Abstract

Current interactive media art frees itself from a singular meaning of art and univocal communication: it becomes a combination of various characters and materials. Audience with passive attitude has been changed into active participants through new ways of communication and plurivocal messages, and the endless interaction between audience and artwork transforms art into sensuous and vivid living creatures. To understand these new phenomena in interactive art, new aesthetic consideration has been attempted, and sometimes the first step has been found in a Buddhistic, horizontal outlook on the world and also Taoism, especially in the thinking of post-structuralism. However, as a matter of fact, it’s difficult to find concrete examples of discussion based on such oriental values. Therefore, in this paper, I try to discuss interactive art with oriental terms and thought, to offer a better understanding of media art, which has been woven with uncertainty principles and contingency. The purpose of this study is to provide an opportunity for us to understand aesthetic meanings of interactive art – in a new way – through an oriental traditional aesthetic matrix.

• Jaeyoung Kim  & Junghwan Sung Deptartment of Digital Media, Soongsil University, Seoul, South Korea

Full text (PDF)  p.  898-902