Originally published in Veredas, Ano 3, No. 32, 1998, Rio deJaneiro, Brazil, pp. 12-15, and Blimp - Film Magazine, N. 40, Graz,Austria, 1999, pp. 49-54.

Beyond the Screen: New Directions in Interactive Art

Eduardo Kac

From the room size computers of the 1940s to the desktop, laptop, palmtop,and wearable computers of the present, human interaction with this powerfuland pervasive calculating machine has changed. When in the 1960s computersstarted to become capable of producing and manipulating images, computergraphics became a prominent research topic among engineers. Likewise, computersstarted to attract the attention of experimental visual artists all overthe world.

Surprisingly, at times the work produced by engineers achieved strongvisual and cultural impact. This is exemplified by the Japanese team calledComputer Technique Group, from Tokyo. In the late sixties they producedclassics such as "Running Cola is Africa," a black-and-whitegraphic morphing sequence showing the transformation of a runner into aCoca-Cola bottle which then morphed into the map of Africa [1].

Working against the background of Pop, conceptualism, and kinetics inthe 1960s, many innovative artists abandoned the tactile appeal of theanalog realm and ventured into the unknown domain of computer graphics.Classic examples include the work of the Americans John Whitney [2] andCharles Csuri [3], the Brazilian Waldemar Cordeiro [4], the Hungarian VeraMolnar [5], and the German Manfred Mohr [6]. Many artists working withcomputers at the time explored algorithms that generated multiple formsof abstract or Constructivist art. Others created figurative images thatwere charged poetically through specific graphic procedures (e.g.,warping,morphing, zooming). Cordeiro's work is particularly distinct in this contextbecause the artist, living under the worst phase of the Brazilian militarydictatorship, produced computer images that were rich in personal, emotional,or subtle political content.

Computer graphics in art continued to flourish in the 1970s and 1980s,as new algorithms were developed and digital images started to acquirecolor, rich shading, and photographic qualities [7]. Computers were graduallybecaming incorporated in interactive art installations, as exemplifiedby historical exhibitions such as "Software," curated by JackBurnham in 1970 for the Jewish Museum in New York [8]. Computer graphicswere prominent in videos and films in the 1980s, and even television commercialsstarted to feature digital animation regularly. The launch of the Macintoshcomputer in 1984 and the graphic software industry that followed it madecomputer imaging accessible to a larger number of artists. Consequently,the creation of still images presented new challenges to a younger generationof artists, who enjoyed unprecedented creative freedom. As the new frontierof computer graphics became a stable industry and an established artisticpractice, experimental artists in the 1990s started to push the digitalimage into new areas of imagination and experience. The works discussedbelow reveal some of the most fascinating works created today in the areasof virtual reality, interactive performance, avatars, telepresence, andartificial life.

Inside the image

Since the late 1980s the term virtual reality has been used and abusedin scholarly journals and popular magazines alike, often taken to meandifferent things for different purposes. When first developed by Ivan Sutherlandin the late 1960s, the technology of virtual reality was intended to enablescientific visualization of three-dimensional data in real time throughthe use of head-mounted stereoscopic electronic displays. Because the technologyhas grown less expensive over the last ten years, it has catapulted fromresearch labs into myriad applications, such as education, military training,medicine, and gaming. True to its origins, the concept refers to a visualspace that can be seen as such by the viewer and in which this viewer cannavigate in three dimensions in real time. If the viewer perceives thespace through a stereoscopic device, he or she has the sensation of beingimmersed in the space. For the viewer to have a seamless experience, thecomputer must be powerful enough to calculate every subtle change in pointof view in real time.

In 1995 the Canadian artist Char Davies, working with designers andprogrammers, created "Osmose" [9], a virtual-reality immersiveartwork that invited viewers to move through synthetic infinite worlds.In this work Davies, who lives in Montreal, presented a unique interfaceto what she calls the ëimmersantí (the person immersed in thevirtual world). In the form of a vest, this interface provided real-timemotion tracking based on breathing and balance. This meant that viewerscould inhale to rise and exhale to descend and could move forward or backwardin the virtual space by leaning forward or backward in the physical world.Viewers navigated a complex world made of natural forms, such as trees,and synthetic elements, such as three-dimensional Cartesian wireframe gridsfilled with diaphanous substances.

"The public installation of Osmose," explained Davies, "includedlarge-scale stereoscopic video and audio projection of imagery and interactivesound transmitted in real-time from the point-of-view of the "immersant".This projection enabled an audience, wearing polarizing glasses, to witnesseach immersive journey as it unfolded. Although immersion took place ina private area, a translucent screen equal in size to the video screenenabled the audience to observe the body gestures of the immersant as apoetic shadow-silhouette."

Her most recent work, entitled "Éphémère"(ephemeral in French), was also created with a team of designers and programmersand premiered in 1998 at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa. Whereasin "Osmose" the immersant could move through a forested gladepopulated by static objects, in "Éphémère"every object is in a state of flux. Organized in three levels, this newwork also makes use of organic and natural metaphors, except that thistime an analogy is suggested between nature and the human body. As in "Osmose,""�Éphémère" uses the breathing and balancevest interface to propel the viewer in space, makes creative use of three-dimensionsound, and can only be fully experienced with a virtual- reality headset.As viewers try to make the most of the allotted 15-minute time slots, theirsense of time might get warped. The digital image becomes a navigationalspace, and they might get lost exploring new worlds.

Graphics As Body Interface

With the intention of presenting a more dystopian view of virtual reality,the Barcelona artist Marcel.li Antunez Roca created an interactive performancethat is at once delirious and frightening. Entitled "Epizoo"[11], it was first presented in Mexico in 1994 and since then has beenseen in more than 55 cities. The work was seen in Rio de Janeiro in thecontext of the theater festival Rio Cena Contempor�nea, last October. Isaw the piece in a small theater in Helsinki in 1996, sitting on the stagein a circle of approximately 50 people. As the audience waited for theartist's entrance, I started to notice the apparatus up front: an exoskeletonof sorts, a small camera attached to a glove, speakers, and a large projectionscreen raised above the performer's small designated area of action. Ialso noticed some computer equipment, on one side of the room.

Marcel.li solemnly entered the stage wearing a robe. He positioned himselfup front, at the center of the designated area, and disrobed. With thehelp of an assistant he donned the pneumatic exoskeleton, creating on-stagethe image of a cyborg, mixture of man and machine. This apparatus pressedmetal components against several parts of the artist's body, such as hischest, ears, mouth, nose, and buttocks. At the top of his head, a largeBunsen burner suggested that a flame was also going to be part of the show.The large amount of plastic tubing (necessary for the functioning of thepneumatic exoskeleton) that surrounded the artist suggested that his movementswould be hindered.

As soon as the music started, one of Marcel.li's assistants sat at thecomputer and started to click on images, which danced about on the largescreen above the artist's head. When the assistant clicked on the images,we noticed that the hinged metal parts of the exoskeleton also startedto move, and the clicking sounds were very noticeable. The metal componentsmoved the artist's selected body parts in funny, if not scary, ways. Asthe person at the computer activated the artist's body, moving its partsin a peculiar choreography, it also became clear that the limited mobilityof the artist was also significant in evoking the dangers of technologiesof control. His body was besieged.

The digital images seen on the screen, a mixture of stills and animationsoften including the artist's own likeness, functioned perfectly as an interfaceto his body. At once humorous in their treatment and terrifying in theircontent, they portrayed scenes of torture and violence, transforming bodyparts in combinatory and disposable elements. The artist stood under thescreen, and turned around regularly to reveal all possible viewing angles.With his glovecam, he added a few additional points of view by raisingand swinging his hand. Real-time editing enabled the audience to see acombination of the digital interface and the live video.

As the artist's body was manipulated through the interface, the audiencesaw his mouth and nose being stretched open, his ears flopped forward andbackward, his chest and buttocks being raised up and down. Midway throughthe performance, the audience was invited to seize control of the multimediainterface and assume control of Marcel.li's body. Many did, and the spectacleof cold and detached manipulation of hot and sweaty human flesh througha clean and dry digital interface continued. The whole performance lastedfor about 30 minutes. It culminated with a large flame shooting up fromthe artist's head and helped to form a conclusive critical view of theman-machine interface.

Avatars and Databases

While the body in question in "Epizoo" is made up of on fleshand bones, the virtual bodies in "Bodies© INCorporated"[12] are built of pixels, wireframes, and textures. "Bodies©INCorporated" is a web-based work-in-progress by the California artistVictoria Vesna, under development in collaboration with artists, musicians,companies, and programmers. The basic premise of the site, which firstwent online in 1996, is that webviewers become active in a mock corporatestructure, and as they acquire shares, they can order digital bodies oftheir choice. The project employs VRML (Virtual Reality Markup Language)to create a three-dimensional representation of the new body in a database,which can be seen by other participants. VRML transforms the web from atwo-dimensional space similar to print into a three-dimensional navigableenvironment. While avatars can exist in a two-dimensional space, as evidencedby the popular Palace, three-dimensionality quite literally opens up newworlds for the avatar experience. While many participants emailed Vesnaand asked her to create an area with live avatar-based chat rooms, to enablethese bodies to be displayed in an active social environment, the authorexplained that this is not her intention. She is exploring what she refersto as "database aesthetics", enabling Web users to create, accessand modify a complex database that critiques the conversion of the Internetfrom a social space to a marketplace.

Many denizens of chat rooms and other social areas of the Net oftenassume multiple identities in their exchanges with other anonymous participants,concealing or forging distinct traits such as gender, age, and race. Exploringthe nuances of interaction on the Net, Victoria sees "Bodies©INCorporated" as an investigation into social psychology and groupdynamics in a corporate context. After announcing the creation of the siteand the availability of digital bodies to be created on demand, Victoriawas overwhelmed with responses. Orders came in for males, females, andhermaphrodites, with sexual preferences ranging from heterosexual to transsexual,from homosexual to bi- and asexual. Most requests were for bodies thatrepresented alter egos, followed by desired sexual partners and, in smallernumbers, significant others. To shift the focus from an exclusively sexualcontext, textures were added to the bodies to add symbolic value to theotherwise smooth surface of their digital skin. While the majority of requestswere for bodies without any texture, many selected from a menu of texturemaps that included black rubber, blue plastic, bronze, chocolate, clay,clouds, concrete, glass, lava, pumice, and water.

"Initially, the participant is invited to construct a virtual bodyout of pre-defined body-parts, textures, and sounds, and gain membershipto the larger body-owner community," Victoria explains. "Themain elements of the on-line site are three constructed environments (subsidiariesof Bodies© INCorporated), within which different sets of activitiesoccur: LIMBO©INCorporated, a gray, rather nondescript zone, whereinformation about inert bodies that have been put on hold -- bodies whoseowners have abandoned or neglected them -- is accessed; NECROPOLIS©INCorporated, a richly textured, baroque atmosphere, where owners can eitherlook at or choose how they wish their bodies to die; and SHOWPLACE!!!©INCorporated, where members can participate in discussion forums, viewstar/featured bodies of the week, bet in the deadpools, and enter "dead"or "alive" chat sessions."

The creation of digital bodies that can be used to represent an individualmay sound to some readers like the exclusive domain of science fiction,but in fact it is a real, growing business. Good examples are companieslike Viewpoint Data Labs, which sells three-dimension body models and whichsponsors Victoria's project, and Cyberware, which pioneered the marketfor three-dimensional detailed scans of people and objects. Cyberware'stechnology, including a whole-body scanner, was used to make popular filmslike Star Trek IV, The Abyss, Robocop II, Nightmare on Elm Street, TerminatorII, The Doors, Neuromancer, Batman II, and Jurassic Park. With the realizationof Toy Story in 1995, the first completely computer-animated feature filmin the history of motion pictures, it becomes conceivable that a youngactor or actress whose body is scanned today could star in a movie longafter his or her death. Victoria Vesna knows that a culture obsessed withfitness and shapely bodies finds an acute reflection of itself in the detachedand calculated digital incorporations her site provides. Viewers becomeemotionally attached to their avatars and projected idealized "significantothers", giving rise to new questions of identity, information storageand retrieval about physical and virtual bodies, and social interactionin cyberspace.

Servers In The Shade

Avatars form dynamic representations of discrete entities in the network.However, it is also possible to use the Internet and other telematic networksto create a direct link with a real physical space. The California artistand scientist Ken Goldberg is one of the few who have been consistentlyexploring the unique aesthetic possibilities of telepresence art (the combinationof telecommunications and remote action). Some of his previous web-basedtelepresence works include the "Mercury Project" (1994) and the"TeleGarden" (1995). The first presented viewers with objectsburied in the sand. These objects were introduced as archaeologically significantwithin a fictitious narrative context. The viewer could control an industrialrobotic arm to activate an air jet and reveal the buried artifacts. Theviewer could also retrieve updated stills to see the results of his action.The second was a small garden with an industrial robotic arm at the center.The arm was controlled via the web and allowed remote participants to plantseeds and water plants. Viewers could also see live pictures of the garden.

In both cases, the digital image was an important component of the workand performed a specific function: it created a visual bridge between viewerson the web and the actual physical space where the apparatuses were located.With a recent piece currently online, in addition to preserving the bridge-likestatus of the digital image, Goldberg gave it new role. In the "ShadowServer"(1997), rather than observe an image that represents an action, the webparticipant is given the opportunity to create the image him or herself[13]. In other words, the gap between action and image is decreased, becausethe action is itself the remote creation of the picture.

Goldberg describes his work: "The apparatus is housed in a lightproofbox that contains physical objects, some of which move of their own accordwithin the apparatus. Viewers can interact with these objects via buttons.Viewers can select any combination of five buttons and then [click on thebutton] ëCast a Shadowí, which activates a combination of lightingdevices and returns a digital snapshot of the resulting shadow. Each combinationsof buttons produce different lighting conditions. Certain random combinationswill provide clues which lead to a mysterious Sixth button. The Sixth buttonilluminates hidden secrets in an alcove of the apparatus."

The images created by the viewer through the ShadowServer interfaceare invariably evocative of Moholy-Nagy's beautiful and mysterious photograms,and even more so of Nathan Lerner's Light Box photograms. A member of theBauhaus, the historic German art school that profoundly influenced artand design in the twentieth century, Moholy-Nagy coined the term photogramto designate his cameraless photographs produced directly through the contactof objects with photographic paper. Between his first experiments withthe photogram in 1922 and his premature death in 1946, the Constructivistmaster produced approximately 500 photograms that effectively demonstratedhis belief that light was an art medium in its own right. Seeking refugefrom the rise of Fascism in Europe in the 1930s, Moholy-Nagy immigratedto the United States to found the New Bauhaus in Chicago. Among his studentswas the now deceased well-known American photographer Nathan Lerner, whoin 1938 invented the Light Box [14]. This was a perforated box with lightspositioned outside and inside which objects were suspended to create exquisitephotograms. Lerner wrote at the time: "I felt that if I could createa virtual world of darkness, which I could then develop into a disciplinedworld of light, I would be approaching the solution of the problem of controlledselection [of light]." As the light-box experiment acquires a remoteand automatic nature in Goldberg's web work, we perceive a distinct historicalresonance between the light modulation adventure of the avant-garde photographersand the democratizing gesture of network art. Moholy-Nagy 's pedagogy wasbased on trying to bring out what he believed to be the creativity inherentin everyone. As anonymous viewers create countless digital photograms onthe web, the ShadowServer is an instance in which this vision comes fullcircle.

Living Pictures

The desire to work between real and digital realms is not exclusiveto telepresence art. In their interactive installation entitled "A-Volve,"the Austrian Christa Sommerer and the French Laurent Mignonneau createda unique metaphor of artificial life by merging tangible and intangibleelements [15]. The work premiered at the international electronic artsfestival Ars Electronica, in Linz, Austria, in 1994. In "A-Volve"the European duo, currently residing in Japan, allowed digital images generatedin real time by anonymous viewers to acquire life-like behaviors and tointeract among themselves in a 15-cm-deep water-filled glass pool measuring180 x 135 cm. Viewers accustomed to traditional computer animation discoveredthat these animated organisms were unpredictable in their motions and acquiredidiosyncratic behavioral patterns in this real-time interactive environment.

As viewers approached the installation, in addition to the water poolthey saw a pedestal with an embedded touch-screen monitor. Asked to drawfreely on this monitor with their fingers, viewers improvised and sketchedboth the profile and the top view of an artificial organism. Moments laterthey saw this creature emerge from the depths of the water pool and startto swim with its own unique behavior and motion pattern. The creature alsointeracted with other artificial organisms already in the pool in complexways, following survival rules that included mating and predatory patterns.Viewers could look into the pool and observe the creatures "in thewater" because a projection screen formed the floor of the water pool,and the real-time images were projected upward from a video projector embeddedin the base of the water pool. The sensation was further enhanced by thefact that the digital environment in which these creatures dwelled wascreated with single-point perspective and a dark, fuzzy bottom, which gavethe visual impression of a much deeper lagoon.

The title of the piece clearly evokes the idea of artificial evolution,because instead of the expected letter E in evolve we find the A that alsoprefixes the emerging scientific discipline of ALife, or artifical life.One of the key ideas of this new scientific field is that what we knowabout life is, of course, based on life on Earth and that life could conceivablytake on countless other forms ó many of which we may not be readyto recognize because of our biased terrestrial expectations. What we knowis carbon-based life, and even so we are constantly surprised by new discoveriesthat seem to shatter the comfortable assumptions that so far have servedas pillars of the biological sciences. A good example is the recent discoveryof thriving colonies of microorganisms living in inhospitable environments,such as inside rocks and the bottom of the sea, where temperatures andtoxicity are incredibly high. To explore alternatives to the concept oflife as we know it, scientists create algorithms that emulate basic lifepatterns, such as birth, growth, reproduction, and death, and allow themto interact with one another. This often results in unpredictable emergingbehaviors that even more closely resemble complex interactions typicalof living carbon-based creatures. Surprises may occur, and thus furtherthe inquiry into an artificial biology.

"A-Volve" brings this concept out of the removed domain ofscientific laboratories and gives it a somewhat tangible expression. Thepiece allows viewers to become participants when they assume responsibilityfor the creation of these organisms and when they interact with them bymoving their hands in the water. If viewers "grab" one of thecreatures, they can bring it closer to another one and make them mate.This results in an offspring that soon afterward can be seen wiggling inthe water. This situation allowed viewers to interfere even more with theevolutionary path of this digital microcosm and to discover how tenuousthe boundaries between real and artificial can be.

Immateriality

The works examined above reveal new directions for interactive art.Undermining the role of the individual image and giving greater emphasisto the dynamic quality of the experience, these pieces challenge the notionthat the artwork must be centered on the "author" and that itmust be materially stable, as is common in painting and sculpture. Essentiallyimmaterial, with varying degrees of emotional, intellectual, and technicalcomplexity, these electronic art works are seen regularly, but not as oftenin the same spaces and by the same audiences that form the art market.These and other artists who are developing a new art based on contemporarymedia are also finding alternative venues to present their work. In somecircumstances, like in the case of Victoria Vesna and Ken Goldberg, theInternet is the "natural" digital space to show the work, whichcan simultaneously reach multiple audiences worldwide. Char Davies andSommerer & Mignoneu often show their work in museums and Marcel.liAntunez Roca has shown his performance in more than 50 cities in 17 countries.Electronic art is seen regularly in many different venues, in several countries,and in multiple forms. The Guggenheim Museum, in New York, announced in1998 that it would spend 1 million dollars commissioning and buying digitalart [16]. Institutions such as ZKM, in Kahlsrue, Germany, the Ars EletronicaCenter, in Linz, Austria, and the InterCommunications Center, in Tokyo,are primarily dedicated to produce, promote, and preserve media art. Otherinstitutions also invest regularly in electronic art exhibitions, conferences,and documentation, such as the Itaú Cultural Center, in SãoPaulo, Brazil. This growing international interest is a clear indicationthat electronic art has a lot to tell us about the contemporary experience,about new possibilities for art in a digital society, and about ourselves.

References

1 - Reichardt, Jasia. Cybernetic Serendipity: The Computer and the arts( New York: Praeger, 1968), pp. 75-77.

2 - Whitney, John, Digital Harmony: On the Complementarity of Musicand Visual Art. Peterborough, NH: McGraw-Hill, 1980.

3- Csuri, Charles. "Computer Graphics and Art," in Tutorial:Computer Graphics, Beatty, J. and Booth, K. (eds), (Silver Spring, MD:IEEE, 1982), pp.558-570. Originally published in 1974 in Proceedings ofthe IEEE.

4 - Cordeiro, Waldemar. Arteônica (São Paulo: Editora dasAméricas, 1972); Fabris, Annateresa. "Waldemar Cordeiro: ComputerArt Pioneer", Leonardo Volume 30, No. 1 (1997), pp. 27-31.

5 - Molnar, Vera. "Towards Aesthetic Guidelines for Painting Withthe Aid of a Computer", in Leonardo, Vol. 8, N. 3 (1975), p. 185;"My Mother's Letters : Simulation by Computer', Leonardo, Vol. 28,N. 3 (1995), pp 167-170.

6 - Leavitt, Ruth, Artist and Computer (New York: Harmony, 1976), pp.92-96.

7 - See Franke, Herbert. Computer Graphics, Computer Art (London: Phaidon,1971) and Annabel Jankel and Rocky Morton, Creative Computer Graphics (Cambridge:Cambridge Univ. Press, 1984).

8 - Burnham, Judith B. (Coordinator), SOFTWARE - Information Technology:Its New Meaning for Art (New York: Jewish Museum, 1970). See Also"Edward A. Shanken, "The House That Jack Built: Jack Burnham's Conceptof "Software" as a Metaphor for Art", in Roy Ascott, ed.,Reframing Consciousness: Art and Consciousness in the Post-Biological Era-- Proceedings of the Second International CAiiA Research Conference (Exeter:Intellect, 1999). Forthcoming.

9 - See: Davies, Char. "Osmose: Notes on Being in Immersive VirtualSpace". Sixth International Symposium on Electronic Arts ConferenceProceedings, Montreal: ISEA�95, 1995, pp. 51-56; Lunenfeld, Peter . "CharDavies." Art + Text, no. 53 (1996), pp. 82-83; Goldberg, Ken. "VirtualReality in the Age of Telepresence", Convergence, 4 (1), 1998, 33-37.

10 - See Gagnon, Jean . "Dionysus and Reverie: Immersion in CharDavies' Environments." Char Davies: Éphémère,exhibition catalog, (Ottawa: National Gallery of Canada, 1998), n/pp; Mirapaul,Mathew. "An Intense Dose of Virtual Reality." The New York TimesOnline (7/9/1998); Davies, Char. "Éphémère,:Landscape. Earth, Body and Time in Immersive Virtual Space", in RoyAscott, ed., Reframing Consciousness: Art and Consciousness in the Post-BiologicalEra -- Proceedings of the Second International CAiiA Research Conference(Exeter: Intellect, 1999). Forthcoming.

11 - Roca, Marcel.li Antúnez. "Epizoo", in Leonardo,Vol. 29, No. 1, 1996, p. 11; Macrì, Teresa., Il Corpo Postorganico;Sconfinamento della Performance (Genova: Costa & Nolan, 1996), pp.32-52; Giannetti, Claudia (ed.). Marcel.li Antúnez Roca: Performances,objetos y dibujos (Barcelona: MECAD, 1998).

12 - Vesna, Victoria. "Bodies© INCorporated", in Ippolito,Jean et alli (eds.), Siggraph '96 Visual Proceedings (New York: ACM, 1996),p. 16; Vesna, V. "Under Reconstruction: Architectures of Bodies INCorporated",in Novakov, Anna (ed.), Veiled Histories: The Body, Place and Public Art(New York: Critical Press, 1998), pp. 87-117. See also: http://arts.ucsb.edu/bodiesinc/

13 - Bureaud, Annick. "Review of Shadowserver", Leonardo ElectronicAlmanac, Volume 5, No. 11, November 1997; October 30, 1997; Mirapaul, Matthew."Made in the Shade", New York Times Online (October 30, 1997).See also: http://taylor.ieor.berkeley.edu/shadowserver/index.html

14 - Moholy-Nagy,Laszlo. Vision in Motion (Chicago: Paul Theobald, 1947),p. 200.

15 - Sommerer Christa and Mignonneau, Laurent. "Art as a LivingSystem", in Sommerer C. and Mignonneau, L. (Eds.) Art @ Science (Vienna/NewYork:Springer, 1998), pp. 148-161.

16 - Mirapaul, Matthew. "Guggenheim to Add Digital Art to Its Collection",New York Times Online (June 25, 1998).

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