Reception Aesthetics: The Aesthetic of Interactivity in Digital Art

Project Director: Katja Kwastek
Project Period: 10/2006 – 12/2009
Project Objective: Publication (Habilitation)

Project Description

The scholarly analysis of works and projects commonly referred to as interactive art calls for methods that do justice to its processual and participatory character. Various strategies for interactivity with regard to the relationship between work and effect must be examined and an adequate vocabulary developed to describe them. A detailed analysis will be conducted of sample works and the context of their creation and reception in order to study the respective significance of interactivity in the overall context of aesthetic, content-related and formal strategies. At the same time, a theoretical framework will be developed to describe fundamental elements of an aesthetic of interaction in digital art.

Although interactive artworks are usually classified in the context of visual art, art scholarship has not yet developed a set of tools for analyzing this kind of art adequately. While its frequently installation-based structure enables parallels to be drawn with “traditional” contemporary art, its use of time-based media also places it in the realm of film and video art.

Due to their processual and action-centered character, these works are related to performance art, but are distinguished by the fact that viewer interaction is indispensable while the co-presence of artist and viewer is not required.

The activity called for on the part of the viewers, which takes place in a situation remote from their everyday dealings, places interactive art in the realm of games, which are already the subject of sociological, anthropological, ethnographic, and cultural studies investigations. An aesthetic analysis of interactive art can therefore build on research done in the fields of art history, theater studies and multidisciplinary game research.