So, I’m going to be posting a lot of interactive art I’ve found over the last few weeks. I would have uploaded this earlier, but I was really caught up in international travel issues.

…summary paragraphs coming soon….

#1: Concentricity, Interactive Light Sculpture by Joshua Kirsch:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDxDRIMe5Y4&w=560&h=315]

So I really liked this project because it involves interactivity AND light. Based off the project video,  the user is ale to control the mechanism and the corresponding light simply by physically interacting with the device. By either pulling the inner doodad outwards or pushing it around the sides, the lights go through various patterns. I like this concept because I find it subtly immersive,  just enough to get the user to use it for some optimal length of time. Light through through its surrounding space, and with this piece, the user is capable of controlling a larger medium than he is most likely used to. A possible revision could include the machine “remembering” what movements the user made and then repeating the light changes and physical moves so that the user feels like they created an actual light presentation.

#2: Self-Portrait by rAndom and Incubator

Essentially, this is an subtly interactive art piece that continuously draws a snapshot of the audience looking at it on a blank canvas. Every time it snaps an image, it erased and recolors the canvas to make the images appear. The passive interactivity is something I can appreciate. I imagine seeing this at an actual art show. At a certain point, the audience may feel a bit less interactive in that the procedure of the art dictates a very limited scope of change. I feel like this could be solved by perhaps changing the color of the ink to correlate with how close or far the person in the audience is. This would be a next step that I could see really helping this in an exhibit.

See more about this project here.

#3: Gravilux for iPad

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4KEB6flg2c&w=560&h=315]

So this is a software art app that allows the user to interact with it to create a desired effect. You can change the movements of the on-screen particles based on gravity, or direction, and you can make some very pretty patterns. I particularly like how the app is designed based on the original Gravilux that was released in 1998 in a galleries and museums around the world. The iPad itself is pretty great for several reasons, but the main one that I find increasingly awesome about it, is that the touch interactivity feels very natural. I just purchased an iPad and while I don’t have the programming abilities to make a full fledged app, I feel like if I could somehow involve my iPad, I’d be able to really come up with some creative solutions to my interactivity.