The aesthetics of intermedial interactivity

Scott, JE ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4768-8175 2015, The aesthetics of intermedial interactivity , in: International Society for Intermedial Studies Conference #2, 16th - 18th April 2015, Utrecht University. (Unpublished)

Full text not available from this repository. (Request a copy)

Abstract

This paper places Gareth White’s (2013) theories around the ‘aesthetics’ of participation in relation to an interactive intermedial space in order to propose the distinct ‘aesthetics of intermedial interactivity’. White’s definition of ‘participation’ as that ‘of an audience…in the action of a performance’ (4) is linked to Steve Dixon’s (2007) theories around interactivity in digital performance, where he highlights the ‘ability of the user’ to ‘activate, affect, play with, input into, build, or entirely change it’ (561). This results in a question as to the particular ‘aesthetics’ of this interactive encounter within and through media. Working from my experiences as a live media practitioner, I use examples from this work, to explore the distinct nature of intermedial interactivity in live media practices, where the elements of the intermedial space are activated in real time and ‘on the fly’ (Cooke 2010). I characterise the intermediality generated through such practices as a ‘lively discourse’, which involves a series of actions and interactions between the different elements in play, including the performer, ‘experiencers’ (Nelson 2010), audio-visual space generated and the ‘technical mediums’ (Elleström 2010) which are used to create that space. Finally, an aesthetic is proposed that accounts for the displaced and dislocated, yet intensely haptic space which is generated between ‘experiencers’ in live media events; what Cooke describes as ‘a new kind of perceptual sense’ (2010: 195) and Susan Kozel (2007) characterises as ‘a fluid play of degrees of materiality’ (125). In response to White’s focus on ‘the way the audience member herself or himself becomes the artist’s medium, and so the work’s aesthetic material’ (White 2013: 10), this paper proposes that the aesthetics of intermedial interactivity lie in vectors of doing – actions and interactions, which shift and reconfigure both the intermedial space and the event which is formed through such actions.

Item Type:	Conference or Workshop Item (Other)
Themes:	Media, Digital Technology and the Creative Economy
Schools:	Schools > School of Arts & Media > Arts, Media and Communication Research Centre
Refereed:	No
Related URLs:	Organisation
Funders:	Non funded research
Depositing User:	Dr Joanne Scott
Date Deposited:	12 Jun 2015 11:12
Last Modified:	27 Aug 2021 23:17
URI:	https://usir.salford.ac.uk/id/eprint/34939

Actions (login required)

Edit record (repository staff only)