Response 3

For this last reading I chose to talk about Messa di Voce. It caught my eye when we saw a bit of it in class. The interactivity is two-fold and complex. The first takes vocalizations from a person and transfers that into a graphic form. Once the graphic form is displayed, the vocalization used to make that graphic is saved. This leads to the second bit of the interactivity. The graphics can then be selected and manipulated to replay the sound that created it. This can lead to some very interesting performance art.

Messa di Voce uses software that integrates speech analysis and real-time video camera tracking. Things recorded are then projected on screens behind the performers. Tracking allows for the visualization to appear to be coming from the heads of the performers.

The previously mentioned technology, in the form of the software that allows for the interactivity, is used almost solely to enhance the performance and help visualize the possible meanings. As I have stated before, I believe meaning in art is subjective and based on the reactions of the observer. An artist can help try and “push” the observer in a direction using a variety of stimuli.

“Messa di Voce lies at an intersection of human and technological performance extremes, melding the unpredictable spontaneity and extended vocal techniques of two master composer-improvisers with the latest in computer vision and speech analysis technologies. Utterly wordless, yet profoundly verbal, Messa di Voce is designed to provoke questions about the meaning and effects of speech sounds, speech acts, and the immersive environment of language.”

Above is the purpose of Messa di Voce. I feel it is hard to describe the artist’s voice in this which is ironic since the piece is all about placing voice and making it visible for all the world to see. Especially within this piece, the voice can belong to a couple different groups. While Golan Levin and Zach Lieberman helped to make the software and allowed for a certain number of possibilities based on what they wanted to happen, Jaap Blonk, Joan La Barbara and any other vocalist that may perform have their own vision and voice for a performance.

Response 2

Within the argument about Listening Post and if it is truly interactive art, there is almost a tone of “If a tree falls”… Listening Post ran if the observer is there or not. Huhtamo argues against Listening Post on the basis that that interaction with the work is mental and has nothing to do with the body of the observer and physical interaction. Huhtamo also dislikes the idea of “system interaction” because it could possibly redefine previously made art that was not considered interactive before Listening Post won the Golden Nica and the jury making the decision and expanding the framework. “If the word interactive is to retain anything about its former distinctiveness, it should, perhaps, be after all reserved to cases where active and repeated user-intervention plays a significant role in the functioning of the system.” When bringing up Ken Rinaldo’s Augmented Fish Reality, Huhtamo seems to want to insist that in the realm of Interactive Art, only humans can be users and participants. Towards the end of the article there is also a suggestion of what category  Listening Post should have one and accused the jury for that category of not having the “correct” agenda. Huhtamo also suggests making a whole new category just for art pieces like this.

I side more with the Interactive Art jury and its framework. I believe there is an interactive aspect in all art that may be more passive at times.  Looking at the 2006 winner Paul DeMarinis and his piece The Messenger, I see a work much like that of the Listening Post. It can be running with or without a human observer and that can be argued against being interactive art or even art in general. I still feel there is an aspect of art in it even if it is running unobserved. Ashok Sukumaran’s Park View Hotel has a more interactive aspect like what Huhtamo seems to require in a Golden Nica Interactive Art winner. Sure people make the lights move by pushing buttons but is it less than art to the passive observers? They are seeing this unfold before them and reacting to it even though they are not “touching” the work itself. To me, interactive art is still art. Art is called that by the observers, even if it can or cannot be touched. The validity of the piece can also be argued by the observer. Debate is good but definitions and frameworks, just like beliefs, are highly subjects and should be given a lot of freedom and wiggle room.