Interactive Arts Symposium

The IA symposium was very interesting. I had an idea of what it was but the symposium broadened my eyes, in a good way, to what the field was. It's all very experimental and similar to coding, except based on the person viewing instead of the product already being in place and no further interaction.

My previous experiences with interactive arts were both with Arcade Fire. They came out with a music video for "We Used To Wait" working with interactive artists and web designers just to get the video working. The website starts by asking you to put in an address where you grew up or an address in general. Then many pop ups take over your screen as the music video/film unfold, dropping trees on the Google maps pictures of the said address with birds and a mysterious person running.

The Wilderness Downtown

And then later, for "Reflektor" they have your participation to change the lighting and effects of the music video. They even have a surprise webcam shot of the user towards the end so the user feels included in the music video. I remember showing it to my little sister and her face lighting up in excitement because she was in it. And then showing it to her over and over again.

Just A Reflektor

They work closely with Google and the Chrome Experiments which is just interactive websites where the user can control what is happening like a dark room which is just a poem that you sort of have a hand in creating. There are many interactive sites on their main. But I think I might take an elective in the IA department so I can make my own Arcade Fire interactive music videos.

Chrome Experiments