LOOSEN UP THE LOOP
Perry Hoberman on Interactivity

Cecilia Anderssson is a writer and a photographer based in New York. In her written works she focuses on the relationship between new technology and contemporary art and culture.

This interview was published in Art Orbit #4 www.artnode.se/artorbit

"It dealt with what artists can do with the Internet. The general conclusion was that you can't do so much with it on its own but as soon as you link it to a physical site it becomes an interesting and dynamic element."

Perry Hoberman (PH): I was referring to a line in Kevin Kelly's book 'Out of Control': it was something like 'what I am interested in is what happens when you connect everything to everything'. The Internet is seen as an unprecedented situation where all information is digitized so that there are virtual equivalents, virtual replacements for everything in the world. The idea is that, eventually, everything gets connected. And the corollary is that if you aren't connected, then you don't exist in any meaningful way. Once everything is connected, all significant life takes place on the Internet; work, leisure, everything. But what this way of thinking really means is that all the things that can't be connected, for whatever reason, are simply left out, ignored, forgotten. I don't believe that cyberspace, whatever its merits, will ever become a replacement for the whole world.

CA: So is the Internet a good place for art?

PH: Victoria Vesna and I organized a panel that we presented at Siggraph in 1996, and then at ISEA that same year, called 'Webbed Spaces'. It dealt with what artists can do with the Internet. The general conclusion was that you can't do so much with it on its own but as soon as you link it to a physical site it becomes an interesting and dynamic element.

CA: Was the piece 'Faraday's Garden' your first interactive one?

PH: No, I had done several other works before. I suppose it is interesting how I got to that particular kind of interactivity. There are a number of different definitions of interactivity, and I guess I have some sort of personal value system for how I evaluate it. But for years I did things that were in a sense participatory. There were no feedback system there was no computer, just sensors - but to experience the piece you had to be inside it. I would project images all around the viewer, or make work which depended on the viewer's shadow. I did a lot of work from about 1982 to about 1988 that used stereoscopic projections, so the audience would have to wear 3D glasses. The first 'truly' interactive piece I did it was about 1987. It's odd because at the time it didn't really occur to me that I was making any kind of significant change in my practice.

CA: Was that an issue that they should be interactive?

"I am happy to argue with anyone who says a painting is interactive because each person thinks different things when they look at it. I think the word becomes meaningless if you use it too broadly."

PH: No, in fact I never thought I was particularly interested in interactivity per se. Rather, the more I worked with it, the more I got interested in the issues. I recently did an exhibition at Postmasters Gallery (spring 1997, n. of e.)in New York, and by now it's less of a problem trying to get people to interact than it is making sure that they don't destroy the non-interactive works. Once people get the idea that they can touch things, they can't stop themselves - they just want to touch everything.

CA: So what is your definition of interactivity?

PH: The standard definition of interactivity is something with feedback, where you trigger something and get a direct response. I am pretty much willing to accept that as a definition. However, I'm not too strict; some people can't even imagine interactivity without a computer.

CA: You got the question the other day if a book isn't interactive?

PH: I don't think so, because the book is not responding. You turn the pages but nothing on the page itself changes, that's all predetermined. Of course, you're in some sense 'participating' in the book, by turning the pages for instance, and you have a certain control over the book, that is, you can go forward and backward. Books are obviously great things but I don't think that they are interactive. I am happy to argue with anyone who says a painting is interactive because each person thinks different things when they look at it. I think the word becomes meaningless if you use it too broadly.

CA: Interface design, that is obviously a concern of yours?

PH: We expect different objects to do different things and we are willing to try out different things with different objects. For instance, we expect that if the door has a graspable handle on it, then it's for pulling the door open. There's a general sense of the interface as 'an object should tell you what you should do with it'. But if we're talking about a sophisticated computer interface, there are many things that we've already learned about how we expect computers to behave, including how to use the mouse, the keyboard, the screen, where to click, and so forth. We have assimilated a huge amount of information in order to use a computer. We are making a great many assumptions - but still, it's not a general system. It is a very specific system that does specific things and it's nearly impossible to get it do other things.

"In virtual reality, for instance, there is a claim that the interface becomes 'invisible', but in fact, all that is happening is that we are willing to look elsewhere, to let ourselves be convinced that the interface has disappeared. To some extent, it is a choice what we decide to regard as visible or invisible."

Even if we are moving towards more complicated and advanced interfaces that involve the whole body or use other kinds of viewing apparatus, none of these devices are completely intuitive or transparent. In virtual reality, for instance, there is a claim that the interface becomes 'invisible', but in fact, all that is happening is that we are willing to look elsewhere, to let ourselves be convinced that the interface has disappeared. To some extent, it is a choice what we decide to regard as visible or invisible. Part of my project as an artist is to make sure that these things don't become invisible because I think there are there is generally a strong move in this direction, on the grounds that it is more 'natural'. I am not against good interface design, but I have a hard time with work that accepts a completely predetermined set of rules about how you it can be operated, and says, in effect, well, this is what it's all about. Subject matter (or 'content') might keep me interested perhaps, but it would have to be really good, or else I'd rather just read a book.

CA: Is this a political or a philosophical engagement?

PH: It has bits of both. I'm not much of an activist, I'm not much involved in particular political agendas. But I tend to think about all of these issues as political in some way; after all, they are determining what our lives are made of.

CA: Therefore you encourage people to misbehave in your pieces? I am thinking of 'Cathartic Interface' where the audience participates by throwing balls on keyboards mounted on a wall.

"While there might be exceptions - a few artists do work that might be considered serious scientific research - there is a lot of work in this realm that just takes scientific ideas and uses them in one form or another as a topic. I don't think artwork needs to justify itself by informing or demonstrating some particular technology or scientific logic."

PH: I'm interested in challenging myself, to find ways of making interactive works that are a little bit more robust in the face of all kinds of behavior. I don't just think about this as finding a better construction method, but as a way of challenging the assumption that users are going to do exactly what you tell them to do; very often they don't.

CA: Is the realm of science a concern of yours?

PH: Yes, I'm certainly interested in it, I read a lot and I am always looking around for ideas. But I'm not really 'scientific'; I don't really have a game plan, I don't have some idea of some problem I want to solve. There is something very problematic for me about an art that stakes out very linear trajectories of how to proceed. It seems to want to become a kind of scientific research, but it's not really scientific, so the artist gives up a certain freedom, a certain independence, in exchange for what? Perhaps a sort of pseudo respectability. While there might be exceptions - a few artists do work that might be considered serious scientific research - there is a lot of work in this realm that just takes scientific ideas and uses them in one form or another as a topic. I don't think artwork needs to justify itself by informing or demonstrating some particular technology or scientific logic.

CA: There are no specific issues?

PH: One big issue has certainly been the question of technology itself and our relationship to it. But I have to admit that from my perspective, it has not really been the driving force in my work. It's just the aspect that people have picked up on a lot in the last few years, because there's been a sort of 'Tech Art' phenomenon, with all these festivals and symposiums and exhibitions.

CA: The office space at your recent show at Postmasters (spring 1997, n. of e.), what was that about? To me, it became a way of making fun of a supposed 'intelligent environment'.

"I became interested in looking at contemporary office spaces as the real-world reflection of cyberspace. The dominant model of the workplace - a big room with partitions and cubicles - seemed to me to be a lot like the virtual reality spaces that were being built."

PH: The ideas came from a number of sources. Most directly, the show came out of being in California for a couple of years working as the art director for Telepresence Research, a small company that specializes in virtual reality. It was my first office job in a long time. I was living and working in Silicon Valley, in the belly of the beast. I guess it is a very symbolic place, it represents both the aspirations of independent entrepreneursas well as those of giant monopolistic companies. I became interested in looking at contemporary office spaces as the real-world reflection of cyberspace. The dominant model of the workplace - a big room with partitions and cubicles - seemed to me to be a lot like the virtual reality spaces that were being built. Both of them are modular, both are made out of simple geometrical forms, and so on. After I did this show, each time I've had the occasion to enter an office, it feels exactly like my installation. I guess I shouldn't be surprised or shocked; the partitions are all the same beige color, covered with the same kind of sound-deadening material, all the height so that you see the tops of people's heads.

CA: You also have different social levels of interaction represented, you have the coffee maker and what might be interpreted as a sexual harassment piece.

PH: I was interested in the whole area of office politics. One thing that had a big influence was a TV news report that I saw while I was working on the show. It was a feature about a bunch of towns in New Hampshire that had closed down the local post offices. They had realized that all the mail operations that previously had been done at the local post offices could be done at a single large facility, remotely hooked up to the local post offices. So the local post offices became 'front ends' for the public, with all the real work going on elsewhere. It didn't matter anymore where the central building was; it was out in the middle of nowhere. There were no windows. Workers would commute there and then spend the entire day at computer keyboards looking at video screens sorting mail. The mail itself was somewhere else entirely. Machines at these remote sites would spew out a letter or package, and the workers would have to decide what kind of stamp it needed, which barcode to put on it. The only thing the workers were really doing was recognizing handwriting - the machines could do just about everything else. A TV show about windowless facilities full of workers staring at computer screens all day, all night. This was clearly the other side of cyberspace.