[Previous entry: "Why photography makes good gameplay"] [Close Window] [Next entry: "The Rhetoric of Game Structure"]

05/02/2005 Archived Entry: "Interactive Art is Irritating"

Interactive art is irritating. So begins this New York Times review of the Boston Cyberarts Festival-- and it sounds dead-on. I'm starting to liken attending a digital art exhibition to reading the initially brilliant Adbusters magazine-- after your first 3 issues, it would seem you've seen it all. To a certain extent, I know how it happens: a truly innovative work baffles the newb audience; yet another (and another and another) shiny rehash bores to tears the old crowd. Yes, the tech is finicky; but the audience is also impatient and unimaginative in engaging the works. Perhaps, as Alan Kaprow found, audiences are still just "culturally unprepared" to interact responsibly with art. And perhaps art is just culturally unprepared to interact with an audience.