"Actention": Active Presence in Media Art

The last two decades have seen a shift in focus towards the idea that the 21st Century spectator of interactive and immersive environments or artworks can become an actor in the artistic process. Some even define the spectator as a co-author of the artwork, contributing to content, deciding of the resulting image or the resulting sound. During this period, I have held a controversial position, considering that far from an appropriation by the spectator of the creative process, the spectator is often becoming a part of the artwork. The relation to be built between non-living elements of the work and its spectator - the ‘interactive relation’ - is becoming the very medium the artist is actually modeling. Through examples from my personal work - from virtual reality telematics installation to more recent works based on furtive relations – I will try to demonstrate how the most tenuous action, even unintentional or limited to the mere presence of the spectator, is building a complex and highly significant dialogue and mutual understanding between the artwork and its observer: I will try to demonstrate how attention becomes “actention” when parallel lives inhabiting the same space produce meaningful invisible semantic interferences.