The author evokes the notion of interaction, particularly that elicited by contemporary art discourse, to account for the reception of new art practices: she argues that the relevance of “interactional” works (interactive or not) is to be found in their diversification of the modalities of the visitor’s relation to art and, correlatively, in their fostering of art’s active, participative reception. Following Dewey’s theories of “art as experience,” Kreplak proposes an elucidation inspired by interactional linguistics to highlight the social and situated construction of the meaning of artworks.
[Gupta & Sehgal]

If the mirror functions as a tool that “opens up” the artwork’s spatial field, then it is also an element that, however covertly, brings to light the new notion of the spectator’s “intention.” In being invited—or compelled—to insert themselves in a process, spectators can choose either to play the mirror’s game or to become passive observers. When articulated as a revealing medium replete with aesthetic, formal, and expansive potentialities, and as that which broadens our perception not only of the artwork itself but also of its context, the mirror permits the “reciprocity” of experience. It transforms direct action into a reaction, albeit one that may or may not have been anticipated. Put another way, the spectator is caught in a “reflexive field” and is therefore bound to the mirror’s game. Finally, in environmental artworks’ recourse to mirrors we perceive a similar notion of commitment, instigated by performances and happenings. The artist’s commitment, however strong, is of little value if it is not matched by a corresponding sense of involvement in the spectator.
[Erlich, Genzken & Pistoletto]

On emploie souvent le terme interactivité lorsqu’il est question des technologies informatiques et électroniques, et il s’agit d’un lieu commun en ce qui concerne « les nouvelles technologies ». Cet usage influence bien sûr les pratiques artistiques et leur discours. Toutefois, des théoriciens des médias comme Marshall McLuhan ou Espen Aarseth ont travaillé des distinctions conceptuelles qui serviraient mieux la réflexion sur ce que produisent ces « nouvelles technologies », et c’est notamment le cas du terme ergodicité, un concept qui redéfinit notre rapport à la participativité médiatisée. Par le détour d’une réflexion sur l’écriture et l’ergodicité, il est question dans ce texte de la dissolution même de l’idée d’interactivité.

Since the early 1970s, with the emergence of closed circuit video and installations, artists have endeavoured to immerse spectators in the artistic representation by confronting them with their own image. From the 1990s on, video feedback has extended to interactive experiments with digital installations that now place spectators in a rapport with so-called virtual characters. Art has turned from the electronic mirror to the artificial encounter. How does this impact the artistic imagination as it envisages shared experience, reciprocal gestures, and mutual recognition?

This essay explores textual adaptations in Internet art productions. The creative exploitation of digital technology affords artists the possibility to reorient conventional paths of textual communication. We examine how two Internet artworks, through their participatory dimension, rework textual narratives to ultimately subvert misogynist representation and disseminate silenced voices.

Interactive media art pays homage to much of the early research into cybernetic systems relying on feedback loops that perpetuate unpredictable events creating surprising outcomes for the audience/inter-actor. The tendency to mimic real-life systems and to re-create our relationship to organic forms has led to work that often parallels our experience of our environment, or the experience of companion species. In this article, the author looks at the evolution of interaction in the installation work of Marc Fournel and his eventual engagement with systems that offer experiences of collective action for the audience.

À partir d’un projet réalisé par l’artiste Giorgia Volpe avec la communauté d’une école de Granby, l’auteur réfléchit à la nature des « spect-ateurs » en passant par une réflexion sur le don et la réciprocité, pour montrer l’importance des destinataires modèles et de la médiatisation dans le processus d’inscription au sein du monde de l’art des œuvres réalisées en contexte social.

La notion de « participation » est venue, depuis les années 1970, questionner profondément notre manière d’entrer en relation avec l’art. Elle ne suffit pas à transformer à elle seule le principe de relation hiérarchique qui maintient auteur et spectateur à des places prédéterminées. Toutefois, elle est l’un des outils avec lesquels se sont construits des propositions singulières, que les termes de spectateur, d’acteur et même d’œuvre s’avèrent insuffisants à qualifier. Des situations de rencontre et d’expérience, qui remettent en cause nos manières de regarder et d’agir dans la proposition artistique et qui viennent aussi interroger le cadre institutionnel et les conditions de visibilité de l’art.
[APO 33, Ici-Même, Martin Le Chevallier et Robert Morris]

Ocean Without a Shore de Bill Viola et It’s a Dream de Tsai Ming-Liang, présentés à la Biennale de Venise 2007, se caractérisent par le déploiement filmique d’une lenteur fondamentalement anti-spectaculaire qui vient problématiser notre rapport constitutif aux images. Mais parler de lenteur, c’est peut-être encore trop peu dire; ce qui anime véritablement ces œuvres, ce serait plutôt un art du fade, au double sens d’un effacement graduel et d’une suggestivité accrue par une relative raréfaction de la « saveur ». Entre venue au monde et disparition spectrale, Tsai et Viola nous amènent dans le vif de notre consistance imaginale – plongée dans un peu de temps à l’état pur ?
[Bill Viola et Tsai Ming-Liang]

What is a “public”? It would seem that relegating a public (or many publics) to a place alongside an art-making apparatus (a group, a collective, an object, a concept) without first defining what or who constitutes that public is somewhat misleading, and signals a kind of groundlessness. It is from this perspective that the essay considers the work of the art/music collective Creative Capitalism. By moving away from strict or singular aesthetic sensibilities, and allowing its membership and activities to assume their own direction, the group seeks to offer the possibility of a new creative public—one that blurs its boundaries and continually redefines itself.
[Creative Capitalism]

In this essay, the author analyses the work of Montreal-based artist Erika Kierulf in light of the debate that has surrounded Minimalist art since the 1967 publication of Michael Fried’s essay “Art and Objecthood.” The author contends that Kierful’s video installations not only bear witness to the lasting importance of theatricality in contemporary art; more importantly, these installations attest to the fact that Fried’s aesthetic of anti-theatricality—in the hands of a new generation of artists—has now become theatre. Kierulf’s work thus succeeds into framing what Fried calls absorption in a sophisticated game of historical irony that culminates in a paroxysm of theatricality.