Mutual Engagement in Digitally Mediated Public Art

Abstract

This chapter examines the socially constructed responses that emerge through interaction with works designed for collective experience. The focus here is on the moments of creative spark that emerge between people as they mutually engage through collective art forms. These art forms exploit digital social infrastructure to create socially empowering public digital art forms where the emphasis is on the enjoyment of being creative together rather than art per se. The fluidity of such interaction allows for micro-creativity: that is, digitally mediated creative activities which can be carried out as a number of fleeting collaborative interactions over an extended period of time, and in a wide range of interaction contexts from galleries to mobile phones. The public art in these situations is in the experience, not the physical artefact itself which often does not exist in any case. In this chapter, we are particularly interested in experiences in which people actively construct public art within the boundaries created by the artist. In particular, where people both experience and contribute to the creation of the collective artwork. The key to evaluating the experience of collective artworks is to identify points at which people mutually engage in micro-creativity together. This involves identifying the birth, development, and sustenance of micro-ideas, or memes as they propagate through the socially constructed experience. We first outline which it might mean to be mutually engaged with other people, and then go on to explore the concept of micro-creativity and the emergence of memes. Finally, we describe visualisations which help us to explore the value judgements of participants engaged in micro-creativity through memetic evaluation.