Christa Sommerer Knihy

From media art archeology to contemporary interaction design - the term interface culture is based on a vivid and ongoing discourse in the fields of interactive art, interaction design, game design, tangible interfaces, auditory interfaces, fashionable technologies, wearable devices, intelligent ambiences, sensor technologies, telecommunication and new experimental forms of human-machine, human-human and machine-machine interactions and the cultural discourse surrounding them. This book's aim is to give an overview of the current state of interactive art and interface technology as well as an outlook on new forms of hybridization in art, media, scientific research and every-day media applications.

The Arts and Sciences have long been regarded as separated disciplines. In the era of the rapidly developing computer technologies a novel interdisciplinary spirit has emerged that indicates a promising new collaboration between research and art. Computer Graphics, Interactive Arts, Scientific Visualization, Communication, Artificial Life and the Internet are areas where artistic thinking influences science and where scientific methodology reaches into the arts. Art § Science brings together the pioneer thinkers in this interdisciplinary movement into the 21st century and features articles by: Philippe Quau, Ryohei Nakatsu, Maria Grazia Mattei, Donna Cox, Demetri Terzopoulos, Przemyslaw Prusinkiewicz, Tom Ray, Machiko Kusahara, Louis Bec, Michael Naimark, Monika Fleischmann & Wolfgang Strauss, Jeffrey Shaw, Christa Sommerer & Laurent Mignonneau, Otto Rössler, Gottfried Mayer-Kress, Peter Richards, Hans-Peter Schwarz, Toshiharu Ito, Itsuo Sakane, Michael Klein, Roy Ascott, Erkki Huhtamo and Cynthia Goodman. TOC: Telecommunication.- Scientific Visualization.- Artificial-Life.- Artists as Researchers.- Chaos and Complex Systems.- Public Spaces.- Education of Art & Science.- Art & Science in Historical and Cultural Context.

Artists and creators in interactive art and interaction design have long been conducting research on human-machine interaction. Through artistic, conceptual, social and critical projects, they have shown how interactive digital processes are essential elements for their artistic creations. Resulting prototypes have often reached beyond the art arena into areas such as mobile computing, intelligent ambiences, intelligent architecture, fashionable technologies, ubiquitous computing and pervasive gaming. Many of the early artist-developed interactive technologies have influenced new design practices, products and services of today's media society. This book brings together key theoreticians and practitioners of this field. It shows how historically relevant the issues of interaction and interface design are, as they can be analyzed not only from an engineering point of view but from a social, artistic and conceptual, and even commercial angle as well.