Interactivity, Play and Audience Engagement

Abstract

A growing number of artists today are pushing forward the exploration and understanding of audience engagement. As new technologies emerge, different ways to creatively interact and collaborate emerge with them. There is a blurring of the boundaries between artists, audiences and participants which promotes new ways of interacting.

This paper will focus on the making of playful interactive artworks, as an affective model for audience engagement. The paper is based on my artistic practice and draws on my PhD research at the Digital Cultures Research Centre (DCRC) UK. My practice-based doctoral research focuses specifically on the development of a play directory showing the different kinds of play initiated through interactive artworks, in order to create a model for making playful interactive art installations, which will inform my own and future artists making of artworks. The model is concerned with creating immersive and playful art experiences and is linked to play theory and interactive art practices.

Through my own practice and others it looks at how we can create conditions or possibilities for play within and around interactive artworks. Ultimately, the model aims to connect people with their immediate environment, the artwork and with each other.