Interactive art is an accepted but contested art form. At issue for the artist, the critic, and the observer is not a fundamental antagonism but a problematic definition. Interactive art does not provoke public resistance or critical opposition; it has its appeal, and adding the term interactive to the description of a work can even make a work seem “more sexy, more potent, [and] more creative.”1 But the term does not necessarily deliver critical insight. Interactivity is not opposed in the world of art; rather, it is under-defined or perhaps a little misunderstood. When I encounter the term in the description of a work, I want to ask, “What makes a work of art interactive?”
Definitions of interactivity do exist, and I am not suggesting that the art form has not been defined in helpful ways or that the contours of interactive art have not been discussed. The contours of the art form have been discussed at length and with considerable insight. Randi Hopkins recognizes that interactive art calls for active engagement. She says that “it is part of the very definition of interactive art that we have to throw ourselves right into it—no armchair appreciation or passive gazing allowed.”2 The “Curatorial Mission Statement” of Art Interactive characterize the form as “contemporary, experimental, and participatory” and says that those who engage interactive art “play, create, and participate.”3 It is, for many, active participation or the act of engagement that defines the art form. But such a definition, though useful, seems incomplete and even superficial. The definition recognizes what people do with interactive art, but not necessarily how or why they do it. There is something present that may or may not be consciously observed that shapes acts of engagement and makes art interactive.
What, then, makes art interactive? The answer, in part, is code. Code defines the limitations of environments and systems. The squares on a chessboard and the keys on a keyboard provide good examples of coded physical limitations. The coded environment of a chess game is an eight by eight square board that has two alternating colors; a standard computer keyboard has one-hundred and four buttons, each bearing a unique symbol. Physical limitations are part of the code of an interactive environment. These codes may open an infinite number of possibilities for a viewer; however, with the addition of rules, the possibilities are narrowed, become finite, and lead to a specific end. Rules govern players’ interactions within the encoded environment, and interactive art is rule-based.
This dimension of interactivity is most evident in games. A traditional board game, for example, has rules; the rules are stated explicitly, and those who play the game must follow the rules or break them. The rules of chess and the rules of checkers determine how players use the eight by eight square matrix. Likewise, video games have rules, though video-game rules are more complex. Video games are programmed games with written instructions that govern the players’ actions and coded instructions that control hardware inputs and digital outputs. Strongly interactive or process-oriented works “have internally-defined procedures that allow them to respond to their audiences, recombine their elements, and transform in ways that result in many different possibilities.”4 Playing a game or engaging any interactive work changes the possibilities and the player’s immediate experience of the game. It is the interactivity itself that effects the state of play, and during the play, the observer and the work respond, recombine, and transform. This does not occur in fixed media such as a painting, but it is a defining aspect of interactive media. In interactive art, the observer and the work are constructed by rules that can be bent or broken, but cannot be absent. Whether implicit or explicit, there will always be rules that govern the acts of engagement of works of art.
Engagement, of course, is physical and sensory, for engagement activates visual, aural, or tactile contacts with the work and yields cognitive, emotive, and physiological responses. The observer senses and manipulates the art, and in turn thinks, feels, and reacts. Any sensing and manipulating, however, will be guided by codes and rules. The codes and rules can be unique to the piece, and they can, with certain limitations, be selected, modified, and manipulated by those who create, engage, and display the art. Changing the rules of the game or the rules of engagement may be complicated, or it may be as simple as changing the signage in an exhibit. The sign that warns, “DO NOT TOUCH,” and the invitation, “PLEASE TOUCH,” illustrate the point. These signs establish rules and, at the discretion of the artist or museum, can be modified. Changing a sign, changes the rules of engagement, and this changes the observer’s experience and response. The rules of engagement define the form of the interactivity. The art work’s rules guide responses; they trigger memories, emotions, and analysis, and the artist can manipulate these rules for aesthetic and idealistic purposes.
My objective is to define a mode of interactive art that exposes and exploits implicit and explicit rules of engagement. The thesis has three sections. In the first section, which describes a theoretical framework, I will draw upon the work of Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Dominic Lopes to explore the operation of implicit and explicit rules in games and interactivity, and I will discuss how rules may be exposed and exploited to serve aesthetic and idealistic ends. I will also consider the theoretical paradigms of Eric Zimmerman and Ian Bogost. In the second section, I will discuss historical precedents for my work in Duchamp's relationship to the Dadaist movement and his interest in chess, early Surrealist games, the games of the Fluxus movement and Yoko Ono in particular, and the contemporary game artists Rafael Fajardo, Gabriel Orozco, Mary Flanagan, and Francisco Ortega-Grimaldo, among others. In the third section, I will relate theory and history to my work as a new media artist.
Rule-based art can be used for aesthetic ends and for social criticism, and I am motivated by both. I am interested in rules at work within the art and in society, especially but not exclusively rules that sustain violence. My motive in creating interactive art is to expose overlooked behaviors and to encourage a fresh questioning of social habits and values. Some, I fear, do not see habits and practices that perpetuate injustice, and others see but ignore them. My intent is to expose, and my work is a form of social activism. It is not, however, overt activism like marching in protest or signing a petition. It is a covert protest that does not carry a banner down a street but makes a statement from an online exhibit or gallery. I do not intend to force attention but to invite reflection through playful engagement and interactivity. My work affords viewers an opportunity to discover something about the dynamic and destructive operation of violence, without suffering violence, and I use playful games to expose life’s larger and more dangerous ones. I want people to make these discoveries on their own through interactive experiences and ultimately to avoid and shun social violence.
I create game-based art to engage and to change viewers, to alter perspectives, though I cannot predict the effect. People do tend to overlook or resist new or contrary ideas, but interactive art can subvert resistance by being playful, entertaining and ironic. When viewers engage certain kinds of game-based art, they enter into a dialogue with the artwork and within themselves. They may want to play a game that challenges their skills, but I want to challenge their conceptions of the world. In the book, What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy, Paul Gee explores the paradox that children and adults who may avoid formal study, eagerly learn how to play video games on their own without online or classroom instruction.5 They like to play games, so they learn how. Marc Prensky also explores the paradox in his work, Digital Game-Based Learning.6 I am not seeking a new form of pedagogy in interactive art, but I do want to use the expressive aspects of interactivity, and Gee’s and Prensky’s explorations show the importance of games and their ability to capture attention and to communicate ideas.
According to Michel Foucault, rules and discipline regulate individual behavior and the social body.7 People play by the rules of their social group, and the rules are largely social constructs, taught and learned behaviors. Sets of rules reveal something about the societies that create, observe, and transmit them, yet the rules are not always acknowledged. They may be real, but they may not be obvious or recognized. From Foucault’s perspective, power works best when its mechanism’s are hidden. The creation of art that explicitly employs rules (game-based art) or that exposes the rules that are at work in a social group, is a form of activism that reveals and empowers. My game-based art exposes rules at work in violent conflict.
What, then, is my rational for using games and creating game-based art to express ideas? In part, I want to express resistance-prone ideas in resistance-diminishing games. Players will learn how to play an interesting game and, through the process, will learn more than just how to play the game. I want players to understand something about society. Game-based art invites and sustains reflection; the interactions require active, rather than passive engagement, and engagement fosters learning. For this reason—as artist and activist—I am drawn to the game and game-based art.