Quotes to get us started

Quotes from "Transforming Mirrors", a text by Canadian artist David Rokeby (emphasis mine):

"Itsuo Sakane, the Japanese journalist and curator, suggests that interactive art is simply art that involves the participation of the viewer. But he goes on to remark "all arts can be called interactive in a deep sense if we consider viewing and interpreting a work of art as a kind of participation," an echo of Marcel Duchamp's famous declaration, "The spectator makes the picture.""

"McLuhan often referred to technologies as 'extensions of man'. But in fully interactive technologies, the flow of information goes both ways; the apparati become more like permeable membranes."

"Television expands the reach of our vision, while at the same time, filtering the content. We trade the subjectivity of our personal point of view for centrally collected and broadcasted images and information. Interactive media have the power to likewise expand the reach of our actions and decisions. We trade subjectivity for participation and the illusion of control; our control may appear absolute, but the domain of that control is externally defined. We are engaged, but exercise no power over the filtering language of interaction embedded in the interface. Rather than broadcasting content, interactive media have the power to broadcast modes of perception and action."

From this text, some questions arise for me:

How can VJs cultivate this "permeable membrane" between art and audience?

At what level do VJs give up this notion of control over material, and how can the audience figure into this?

If "the spectator makes the picture", how is this transformed in a context of live, dynamic creation?


(Read the full paper by Rokeby.)