Jooyoung Oh, Byungjoo Lee: Artificial Viewer for Appreciation of Interactive Art Surrogates

Title:

Artificial Viewer for Appreciation of Interactive Art Surrogates

Artist(s) and People Involved:

Medium:

Arduino nano, code, interactive video installation, Stereopticon (TELEX)

Artist Statement:

Interactive art is often viewed based on surrogates such as video and text. However, unlike static pieces such as painting, it is difficult to define and record the meaning and product of interactive art as a single spatiotemporal state. In this work, we created a virtual viewer that appreciate the surrogate of interactive art. The viewer, which is implemented using ACT-R architecture, simulates the basic sensory-cognitive processes of humans to watch and interprets the given surrogate in its own way.
This viewer model defines three basic cognitive states and processes the algorithm as listed below :
1) Initial appreciation (Camouflage), 2) Artist Solution (Getting the meaning) and
3) Insight (Matching meaning with its own experience).
At the same time, the response of the actual audience is analyzed and marked on each surrogate through an electroencephalogram (EEG) device and Pupil Eye Tracker. Once the actual viewer data is gained, the real viewer’s appreciation is projected onto the screen followed by the result of the virtual viewer. Thus, the difference between the actual viewer and the virtual viewer on surrogated images can be seen in detail. The virtual viewer was represented by 23 data sets (23 artworks in <ACC Creators_In_Lab> Exhibition, Gwangju, 2018).
The result of the viewer model has shown that audience appreciation is predictable based on its surrogates, indicating that there is not much difference between the appreciation results of the actual viewer. Especially, when the abstract or personal meaning is included, the understanding degree of agent decreased rapidly, and the speed of appreciation became short. On the other hand, work with more narrative (documentary), resulted in longer appreciation time regardless of the content. Through the installation, the viewer model criticizes how passive and predictable the appreciation of interactive art today is.