Truth be told, Interactive Art has been around for ages, but this century's surge in producing technology that is smaller and smaller as well as more affordable and approachable to the general public has introduced exciting capabilities to artists wanting to create more complex interactive art via mixing the digital with the physical. And thanks to the recent trend of the Maker Movement and the popularization of STEM education, a very enthusiastic community of technical creatives from across disciplines have emerged, sharing knowledge and resources, allowing for the line between STEM and Fine Arts to beautifully blur.
Joshua Noble, in his book Programming Interactivity gives one of my favorite explanations regarding the objectives of interactive artwork:
“Making interactive art is quite different from making non-interactive art because the real object of interactive art is the situation. In painting, the object is the painting itself; in sculpture, it is the object and the space around it; in a video piece, the object is the video projection. In an interactive artwork, the object of the art is really the interaction between the viewer and the system that the artist has created.”
In my personal opinion, interactive art is magical and meaningful specifically because the viewer is part of the art, the environment is part of the art, the creative problem solving inside the digital system is part of the art, and it's the combined interaction between all these elements that creates an artistic experience that might be repeated but will never be exactly the same. All in all, I love it and want to share the excitement I feel in the technical magic behind the artistic magic with as many people as I can, and that is a huge part of why I have developed this sideshow.
This page contains links to some favorite digital interactive artists and projects. I hope you find excitement and inspiration within these as I have.