IACT The Interactive Art Construction Tool Michael Smith Welch MAS 712 Professor Mitchel Resnick May 14 2003 Introduction to IACT IACT or Interactive Art Construction Tool is a software platform for the young artist interested in interactive video and the process of art installation Designed for novices IACT combines sensor technologies with video media bringing both the physical and digital together As interactive art becomes more and more common so too are tools for developing interactive art As a tool in this spirit IACT strives to bring the interactive art experience to a younger audience The software will have a low floor for easy entry into the process of making interactive art It is also intended to have a low ceiling sacrificing varieties of functionality for superb capability in a single domain I envision the IACT system as becoming a part of a traditional art curriculum As schools begin to utilize technologies in their core discipline areas so too will technology become a part of the art curriculum The structure of IACT will make it a solid fit in the art curriculum generating new forms of visual awareness and ultimately new forms of personal awareness through the use of new media The IACT software is part of a system that allows the physical to be readily combined with the digital The software provides the programming support for a suite of sensors light distance touch etc plugged into a printed circuit board that utilizes experimental LOGO chip technology see figure 1 The board can accommodate up to five sensors which are in turn controlled by the LOGO programming environment In many respects the IACT software can be viewed as an important part of an interactive art kit Such a kit has recently gone on the commercial market Built by the MakingThings company and sold through the Cycling74 company the kit utilizes Cycling74 s MAX programming environment which already has great appeal in the interactive art making community see figure 2 As the Cycling74 website states MakingThings Teleo is a new set of hardware tools that allow you build interactive art with Max Using the Teleo modules you can use Max to move outside of your computer and build fully interactive physical environments that engage audiences from http www cycling74 com The IACT software should also be viewed as part of a kit for making interactive art What will distinguish this system from something like MakingThings Teleo system is the ease of use that both the IACT software and the LOGO based printed circuit board will provide The use of digital video is becoming the norm in a variety of cultural milieus The most recent development is the arrival of the VJ Analogous to the DJ in the musical realm the VJ attempts to create live video performances at a variety of events While IACT could be viewed as a VJ tool it strives to help nurture and develop a kind of interactive cinematic literacy The development of this literacy is meant to happen within the context of a particular type of examination IACT is the center point of a construction kit that brings together video and electronics enabling youth to create poetic examinations of people places and things in their everyday lives Xaminations Xaminations is a term given over to a particular way of thinking about the use of interactive video Imagine a place that is important to you What are the numerous ways you could represent that importance Draw a picture Write a paragraph Make a sculpture Record the noises around the space Take a photograph Make a movie Would these endevours convey the importance of the space The Xaminations Project would like to take a little from all of these examples and add in a few additional elements By mixing different media the Xaminations Project hopes that new kinds of understandings can be revealed about the relationship between the artist s inner life and the person place or thing in the external world they have chosen to represent in a visual presentation The ultimate goal is to provide tools and experiences that allow young people to be more self analytic in their everyday lives The Xaminations Project is not about adolescents documenting their everyday lives The Mirror Project http www mirrorproject org in Somerville Massachusetts serves as a model for how teenagers can come to understand themselves and their world better through the production of documentary videos The Xaminations Project emphasizes the creation of art installations that use video and electronics as core elements in the creation of poems in light sound and space Cinematographic experience is coupled with an interactive physical experience The Xaminations Project would run much in the same way as a group art show is structured A theme would be chosen by the curator Project Director and the artists students participating in the project would develop installations or pieces that would fall into that theme The main medium would be video projection with electronics augmenting the projections in order to make the art interactive The project would culminate with an exhibition of the installations and art objects created during the project Self expression is very important to the life of the adolescent as this is a stage that harbors some difficult times A critical aspect of Erik Erikson s psychoanalytic theory is the attention he attaches to strains between biological maturation and social expectations during adolescence For Erikson adolescence becomes a critical period 1 This can be emphasized greatly today as adolescents face numerous decisions concerning their futures David Elkind in his book A Sympathetic Understanding of the Child describes the transformation of the pre adolescent into an adolescent as a time when a child no longer investigates what is but begins to ask what if 2 Rarely is a teenager given the space to think self analytically about their personal psychology their fears anxienties the things that make them feel safe and to present their findings in imaginative and new ways Some important questions Will teenagers become more self analytical through the art making process Will the use of new media allow for a more self analytical process These are theoretical questions I am interested in but it is my belief that a piece of software such as IACT will allow the user to produce interesting new media works in such a way that they will be given time to ask these kinds of questions The ease with which digital video and sensor technology can be combined