[ISEA2019] Paper: Varvara Guljajeva — From interaction to post-participation: the disappearing role of the active participant. Introducing research framework of post-participation

Abstract

Keywords: Interactive art, post-participation, surveillance, interactive systems, hybrid art, practice-based research, post-digital.

This paper analyses and contextualises passive audience interaction through the lens of post-participation. It argues that the concept of post-participation helps to address the shift from an active to a passive spectator in the complex age of dataveillance, an age in which humans are continuously tracked, traced, monitored and surveilled without their consent.
By exploring interactive art history and the discourse of identity within the field, this article investigates how artworks that demonstrate no audience involvement, but still incorporate an internal system interaction with a data source, are addressed. In other words, the research tracks down the interest shift from human-machine to system-to-system interaction, and explores the reasons behind this.
Paper introduces direct and indirect post-participation, which are research tools developed for the practice-based investigation. Two case studies illustrate how the research framework of post-participation can be applied for analysing a complex relationship between an interactive system, a participative input and audience.

  • Varvara Guljajeva, Estonian Academy of Arts, Tallinn, Estonia

Full text (PDF) p. 92-98