Re: [-empyre-] interactive video

[babel <babel@391.org>]

Helen Varley Jamieson wrote:

> i often find when viewing 'interactive' video on the web that my 
> interactivity consists of randomly clicking & wondering what effect 
> the click has had or whether clicking in a different place, or at a 
> different time, might have a produced a different result. it's 
> interactive in that the viewer can have some effect on the work, 
> without any real agency.


Henry Warwick wrote:

> I would also distinguish the difference between interactive video and
>  performance cinema, and I would tend to question much of what 
> constitutes the "interactivity" of "interactive" video, as much of 
> what I see as "interactive art" (much less video) is not much more 
> than various elaborations on a boolean if/then decision tree, which I
>  find to be completely, and too often profoundly, UNinteractive.

luke wrote:

> for me, interactivity is synonymous with the word 'dialogue' when 
> describing art, which encompasses vertices of conflict but leaves 
> room for more. i choose the term 'clickable' over 'interactive' for 
> art dependent on the button metaphor.
>
> breathing wall is an interesting case in point, because it uses 
> clickable interfaces as well as the de-visual interfaced mechanism of
>  audio feedback, in this work being breath. one can control 
> breathing, but ultimately also one needs to breath and the slippage 
> between this element of control is what to me brings the 
> interactivity its meaning.


I am in agreement with most of this. The term "interactive" is applied
to a lot of work which is perhaps better described as non-linear, 
clickable or whatever. I have tended to use 'participatory' recently to 
describe my own video work - it better describes my intention to create 
a physical and aesthetic interaction with the viewer, in that
direction and speed of mouse movement directly influences what is seen.
Naturally the actual physical interaction this allows the participant 
depends on their setup - standard wired mouse, wireless, rollerball 
etc., plus mouse response speed, processor speed and all the other
determining local factors.

I feel this kind of physical interaction in the feedback sections of
Jim's "On Lionel Kearns" - a very direct digital visual representation 
of one's analogue movements. Maybe this type of interaction should be
distinguished from the participation in the construction of meaning of
the piece, which seems to me where real 'agency' comes in, and as Helen 
suggested http://www.furtherstudio.org/live is a great example of this.

The Breathing Wall is split into two quite different halves. The 
clickable linear story (the beginning of this is online) is 
intentionally constricted to suggest the confinement and routine of main 
character's daytime life in prison. The breathing ('night-dream') 
sections are again a very physical type of interaction, but with the 
twist that the slow breathing required to uncover the story causes a 
significant physical change in the viewer - ideally, a near hypnagogic 
state. I think this makes it quite different from mouse movements, which 
physically can only really hope to tire your arm or thumb :) The way 
breathing works to influence the narrative also seems closer to the 
basic concept of 'interactive' as "acting or capable of acting on each 
other."



Simon Biggs wrote:

> Interesting take on revising artists moving image work in light of 
> pre-cinema. This has been done extensively before, but in reference 
> to stucturalist film and, then later, artists video. I guess we will
>  go through the same process with online digital video.


Paul St George wrote:

> Animation has not been overlooked. Much of the contemporary moving 
> image in the Sequences show (that Jim refers to) could be called 
> animation or it could be called something else. The distinction, if 
> there is one, between animation and much digital video is vague and 
> refers more to their heritage rather than current practice. 
> Interestingly, picking up on your point about stucturalist film, one
>  of the writers for the forthcoming book is Werner Nekes.

I hope so, Simon! I think there is still a lot to mine from pre- and 
early cinema. For anyone who is interested in the background of the two 
pieces Jim kindly posted, Patinage (and Turnbaby as an earlier 
iteration) both came from my interest in Anton Bragaglia's concept of 
the moving image, which came from Bergson's ideas about the infinite 
continuity of time, and were located in opposition to cinematography:

"cinematography never synthesises movement... merely reconstructs 
fragments of reality, already coldly broken up, in the same way as the 
hand of a chronometer deals with time even though this flows in a 
continuous and constant stream.
...We are not interested in the precise reconstruction of movement, 
which has already been broken up and analysed. We are involved only in 
the area of movement which produces sensation." (Futurist Photodynamism, 
1913)

This is where the other half of the phrase "interactive video" is
problematic for me - what exactly do we call video these days? does the 
phrase include static images that move around the screen, and images 
that morph continously or very slowly (Brad Brace's 12hour jpeg project, 
http://art-bin.com/art/gabout12.html )?

Another interesting issue for me is that digital video (interactive or 
not) can more easily move the screen upon which the subject is depicted, 
as well as the subject itself. This might offer some interesting 
narrative opportunities for using the movement of the eyes around the 
visual field, and the way this 'interacts' with the brain (supposedly 
eyes up & left = remembered imagery, eyes down and left = internal 
dialogue etc.)


Henry Warwick wrote:

> I have A LOT of problems with VJ material. Most of what I have seen 
> of it is just awful. There are some brilliant exceptions.

Yes, I completely agree... I have seen a lot of VJ content that is very 
good in itself, and performances that have been good in terms of the 
audiovisual narratives that are developed over the course of a set. But 
the big problem for me is the location where VJing often takes place - 
clubs, bars, galleries - where there is an odd tension between people 
wanting to sit and watch it, people who want to dance to it, and people 
who want to use it as background filler and talk over it.

A lot used to be made of the do-it-yourself aspect of VJ software: that 
the agency came from creating, rather than consuming. As a communal live 
experience, I find it flawed, but perhaps as an individual creative 
experience it is more interesting? Furtherfield is again interesting in 
this context as as a live, communal creative experience which works (I 
think) because there is largely a common intention and expectation in 
the participants.

best,

chris