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The Curatorial Committee oversees the exhibition program of Art Interactive in accordance with the curatorial mission statement. |
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Curatorial Mission Statement
Art Interactive is a non-profit organization dedicated to exhibiting art that is
contemporary, experimental, and participatory. Located in Central Square in
Cambridge, Massachusetts and open to the public since 2002, Art Interactive is a
space where visitors actively participate in the art on view.
While the nature of art has always encouraged experimentation with media and techniques, it was not until the mid-twentieth century that artists fully began to consider viewer participation as a vital component to the work of art. Building upon earlier instances of interactivity present in the work of the Dadaists and Surrealists, amongst others, artists strove to merge art and life as an alternative to formalist trends dominant in the American art scene of the 1950s and 1960s. As a result, Fluxus, Happenings, environments, and performance art often activated viewers as an integral part of the work. Conceived more as a state of mind than as an art movement, Fluxus was inherently interactive as artists frequently prescribed activities for audiences to perform at any given moment of the day, extending interactivity beyond the immediate event or gallery experience. Although environments were not always participatory, Happenings relied on audience interaction that was scripted by the artist. Similarly, performance artists often positioned the audience as active participants rather than passive viewers. Postmodernism further disrupted modernist perceptions of art as meaning was no longer fixed by the artist, but rather was determined by the viewer. While a more conceptual notion of interactivity, postmodern works often implied narratives that were left to the viewer to determine. This intellectual and artistic trend towards interactivity has flourished in recent decades with the explosion of artists' access to new technology. Developments in software, hardware, and information networks have transformed the range of artistic production and have reshaped the public's daily interaction with images, information, and data. New media art, loosely encompassing digital and analog images and sound technologies, has continued to explore alternatives to the static art object, inventing new modes of viewer participation. For many artists, digital technology has made it easy to mimic our actions, blurring the boundary between self and reflected image and supplanting our existence with artificial constructs. Artistic and literary forms of virtual reality, for instance, allows for the fabrication of an entirely fictive world in which the viewer can interact. Meanwhile, developments in the biological, neurological, and genetic arts and sciences threaten to redefine our preconceptions of sensory experience. These ongoing technological forces provide the structure and impetus for exploring interactivity as a predominant issue in art today. "Interactive accuracy" challenges artists to create new forms of art that mirror and stretch our relationship to reality as they address concerns of engagement, existence, behavior, and community. The primary goal of Art Interactive is to explore the meaning and possibilities of interactivity. Yet, artists are continually reframing boundaries between artist, object, and viewer, leaving the significance of interactivity somewhat elusive. For instance, is interactivity confined to the artist/object-viewer relationship? How is the visual experience of the work impacted by viewer interaction? How does intentionality and indeterminacy impact the work? What obstacles does interactivity pose once works become collected objects and their preservation precludes the possibility of viewer participation? While these questions only begin to touch on the issues introduced by interactive art, it is the aim of our organization to mediate a dialogue centered on interactivity in relation to both new media art and non-technological art. All exhibitions at Art Interactive are guest curated. In addition to our theme of experimental, technologically-based work, we welcome exhibition ideas that expand notions of interactivity outside this realm. Also, investigations of historical concepts of interactivity are important to our exhibition program as these informed and shaped later art practices. Proposals may be for both one-person and thematic exhibitions and each show must involve the viewer as an integral component to its central theme. The interactive nature of the exhibition should be communicated through the works shown as well as through didactics and related public events, such as performances and lectures. Together with the gallery experience of the works, these programs will provide viewers the opportunity to participate not only in the work exhibited, but also in the ongoing consideration of art and interactivity. Proposal Submission Guidelines
For Curators Art Interactive |
Curatorial Committee Members
Rachael ArauzIndependent Curator Sharon Matt Atkins Assistant Curator, Currier Museum of Art Dina Deitsch Curatorial Fellow, The DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park George Fifield Director, Boston CyberArts Festival Emanuel Lewin Chairman of the Board Catherine D'Ignazio Co-Director, iKatun Member, The Institute for Infinitely Small Things Natasha Khandekar Director Winnie Wong Ph.D. program, HTC@MIT
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