The purpose of this study is to explore the diverse ways that aesthetic experience is tested by participatory art. The study will show the part played by participatory action in changing the conditions in which aesthetic experience arises. It will be confirmed that when the philosophy of action is taken into account then explanations of participatory art are enhanced. There are many descriptions of aesthetic experience and it is generally assumed to be a cornerstone in explanations of art. In one of the leading accounts aesthetic experience is associated with disinterested perceptions where the individual is free of any practical concern for the object of experience. In recent explanations of contemporary art there is less emphasis on aesthetic experience and there is a tendency to suggest that background knowledge and interpretation are equally as significant as perception in the experience of art. ‘Participatory art’ is a category of art that explicitly demonstrates this state of affairs. In contemporary criticism participatory art is a term used to describe art that favours an audience composed of active contributors rather than detached viewers. These are artworks that encourage moments of engagement by an audience such as the moving of elements in the work or the movement of the participant’s body. It could be said that the observable actions of participants mediate between perception and knowledge in participatory art. Such work opens up a space where assumptions made about the experience of art can be challenged. The present study explores how aesthetic experience is affected by the introduction of human action in participatory art by exploring three exhibitions of participatory art at The Tate Modern, The Barbican and Dundee Contemporary Arts. In this study it is suggested that participation in such artwork may be a consequence of deliberation, spontaneity or may take place within a social group. Therefore the aesthetic experiences and actions that are identified in these artworks are examined from the standpoint of reason, the body and social convention through the respective adoption of analytical, phenomenological and institutional/sociological perspectives.

This research project will explore American philosopher John Dewey’s theory of transaction, and Shannon Sullivan’s interpretation of Dewey’s theory, the ‘Transactional Body’, and their inherent potential for the making and reception of painting. Dewey stated (Dewey, cited in Sullivan: 1-2) that organisms live as much in processes across and 'through' skins as in processes 'within skins'. Sullivan’s ‘transactional body’ is always in a state of flux, a morphic body in perpetual motion. Within an artistic context this raises the possibility of exploring the theory of transaction as it applies to painting, using the concept of automatic intuitive art practice. Central to this investigation will be direct connection between senses, instincts, intuition, and the painting. Sullivan suggests that truth and wisdom can be pursued through somatic experience. Therefore the process will be explored by an extension of the corporeal body through the physicality of gesture, movement, rhythm, colour, and mark making. A recurring subtext throughout this investigation will be that of ‘duality’; specifically that defined as the struggle between the use of the conscious, critical mind, allowing for the transaction between artist, paint and canvas to occur naturally and intuitively. The conscious mind / intuition duality manifests at various stages during the manufacture and reception of a painting. Whilst the project relies upon automatic and intuitive praxis, conscious decisions are made regarding the size and shape of the canvas, the medium used, and through reflective analysis of the completed work.

This dissertation is an investigation of visitor experiences in the Screen Gallery at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI), in Melbourne. This thesis argues that visitors’ interaction with moving image art can yield expressions of agency which not only enrich the experience of visiting a new museum, but also find application beyond an institutionalised environment as a praxis for negotiating the conditions of everyday life. I term the articulation of this praxis a politics of movement. (For complete abstract open document).

This research project will explore American philosopher John Dewey’s theory of transaction, and Shannon Sullivan’s interpretation of Dewey’s theory, the ‘Transactional Body’, and their inherent potential for the making and reception of painting. Dewey stated (Dewey, cited in Sullivan: 1-2) that organisms live as much in processes across and 'through' skins as in processes 'within skins'. Sullivan’s ‘transactional body’ is always in a state of flux, a morphic body in perpetual motion. Within an artistic context this raises the possibility of exploring the theory of transaction as it applies to painting, using the concept of automatic intuitive art practice. Central to this investigation will be direct connection between senses, instincts, intuition, and the painting. Sullivan suggests that truth and wisdom can be pursued through somatic experience. Therefore the process will be explored by an extension of the corporeal body through the physicality of gesture, movement, rhythm, colour, and mark making. A recurring subtext throughout this investigation will be that of ‘duality’; specifically that defined as the struggle between the use of the conscious, critical mind, allowing for the transaction between artist, paint and canvas to occur naturally and intuitively. The conscious mind / intuition duality manifests at various stages during the manufacture and reception of a painting. Whilst the project relies upon automatic and intuitive praxis, conscious decisions are made regarding the size and shape of the canvas, the medium used, and through reflective analysis of the completed work.

In the ongoing critical discourse about education, the status of aesthetics has always played second fiddle to the main arguments about what constitutes a relevant curriculum. Aesthetics is seen by many educators as a frivolous experience---at best a weak substitute for serious learning. This is the issue that Dewey addressed in his philosophy of aesthetics, and this is also where my focus lies in this thesis. / The thesis is a personal and theoretical examination of John Dewey's aesthetic philosophy as it is principally expressed in Art as Experience . In exploring the personal implications of the aesthetic experience, the thesis investigates Dewey's argument that the aesthetic is an intrinsic part of life. It demonstrates Dewey's emphasis on the productive presence of the aesthetic in the cultural life of society.

John Dewey was a philosopher of experience; if there is a thread that ties his vast literary output together it would be just that--the tracing and understanding of the various forms of experience. Dewey developed and elucidated three distinct kinds of experience throughout his career. If taken "subjectively" one might term these experiences immediate, mediate, and consummate; the corresponding "objects" of each would thus be, in order, events, relations between events, and the work of art (which is itself a sublation of events and their relations). To speak loosely, we might call these unconscious experience, conscious experience, and aesthetic experience. My thesis is that consummate experience is best understood as a kind of dialectical sublation between immediate and mediate experience: I intend to use the work of John Dewey to describe each of these three types of experience and show how consummate experience might be understood as a sublation of the immediate and the mediate.

-researching the issue of documentation in performance art -realization of a performance in nature -mediating the experience of nature

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Through interrelating the Acoustic Communication concepts of soundscape with contemporary collective memory studies, this research project explores the relationship between commuters and the London Underground (LU) soundscape in order to create an interactive sonic environment on the Internet. The methodology combines fieldwork and artistic work, focusing on commuters’ perceptions of time and space, and on their sonic memories, as elements through which to interpret the space. The objective of the fieldwork is to investigate commuters’ aural memories of the LU soundscape, including the feelings and sensations that it stimulates. The artistic objective is to facilitate the interaction between the soundscape and its users through an interface that allows a creative combination of sounds to assemble aural memories into a sound-driven multimedia experience. Twenty-four commuters participated in the ethnographic study during the three phases of the research; they followed the researcher’s model, which combines the processes of listening and remembering. The researcher thus developed an interactive sonic environment where commuters can experience a non-linear virtual journey through the soundscape of LU, then apply this as a means of reflecting on the original commuting experience. The interactive nature of the process makes it possible for individual memories to be linked in a creative shared experience; it fosters the development of on-line sound-driven narratives.

Over the course of the past decade the MRT (Mass Rapid Transit) stations in Taiwan have become open air art galleries: with more prominent and frequent display of various artistic creations in stations, including interactive artworks. However, unlike the audiences in more meticulously choreographed exhibition contexts, those in stations are usually involuntary. New criteria for the creation and evaluation of artworks in these context are necessary to enhance the connection between the audience and the artwork, and to elicit meaningful experience via interactivity. This research aims to uncover the critical factors that can turn an indifferent passenger into an explorative participant, subsequently leading them to obtain meaningful experiences through interaction with computer-based interactive artwork. This research focuses on artworks that are permanently installed in the stations, with three case studies conducted in MRT stations forming the backbone of the research. Field observation was the first step in each case study, conducted in order to understand the fundamentals of the interactivity between the passengers and the artworks. This was followed by in-depth interviews with the passengers and three professional interview groups. A critical Analytical Framework was formed throughout the course of the research, identifying five engaging characteristics: Incentive, Transfer, Accessibility, Play, and Challenge. These five characteristics were eventually reapplied to re-examine the case studies and the content of the interviews with the professionals. The findings of this research articulate how the Analytical Framework can be adopted in future research intended to create the conditions for more meaningful art-interactions. This Analytical Framework will assist artists, designers and researchers in their pre-planning and follow up evaluations of the degree of engagement generated by computer-based interactive artworks displayed in transport hubs. The interest that the outcomes of this research has attracted in the field suggests that the framework could be extended to the examination of various computer-based interactive artworks in similar public contexts. In this context, the framework would play a valuable role in uncovering a more dynamic paradigm used to illustrate how meaningful experiences can evolve in similar public spaces.