Accenting agency: duets within interactive video installation

This PhD by Publication constitutes a research enquiry into creative agency within interactive video installations through reflection on six published works: Remote Dancing (2004-9), Doing (2008), Orbital (2010), Gravity Shift (2010), ByPasser (2010) and Weighting (2015). These installations have been documented and are presented on online.
Key to the discussion, is the notion of agency arising through the intersections within intermedial environments (Scott & Barton, 2019). By viewing interactive video installations from this perspective, I examine how activity within works can be viewed as co-agential taking the form of a duet between participant and filmic content. Through the choreographic concept of a ‘relational net’ (Rubidge & Schiller, 2014) I recognise and place importance on spatial provision for the whole-body movement across both physical and filmic space to encourage greater agency within installations.
To progress the analysis, I identify specific forms of encounter and engagement a participant experiences as they interact with installations, drawing on observations around dwelling (Giddens, 2019) and intimacy (Hill & Paris, 2014) as significant contributors to agential involvement. As practical ways to support the development of future work in the field, I articulate modulation and destabilisation as techniques to highlight and stimulate active participant involvement. These techniques blend in embodied film theory (Sobchack, 1982), highlighting how the intentionality of the camera emphasises each participant’s awareness of their physical engagement and subsequent agential action within interactive video installation.