The Digital Interface and New Media Art Installations by Phaedra Shanbaum;

Author:Phaedra Shanbaum;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis (CAM)
Published: 2020-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

So, when the viewer/participant interacts with the digital interface—an M16 rifle—in Lynn Hershman Leeson’s interactive new media installation America’s Finest (1993–4), the instruction that she receives from the artist via the digital interface could be interpreted as a plan for action by both the viewer/participant and the observer.67 This is because the instruction the viewer/participant is receiving describes the way she should act: walk up to the rifle, look into the sight, and pull the trigger in order to view an image; or press the trigger down for an extended period of time to hear a sound and view an image sequence. It dictates the role(s) that the viewer/participant should play in the installation as well (aggressor before the trigger is pulled and victim afterwards).68

However, the instruction does not take into consideration all of the actions and their consequences (both intended and unintended) of the decisions that the viewer/participant makes when she uses the rifle. These decisions include simple shifts in movement, variations in activity, and any ethical objections she may have to the form (a weapon) that the interface represents or the positions (aggressor and/or victim) that she assumes upon interaction.69 In the case of America’s Finest, these decisions and their consequent results are explicitly intended to be seen as pointless, due to the fact that they do not follow the instruction provided to the viewer/participant by Hershman Leeson.

In being this way, the interface is acting as a filter, much like Mark B.N. Hansen (2004, 2006) believes the human body in virtual environments does, selecting, subtracting, processing, and then reflecting information relevant to the narrative of the installation back on to the viewer/participant, while filtering out the rest as noise.70 This regulation can be deliberate, as illustrated by America’s Finest, or unintentional, as seen in Microphones. Suchman addresses this point, arguing that there is “a determinate relationship between certain un-interpreted actions by the user, read as changes to the state of the machine, and the machine’s transition to a next display. By establishing a determinate relationship between detectable user actions and machine response, the design unilaterally administers control over the interaction, but in a way that is conditional on the actions of the user.”71 Here, Suchman is stating that technology is able to filter information, and that the relationship between the human and the computer is contingent on the user’s actions. If the computer is unable to process the user’s actions, then the computer will take control and begin to regulate interaction. So, if, for example, the interface in America’s Finest cannot detect or interpret the viewer/participant’s movements in a particular sequence, it could exert control over interaction (and by default the installation) by predicting the viewer/participant’s current action(s) based on previously detectable and interpretable ones.

Based on the programmed interaction (pull the trigger of the rifle in order to view and change images, hold the trigger down for a period of time in order to view a sequence of images), the software that allows American’s Finest to work filters

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