Beyond the threshold

the dynamic interface as permeable technology

Carolyn Guertin

pp. 313-325

in: Randy Adams, Steve Gibson, Stefan Müller Arisona (eds), Transdisciplinary digital art. sound, vision and the new screen, Berlin, Springer, 2008

Abstract

The concept of spectatorship has evolved from a particular patriarchal perspective on the world that rejects embodied experience and allows the eyes to stand in for the body as a whole. What happens to the idea of the screen when we, like Alice, insert our whole body into it? What happens to the screen, the interface and to our subject position when we become interactive agents rather than passive observers? Exploring feminist and posthuman interfaces—new kinds of dynamic screen technologies—and the new subject positions artists are creating, this study of experimental works by Jill Scott, Martin Reiser, Toni Dove, Guillermo Gómez-Peña, and Rafael Lozano-Hemmer will demonstrate how these artists are actively making room for a diverse and more dynamic spectrum of bodies, presences and subjects.