Abstract
Lopes (2010) offers an account of computer art, which he argues is a new art form. Part of what makes computer art distinctive, according to Lopes, is its interactivity, a quality found in few non-computer artworks. Given the rise in prominence of such artworks, most notably videogames, they are surely worthy of philosophical inquiry. I believe their ontology and properties are particularly worthy of study, as an understanding of these will prove crucial to critical understanding and evaluation of the works themselves. Lopes’ account of interactive art is novel and important, but flawed, and in this essay I will discuss its flaws and suggest a better account of the properties of interactive art that builds on his work, providing a partial account of the ontology of interactive art. In Section 1, I discuss Lopes’ definition and ontology of interactive art; in Section 2, I argue that he only accounts for the properties of displays, neglecting the properties of interactive artworks themselves. In Section 3, I discuss several possible solutions for Lopes and why they are inadequate before Section 4 presents my view, that interactive artworks possess all of the properties of their varying displays because each possible display is part of the artwork. This is compatible with Lopes’ definition of interactive art, and so much of his account can be preserved, but with a refined account of the properties of interactive artworks. What I present is by no means a complete ontological study of interactive art, but hopefully lays the groundwork for future work on this ontology.
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Notes
See Smuts (2009) for an attempt at providing a general theory of interactivity, and then applying it to art.
Hans Holbein, 1533
At this point, Lopes has not explained what art is, but in the book’s final chapter, he defends a cluster concept theory—roughly that an artwork must possess several properties that are jointly sufficient, but not individually necessary, for art status. Such a theory will be a background assumption in the rest of this paper.
Damian Lopes, 1997
Scott Snibbe, 1998
John Cage, 1952
BioWare, 2007–12
Ken Goldberg, 1995–2004
See Davies (2001).
I discuss the nature of such properties in Section 3.3.
Frome (2009) argues that such awareness is necessary for interactive art, and that interaction must be voluntary, though I do not wish to commit myself to this view.
Telltale Games, 2012
I am using ‘part’ in a mereological sense, i.e. with no ontological restrictions, to avoid any implication of all artworks having to be physical objects.
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Preston, D. Some Ontology of Interactive Art. Philos. Technol. 27, 267–278 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13347-013-0134-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13347-013-0134-7