Interactive installations as performance

This thesis clarifies the interdisciplinary field of interactive installations in digital media and digital art. As an interdisciplinary field, interactive installations emphasize three dimension; bodily interaction beyond restricted mouse clicking; physical interfaces using digital technologies that can reconfigure a space; particular forms of participants' engagement. To investigate these interactive installation artifacts in greater detail, this thesis adapts a theoretical perspective from performance studies using epistemic, critical, and constitutive qualities to investigate interactive installations as performance. First, epistemic qualities explore how embodied interactions prompt participants' engagement. Second, critical qualities encourage participants to ask questions and explore issues. Lastly, constitutive qualities address how participants actuate new configurations by interacting with installations. This thesis applies the epistemic, critical, and constitutive aspects and its theoretical discourse to interactive installations. With two works, Please Smile (2012) and Hooray (2013), it probes these effects in an additional user study of both works. Using the quantitative and qualitative results of a questionnaire and participant interviews, it also analyzes how participants engage with Please Smile and Hooray and respond both emotionally and physically.Ph.D