece of the puzzle.

In this image I believe I added too much detail in parts, and not enough in others, giving the painting an uneven look. If I were to redo this ‘The Fare’ then I would definitely make sure to lower the detail in some areas in order to give it a more balanced appearance.

For the next image I plan to continue with the Taxi cab narrative. Perhaps now that I know of the balancing issue I can avoid it.

Joe