How does response act as a medium?
The paper “Responsive Environments” by Myron W. Krueger provides great insights into the concept of responsive environments which “perceives human behavior and responds with intelligent auditory and visual feedback.” (423) By mentioning different projects he worked on, such as GLOWFLOW, MAZE, and VIDEOPLACE, he suggests a new art medium based on real-time response and interaction between humans and machines. He asserts that “Response is a medium.” (430) It is important for such a medium to understand the action of the participant and respond intelligently. For example, considering the participant’s position, the environment can create an interactive experience involving different sensations by imposing effects on “lights, sound mechanical movement, or through any means that can be perceived.” (430) Some are even more advanced by learning from experiences with different individuals and responding in the most effective way from the judgments. The upshot of this is that demonstrating intelligent responses towards users/participants, or in other words responses towards human actions, acts as a medium.
From my perspective, the paper is a good read as it gives me such an eye-opening understanding of the responsive environment and its applications in different fields, including education, psychology, and psychotherapy. For example, although such environments still have a few constraints in the perceptual system which limit their responses in a certain way, they can serve as a great alternative to traditional teaching or enrich the students’ experiences through meaningful interactions.