Experiencing by Interacting: A Study on Mediated Experience in Digital Interactive Arts

Abstract

This study focuses on the manifestation of mediated experiences in digital media environments in the visual arts, conducted by human-computer interactive technologies such as virtual reality and augmented reality, in order to construct a framework for understanding experience through diverse artistic experiments. My inquiry is constructed through analysis of the connections, indications and reflections of mediated experience in various interactive virtual environments, and discusses the profound and related connections among media, technology and experience in the context of digital interactive arts. Further, a number of representative artworks, particularly in the territory of digital interactive arts, are examined in order to map the concept of mediated experience. The study of the philosophical, social and cultural roots of experience is at the center of this project. This research can be considered a trial that brings theoretic discourse into art practices, and vice versa. By situating the discussion through case studies of artworks, readers are better able to read abstract concepts in actual artistic practices and develop a deeper understanding of the topic. These considerations, from a broader point of view, pave the road for the future manipulation and application of interactive digital media in public visual art. Digital interactive art as a complex of technology and conceptual exploration is an ideal vehicle for embarking on the research into the instinctive and emotional feelings generated by human-computer interactive experiences.