Infrafaces: Essays on the Artistic Interaction

Abstract: The essays collected in this dissertation introduce a new concept in the field of interactive art: the concept of infrafaces. This thesis shows how a new zone is discovered when two or more elements connect. In the space that arises, a contact area comes into being between the elements involved, and this takes place at the moment of their contact and information exchange – forming an interface. This interface can in turn be manipulated to generate a new space, which forms a contact zone that can be opened even further, thus creating new spaces. The new segments created within the practice of interactivity are named infrafaces. Infrafaces are a series of interrelated interfaces within an interaction that adapt time and/or space to transform connecting elements into new spaces. These spaces act as an interface for the next transformation to take place before a new space is opened. The infraface is an artistic interpretation of the process of interactivity and has the ability to expand the time or the space in between the elements interacting, in order to embed new stories between them. This dissertation explains how, by means of artistic experimentation – through video, installations and the design of interfaces – this new area was uncovered: an area that is an infinite zone, close to the paradoxical, but that offers endless opportunities to develop art, and instead of solving the paradoxes that arise in art or technology, develops a way to use these contradictions to create a different understanding of our relation to the world. This thesis also proposes a new approach to the relationship between art and technology, hereby manifesting the ways in which our senses adapt to technology. Instead of pretending to define and change the world, this project proposes new forms of connectivity that produce different interactive applications and whose aim is to produce new knowledge. This dissertation presents five essays interwoven with artistic exhibitions, and also includes the documentations of these experienced practices, demonstrating the literary and visual potential of the infraface – a new concept within artistic research.