Mapping the Frame: Locative Media and Interactive Art Environments

ion in its use of colour and form. Yet it is also significantly different on at least three scores: 1. It is interactive, 2. It is dynamic, and 3. The code that drives the imagery is a notational form akin to musical notation. sprite(spriteNum).trails = true pAngle = random(360) startH = random(440)+75 startV = random(280)+75 if random(2) = 1 then pAngleVector = -1 else pAngleVector = 1 end if if voidP(spriteList) then spriteList = [] if sprite(spriteNum).visible = true then spriteList.add(sprite(spriteNum).spriteNum) end beginSprite on enterFrame Lingo code from an interactive abstract work by Kevin McCoy The last point is interesting because it suggests that there is an additional conceptual, ‘mathematical’ dimension to code-based interactive abstraction that links it not only to the intersection of art and music, and the equation of geometry and intellect evident in early twentieth century abstraction, but also to concerns with information processing evident in Conceptual Art of the 1960s and ‘70s. In the domain of fine art, abstraction enjoyed a long reign as dominant discourse. But during the 1960s it was displaced by the mosaic of radical art movements that arose in the 1960s, such as: Nouveau Réalisme, Fluxus, Pop Art, Minimal Art, Arte Povera, Land Art, Performance Art, and Conceptual Art. Some of these movements are relevant to interactive and locative art. We have already mentioned the emphasis on phenomenology evident in Minimal Art; one can also cite the seminal locativity of Land Art which took art out of the ivory tower of the gallery, as did ‘happenings’ and performance art. All such movements are of use in the task of theorizing contemporary interactive and locative art. One can cite for example the poetic locative works of Richard Long and Hamish Fulton. But it is to Conceptual Art that we must turn for a mode of art that combines considerations of aesthetic form with notions of systems and information that seem particularly relevant to contemporary new media art. In the next section we would like to focus in particular on a work by the conceptual artist Douglas Huebler: Duration Piece #9. Douglas Huebler, Duration Piece #9 (42 Parallel) 1968