Naumann and a few words about participation in an art piece

Tristan Perich reminded me a different approach that I didn’t think in general, maybe because I was taking it granted as it is what it is: An Interactive piece. The question arised from his post to the list asking for an example of successful interactive art. The thoughts are generally collected around the transparency of the piece, how much easy it is to grasp for the audience, how smart it is by its message. Tristan’s reply to me was interesting. He mentioned when the user understands the piece is interactive it puts whole relationship into different level, more like a product-consumer relationship. So the idea is interacting with the piece without understanding it is actually interactive. He gave the example of Bruce Naumann’s video corridor. I googled it and come with different readings.

The piece which is dated early 70’s, is a 50cm wide corridor, where the user sees a video at the end of the corridor which turns out he is seeing himself from the rear. Kinda disturbing experience as Chris Gibbins puts it. This article is also good for showing different kinds of internet based art from Lieberman and Napier. So the question that still left in me is: What kind of relationship, or better yet, what kind of experience does an art piece bring?

I am also going back to Cage back and forth these days. I am interested in his approach to an art as an experimentation, disabling the intention, subjectivity of the artist.