The Aesthetics Of Interaction In Interactive Art

Since the beginning of the 20 th century,artists have actively sought to make viewers involved in their works,from allowing viewers to just gaze from a distance to making viewer's bodies participated.At the same time,they have been actively expanding the boundaries of traditional concepts.When technologies such as real-time computing,sensors,and the Internet are combined with art,a form of computer-based interactive participation has emerged,and the interaction between viewers and works has taken a new higher level,which we call “interactivity "in new media art.Interactivity is one of the important characteristics of new media art,especially of interactive art---a branch of new media art.Therefore,this article selects interactive art as the basis to show the connotation and performance of interactivity,,to show the aesthetic dimension of interactive new media art in some degree,to provide thinkings for the establishment of an aesthetic analysis framework on the aesthetics of interaction in interactive art.This will not only enhance our understanding of new media art,but also inspire us to look at other contemporary art and various art forms in history from a new perspective,and open up new perspectives for art history.This paper has three chapters.The first chapter introduces the origin and concepts of interactive art.Then some typical interactive art works were showed to show some characteristics and operating rules of interactive art.Based on these,we can see what is interactivity.Interactivity is essentially a dialogue between man and machine.To be interactive,something must be responsive in a way that is neither completely controllable nor completely random.1The second chapter introduces subjects involved in interactive art.Compared to traditional art,in addition to authors,viewers,and performers,computer systems should also be taken as an independent subject in interactive art.Interactive art is a form of artistic expression that combines art and technology,and is co-created by artists,computers,and participants.Interactive art works are carefully framed by the artist,and performed and realized by the participants.Compared to other kinds of participatory art,most participants of interactive art face such kind of situation,that is,in order to know operating methods and rules,they have to interact with works.So the exploration of the functionality and operating rules of the work is also an important part of the aesthetic experience when people appreciating interactive art.Based on the two chapters before,the third chapter summarizes the aesthetic features of interactive art from these perspectives: time,space,materiality,and aesthetic distance.Because of interactivity,the form of interactive art works always changes.The combination of each present form of work and the participants' present experience is considered to be the main driving force to the interactive arts' aesthetic experience.Compared to traditional visual arts,these phenomena occurs in interactive art,like the format of videos of a interactive works need to be updated from time to time,to adapt to the new playing environment,otherwise it will be difficult to maintain the appearance of the work;the artist would like to modify and improve the work from time to time,accoding to advises from participants.The elements,form and content of an interactive art work will be affected by various factors such as time,place,viewers,equipment,etc.This also shows that interactive arts no longer adheres to the substance of the work any more.At the same time,when appreciating and wanting to gain aesthetic experience from an interative art work,the participants must first complete the work,then reflect on the work,which contradicts with the principle that "aesthetic distance is the basic condition of aesthetic experience" in traditional aesthetics theory.Therefore,different from traditional visual art,the aesthetic experience of interactive art works is not to maintain this principle anymore...