Author: Oguzhan Özcan
Title: Cultures, the Traditional Shadow Play, and Interactive Media Design
Source: Design Issues, MIT Press, 2002 Vol: 18, no:3, pp.18
Date: Summer, 2002
Abstract of Major Ideas
Dr. Özcan has made a compelling connection between Chinese, Indonesian, Turkish, and European shadow play and today’s interactive media as an art form. He opens his paper by arguing that interactive media is not a modern phenomenon and suggests that traditional forms of shadow play amount to early examples of interactive media performances.
Some early examples of shadow play provided an outlet for audience members to participate by adding their own figures, therefore interacting with the media presented. Another technique might involve the artist improvising based on reactions from the audience thus facilitating an interactive response.
By illustrating the connection between these traditional art forms and modern interactive media technology, Dr. Özcan suggests that students might gain a new point of view as well as develop new ideas for interaction by combining current technology with traditional techniques.
Critical Evaluation of Major Ideas
Is not traditional shadow play an early form of technology? Sometimes we forget that all the modern and computerized tools and techniques we use in art and design have a basis in traditional methods. In some ways the interactive experiences of shadow play have more value than modern technology’s interactive media outlets. Dr. Özcan points out that the computerized interactive media experience is often individualized whereas shadow play involves artists and audience in a social activity. Perhaps this comparison will inspire artists to use technology to enhance social interaction, and steer us away from the detached and diluted discourse of social networking sites.
Contemporary examples of shadow play exist all around us. My music project, Keston and Westdal (unearthedmusic.com), often perform with imagery projected directly onto the stage or adjacent screens. The imagery is a mix of animated computer graphics and experimental video that we produced and edited specifically for this purpose. This is not an original concept, but one that adds a visual element to enhance the audience member’s experience. When the media is projected directly on to the performers we inadvertently interact with the images, creating shadows as we play our instruments.
Implications for Design Education
Dr. Özcan’s paper is an excellent example of how important an historical perspective is in the field of interactive media design. This perspective should not just include a history of electronic technology, but of the technologies used to produce traditional art forms as well. Dr. Özcan states that design students will benefit from creating projects without the aid of computers, and we should remember that interactive media is part of the world of audio-visual arts, and new technology can relate to tradition.