Becoming Art by Shloka Kini
When I first entered this class, I had a very clear definition of art, and interactivity wasn’t part of it. Anything that involved interaction was automatically a game. Engaging the user was an automatic distinction for me between what was art and a display.
I really began to understand new media art differently when analyzing interactive works. In many ways, interactive works become more forcibly engaging than static artworks are. For example, when passing by a classical painting or a photograph in an art gallery, a viewer can simply pass by with only a short glance to the work. Whereas, with interactive art, the person becomes the life for the work: a sound is heard, letters move, an image changes, a form is displayed on a screen. All becomes very apparent to the user that he/she is important to this work’s well-being. And so he/she stays.