Abstract

The ‘i =’ series of installations and performances were intended to explore the notion of ‘interactivity’ and what constitutes ‘art’ in the current technological age. Central to the work is a focus on human/human and human/computer communication by a subversion of surveillance and control.

This presentation by Tessa Elliott and Jonathan Jones-Morris raises pertinent questions about interactive art. Is it merely created to placate the desires of the consumer age “I choose therefore I am”? What happens when you remove choice and deny selection? How can an environment be improvisational? Why redefine space and make it resound with visual and acoustic traces of physical presence? Some answers are offered by extracts from the “i=” series of interactive installations and performances (Camerawork, Sadler’s Wells 1995), created in collaboration with dancer Rebecca Skelton and composer Andrew Deakin.

• Tessa Elliott (UK) is an artist and an educator whose computer mediated installations have been internationally exhibited and acclaimed. She has written extensively on her own practice and the educational issues of computing and creative enquiry and is currently Senior Lecturer at the Centre for Electronic Arts, Middlesex University in London (England).

Full Text p.77-78