Interactive Media: Interactive media is about the way that humans communicate with devices and the way that devices communicate humans. It’s this series of actions and reactions that creates the piece of art as opposed to what we visually see – it’s the process. This type of artwork provokes the questions such as is the device the piece of artwork or is it the interaction? Would this piece of art exist without an audience? This methodology of thinking forces the audience to unlearn the “Please Do Not Touch” rules usually associated with galleries.

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Aaron Sherwood is an upcoming artist from New York. His work explores cause and effect through new media such as sound and light. In the artwork Firewall Sherwood created a projection of light using Processing, Max/MSP, Arduino and a Microsoft Kinect. This was then projected onto a taut sheet of taut spandex. Upon human interaction with the sheet of spandex the light changes form. Also when a user makes contact with the spandex a piece of music starts to play and depending on how far the user submerges their hand into the spandex the music changes tempo and softness. This creates a rubato effect and gives the user the ability to control the pace and volume of the music. This is because the kinetic input that the human gives is a form of communication and this is fed into Sherwoods set-up. The set-up then receives this information and comes up with a reaction which is then projected onto the spandex. This process is imminent and so it is not noticeable to the user, but this artwork gives them the power to interact with the artwork and give their own input. This creates a sense of harmony with the piece as they are directly involved with what they see and what happens which also gives them a sense of control. Yes the piece is visually stunning with the warm colour resembling fire embers but without human interaction it would simply be a projection of yellow lines on a surface. The exchange of input and output is what gives the artwork context and a meaning.