Contemporary Installation Art and Phenomenon of Digital Interactivity: Aha Experiences – Recognition and Related Creating with and for Affordances

Observing audience attendance of a student created interactive art installation is posited relating to phenomenon of serendipity, brought about via cumulated conditions and strategies, synchronously resulting in an author-recognized ‘Aha experience’. Identifying of engagement, then disengagement, and subsequent re-engagement informs reflections and critique. Speculation to how multi-affordances in an interactive art installation can combine with perceptual and cognitive pre-knowledge, e.g. pervasiveness of sensors in contemporary society (as audience pre-knowledge), to influence audience expectation, explorations, and engagement experiences. This contextually illustrated in how affordances (false/perceptual/hidden) of the installation became aspects that unwittingly and coincidentally cumulated to establish a critical incident moment: A period in time that serendipitously and synchronously involved observation of audience disengagement following initial confrontation immediately followed by a system reset that stimulated (as if playfully) re-engagement. Conclusions question how a strategy of playful artistic design that incorporates such audience perceptual and cognitive influencing through affordances can be a potential factor utilized in realizing interactive art installations. Posited thus is a contemporary art strategy goal to engage beyond artless mapping (e.g. one-to-one) toward more stimulating, intellectual, and enjoyable audience experience.