Open AccessThe Body, the Threshold, and the Cut: The Aesthetics and the Ethics of Measuring in Interactive Media Art
Author(s) -
Heidi Tikka
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
catalyst
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2380-3312
DOI - 10.28968/cftt.v7i1.35069
Subject(s) - interactivity , performative utterance , embodied cognition , aesthetics , interactive art , installation art , human–computer interaction , sociology , computer science , visual arts , multimedia , art , the arts , artificial intelligence , visual arts education , studio art , performance art , art history
New media artists working on interactive installations often rely on different monitoring techniques, such as variable sensors in the design and the production of responsive environments and objects. In this short commentary, I will inquire into my installation Mother, Child (2011/2000) to address a new media art practice as productive alignment of agencies at the interface. The term body-sensor co-performance is used to foreground both the performative nature and the fundamental integrity of the technology and the body in interactive art. I will suggest that the setting of threshold values for different measuring operations can be understood as the boundary-making process, through which the installation feeds off the embodied liveliness of its audiences for its responsive actions. Drawing on Karen Barad’s work, these thresholds can be thematized as agential cuts. A number of specific examples in using sensors for interactivity are then addressed in order to inquire into the ways in which the questions of ethics and aesthetics entangle in creative and collaborative labors for Mother, Child.