The Ontology of Interactive Art

Abstract

Developments in the art world such as Duchamp's ready-mades, environmental theatre, and Cage's 2'33 seem always to keep one step ahead of philosophical attempts to characterize the nature and value of A pessimist may conclude that theories of art are doomed to failure. But those more optimistic about the prospects for progress in philosophy may retort that avant-garde art does philosophers a great service. It helps us to ensure that our generalizations are true, our conceptual analyses are adequate, and that the theories in which our generalizations and conceptual analyses are embedded enjoy maximal explanatory power. Arguably the most important engine for artistic innovation in recent years has been the new information technologies, especially multimedia, hypertext, and the Internet. These technologies have made possible not only new means for distributing art but also new kinds of art, including art. While interactive art raises many interesting questions that a full account of it must address, a good start can be made by examining its ontology. Indeed, most questions about interactive art cannot be properly addressed absent a rough outline of its ontology. Moreover, it is not obvious what we should say about the ontology of interactive For instance, David Saltz has argued that the type-token distinction (which is widely taken to account for the relationship between works of literature, music, theatre, and drama on one hand and instances or performances of them on the other) does not apply to interactive artworks.1 I shall argue to the contrary that interactive artworks are types whose tokens are produced by our interaction with them. Showing that this is the case will, however, require a