Contemporary artists have been experimenting with the use of technology to enable and orchestrate the participation of the audience. Unfortunately, common studies of interactivity are often focused on the technical implementation rather from the critical and aesthetic viewpoints.

This course introduces the foundation concepts and skills of interactivity employed in contemporary art and design. It aims to go beyond the traditional discussion of interactive media from either the media studies approach or the cognitive aspect of the human computer interaction (HCI) direction. Within the current social and technological context, it provides a broader investigation from the participatory and the performative nature of interaction with the focus of the human body as the main site of interaction.

Students in the course learn to create simple audio-visual musical instruments that the artists and audience can perform together. They also build game-like environments or devices that participants can explore through their bodily interaction. Within this context the focus of the course lies more on the interaction process and experience rather than on the interface design.

This course provides a broad coverage of the use of interactivity in different areas of contemporary art and design. Historical reference will be drawn from a variety of sources such as literature, theatre, information technology, social science, and architecture. The course will teach the use of the simple graphical programming environment Pure Data that the students can use to experiment with interactive media content, without going through a steep learning curve of mastering traditional text based programming.