The Experiential Turn: Ways of Exploring the Past Through Enhanced Senses in Digital Performance Arts

Digital technology research and artistic practice influence each other regarding user sensory experience. On the one hand, research on new technology brings a different dimension to performing and cinematic arts offering the user the possibility of exploring the past through enhanced senses. On the other, in the field of human‐computer interaction, there is an increased interest in the aestheticization of experience, a special attention being given to performance and theatricality, considered to be the basis for new paradigms in design and operating systems. I refer to the cross‐disciplinary encounters as being “experiential turns”, a series of innovations that could be the basis of new paradigms of design and operating systems, with applicability in both technology and creative industry. The paper will explore some art works that are representative for the experiential dimension of technologically mediated performance art

Design for the Right to the Smart City in More-than-Human Worlds

Environmental concerns have driven an interest in sustainable smart cities, through the monitoring and optimisation of networked infrastructure processes. At the same time, there are concerns about who these interventions and services are for, and who benefits. HCI researchers and designers interested in civic life have started to call for the democratisation of urban space through resistance and political action to challenge state and corporate claims. This paper aims to add to the growing body of critical and civic led smart city literature in HCI by leveraging concepts from the environmental humanities about more than human worlds, as a way to shift understandings within HCI of smart cities away from the exceptional and human centered, towards a more inclusive understanding that incorporates and designs for other others and other species. We illustrate through a case study that involved codesigning Internet of Things with urban agricultural communities, possibilities for creating more environmentally and socially just smart cities

Connected seeds and sensors: co-designing internet of things for sustainable smart cities with urban food-growing communities.

We present a case study of a participatory design project in the space of sustainable smart cities and Internet of Things. We describe our design process that led to the development of an interactive seed library that tells the stories of culturally diverse urban food growers, and networked environmental sensors from their gardens, as a way to support more sustainable food practices in the city. This paper contributes to an emerging body of empirical work within participatory design that seeks to involve citizens in the design of smart cities and Internet of Things, particularly in the context of marginalised and culturally diverse urban communities. It also contributes empirical work towards non-utilitarian approaches to sustainable smart cities through a discussion of designing for urban diversity and slowness

The Right to the Sustainable Smart City

Environmental concerns have driven an interest in sustainable smart cities, through the monitoring and optimisation of networked infrastructures. At the same time, there are concerns about who these interventions and services are for, and who benefits. HCI researchers and designers interested in civic life have started to call for the democratisation of urban space through resistance and political action to challenge state and corporate claims. This paper contributes to an emerging body of work that seeks to involve citizens in the design of sustainable smart cities, particularly in the context of marginalised and culturally diverse urban communities. We present a study involving co- designing Internet of Things with urban agricultural communities and discuss three ways in which design can participate in the right to the sustainable smart city through designing for the commons, care, and biocultural diversity

A Study on the Expansion of the Audiences’ Aesthetic Experience by Applying the Punctum in Interactive Installations

This study suggests ways to expand aesthetic experience through Roland Barthes’ concept the punctum found while creating the interactive artwork deBallution based on the audiences’ throwing activities. Roland Barthes defined the punctum in his book Camera Lucida as applying not a studium or thematic element but the elements of personal experience and memory to an aesthetic element in the photograph. This study develops a methodology for applying the punctum to interactive artwork based on the five symbolic elements of the punctum mentioned by Roland Barthes: String, Speck, Cut, Little hole, and Cast of the dice. It also confirms whether audiences actually experienced the five elements of the punctum and the studium through user testing conducted after making a new test version of the interactive artwork deBallution: Randomized Trip

An Approach to Teaching Digital Interactive Performance

By its complexity, performance art remains one of the most expressive art forms, although difficult to define, as some would argue. The use of media  technologies in performance brought a significant enrichment to the artistic expression ever since the first experiments with video art, and broke the  barriers between visual arts, cinema, and performing arts. New media and the revolution in communication brought by the Internet increased the  complexity of the artistic productions that incorporate digital interactive technologies, making it very difficult to assess the artistic artefacts that tend to fall  between art and science. The paper is presenting an approach to teaching digital interactive performance theory and practice, by providing a framework  necessary for the development of definitions and taxonomies as well as an understanding of the interdisciplinary aspect of the practice of this emerging  artistic genre. The analysis of the narrative discourse that pertains to certain forms of digital performance and the discussion about the esthetic,  philosophical or technological aspects is significantly improved by the identification of the main critical paradigms that subscribe them. The paradigms  discussed – subscribed to performance studies, digital culture, performing arts and human computer interaction – were developed considering the  Romanian context of academic performing arts studies, that focuses almost exclusively on theatre and lacks a tradition in performance studies. The  synthesis research about the digital interactive performance opens the discussion about cultivating an educational context appropriate for training artists  capable to develop artistic productions relevant in the context of the new arts. The current pedagogical approach needs to be replaced by a heutagogical  one, where practical and collaborative projects can be tackled in an innovative, inter-disciplinary framework. Such an approach is not formally possible in the  current academic settings, but can be hosted by the university in interdisciplinary research centers and other artistic production contexts

Zome : An interactive art piece

As our communities expand rapidly, both physically and digitally, we can lose our sense of connection and togetherness. Interactive and participatory art interventions cultivate community by provoking engagement in unexpected areas. In this project, the prototype for an interactive zonohedral dome (or “zome”) was constructed as a proof of concept for an art intervention to engage students in collaborative STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) learning, by creating feelings of connection with the technology and with each other. Consequently, it demonstrates the values of the STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math) movement in education. Design elements (and an assessment approach) were selected based on a comprehensive literature review, which focused on the aspects of engagement that would boost participants’ interest in and proficiency with STEM subjects. A zome is a structure that supports itself solely due to its geometry. No nails or glue are used in the construction. The interactive nature of the structure emerges from sensors that detect occupancy, with music and lights automatically responding to the pattern of people entering and leaving the zome. Many technologies were combined to create this experience, such as SketchUp (to design the components), Makerbot Replicator II (to build the structure), Arduino (to detect occupancy via phototransistors), LightShowPi (to generate Fast Fourier transforms of music files and control the frequency and amplitude of audio communicated via LEDs), and RaspberryPi (a microcomputer to run LightShowPi and translate the signals from the Arduino to play audio at pre-designated decibel levels)

Understanding performative behaviour within content-rich Digital Live Art

Research into human–computer interaction (HCI) has traditionally been concerned with users' abilities to complete tasks at desk-bound computers. However, recent research into Digital Live Art (Sheridan Citation2006) and audiences' engagement with interactive art focuses on ‘non task-based uses of computing’ (Sheridan, Bryan-Kinns, and Bayliss 2007, 13), such as the user experience. As computing becomes more mobile, wireless and tangible, there is a shift to understand the needs of ‘users as performers’ (ibid.). As a result, research has begun to draw on the methods and theories in the performing arts to better understand these needs. However, much of this research into interactive art focuses on playful or physical experiences of users, and fails to address work with social content and themes to be communicated. This is a critical analysis of Sheridan's framework for understanding performative behaviour with technologically mediated interactive art (Sheridan Citation2006; Sheridan, Bryan-Kinns, and Bayliss 2007). By applying the framework to works with rich thematic content, our findings indicate that the framework needs refining in order to better understand the ways in which users engage with interactive artworks of this kind

Understanding performative behaviour within content-rich Digital Live Art

Research into human–computer interaction (HCI) has traditionally been concerned with users' abilities to complete tasks at desk-bound computers. However, recent research into Digital Live Art (Sheridan Citation2006) and audiences' engagement with interactive art focuses on ‘non task-based uses of computing’ (Sheridan, Bryan-Kinns, and Bayliss 2007, 13), such as the user experience. As computing becomes more mobile, wireless and tangible, there is a shift to understand the needs of ‘users as performers’ (ibid.). As a result, research has begun to draw on the methods and theories in the performing arts to better understand these needs. However, much of this research into interactive art focuses on playful or physical experiences of users, and fails to address work with social content and themes to be communicated. This is a critical analysis of Sheridan's framework for understanding performative behaviour with technologically mediated interactive art (Sheridan Citation2006; Sheridan, Bryan-Kinns, and Bayliss 2007). By applying the framework to works with rich thematic content, our findings indicate that the framework needs refining in order to better understand the ways in which users engage with interactive artworks of this kind