NYU Interactive Media Exhibition
Event Date:
November 15th, 2024
Hosted by:
Martin Scorsese Department of Cinema Studies
Tisch School of the Arts
New York University
Location:
Cinema Studies Department at NYU
721 Broadway
New York, NY
Interactive cinema might sound like a futuristic concept, but it’s been around for decades, hidden in the archives of media history and now brought back to life at NYU.
On Friday, I had the chance to experience something truly unique at the Interactive Media Exhibition. Hosted by the Cinema Studies Department, the event celebrated the innovative approach of interactive media works from the 1990s to early 2000s from cultures spanning from Europe and the Balkans, to Asia, the U.S. and Australia, giving attendees a chance to engage with emulators from the department's CD- and DVD-ROM collection.
It was a day of nostalgia, experimentation, and a reminder that storytelling isn’t always linear — or passive. These works don’t just invite us to watch, they challenge us to actively participate and shape the narrative, transforming the traditional role of the audience into that of an active storyteller.
Visitors were invited to explore a physical exhibition of these emulators at the Film Study Center, showcasing interactive media that once redefined digital storytelling by making the audience active participants.
Unlike the sleek, polished media interfaces we're accustomed to today, these works embrace imperfection. And honestly? It’s a refreshing shift. In the case of interactive media, glitches don’t feel like bugs — they become part of the experience.
When watching a linear narrative like a movie on Netflix, we might find it frustrating if it pauses and starts buffering. However, with interactive media works like these, the technical hassles and glitches become part of the experience, contributing to the story being told.
Sally or the Bubble Burst, for instance, is a 2003 AI experiment by interactive cinema pioneer Toni Dove. The program allows you to communicate with Sally, an avatar inspired by Sally Rand, the iconic 1930s American burlesque dancer known for her balloon bubble dance, either by typing or using a voice-activated microphone.
I encountered some glitches with the voice-activated option, so I opted to type instead. When Sally asked how I was feeling, I replied, “Fantastic, and you?” She promptly asked me to try again. Clearly trained on a limited set of responses, Sally requires users to adapt their replies to something simpler, like “Good.” This need to work with the system and be patient felt oddly endearing.
The program also offered to predict my future, but in a humorous twist, Sally’s responses were cheeky lines like, “Oh, you really thought I’d know?” It’s a delightful throwback to the early days of AI, when machine learning systems were less refined and far more sarcastic.
Another standout piece in the showcase was Beyond, a computer simulation that immerses visitors in a supernatural story where they become a ghost, experiencing haunting videos paired with a claustrophobic soundscape. The experience was unsettling, like being trapped in a digital purgatory, in the best way possible. Artist Zoe Beloff was present at the showcase to connect with users, discuss the interactive media piece she created nearly three decades ago, and reflect on its enduring impact.
The exhibition, expertly curated by Cinema Studies students, explored the interactivity of media works by engaging multiple senses beyond visuals, such as sound in Shock in the Ear and touch in Impalpability.
Shock in the Ear was one of the most impactful works I experienced during the showcase. This narrative-driven piece guides visitors through various “sites” of shock and trauma, using auditory sensations to evoke powerful emotions. Created by Norie Neumark, the work highlights the sensual nature of sound and its role in shaping the aesthetic experience.
Impalpability by Masaki Fujihata stood out for its tactile approach. Users control and digitally manipulate close-up images of their own skin by pressing their finger on the ball underneath a computer mouse. In today’s era of laptops with touchpads and modern mice that use laser technology instead of trackballs, the interaction felt nostalgic — a reminder of how quickly our relationship with technology evolves.
Many of these experiences are on CD-ROMs, a format no longer supported by most modern computers. Many of the works also rely on outdated operating systems that are no longer compatible with today’s technology. To make these media pieces accessible, the computer center retrofitted their machines to run these programs. This instantly transports visitors back to the late 1990s, evoking memories of my own early interactions with computers as a kid.
On the note of computer mice, DanmatsuMouse by exonemo focused on various ways to destroy a computer mouse. The experience wasn’t just about the act of destruction — it felt like a playful critique of the very tools we rely on in the digital world.
Troubles with Sex, Theory & History, created by feminist artists Marina Gržinić, and Aina Šmid, stood out for its subtle but powerful challenge. It prompted users to click on what they don’t want, a seemingly simple task that quickly became more complex. Designed to prompt self-reflection, the piece makes users confront their own biases and preconceptions, making the process feel like a deliberate challenge to one’s sense of agency.
These interactive works don’t just seek attention — they require active participation. Plus, they reveal something about yourself. Are you clicking frantically on random things, or are you taking your time to carefully navigate the story? What determines the order in which you explore, when you’re given the freedom to choose in a non-linear world? Whether you move quickly or slowly, how you engage with each piece says a lot about you as a viewer.
The day concuded with a special screening event where Marina Hassapopoulou, Assistant Professor of Cinema Studies at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, introduced her book Interactive Cinema: The Ambiguous Ethics of Media Participation. The event featured a participatory screening of Kinoautomat, the first feature-length interactive film.
Premiering at Expo 67 in Montreal, Kinoautomat was groundbreaking for its time. Directed by Czechoslovak filmmaker Radúz Činčera, it allowed audiences to vote on the protagonist’s decisions — but with a twist.
The film begins at the end of the story, so no matter which choice you make, it always loops back to a pre-determined conclusion, subtly questioning the concept of free will. At one point, you’re prompted to reconsider your decision, and at another, your choice is simply deemed “wrong.”
In a striking moment, Kinoautomat speaks directly to the audience in the end and reveals parts of the story we hadn't seen before, subtly influencing our judgment. Born in the Communist Soviet Union, the film was censored for its exploration of decision-making and democracy, making it all the more fascinating to watch.
Prof. Hassapopoulou’s book dives deep into the world of interactive cinema, exploring how it transforms what has traditionally been a passive experience into an interactive one. By examining a range of works from early cinema to VR experiments, she unpacks how interactive media challenges our notions of spectatorship and connects to broader themes like community and democracy.
The event provided a fantastic opportunity to experience a nuanced and layered understanding of digital storytelling, examining some of its almost forgotten early phases. The glitches, the decisions, the strange and wonderful interactions with the machine — they all come together to tell a story that feels more personal, more engaging, and uniquely shaped by the user.
“We tend to think of the “digital” as a singular, monolithical period in media history….yet, there are actually many phases of the digital/electronic, as this interactive media exhibition explores. Each phase has its own particularities that are connected to the specificity of the hardware, software, and other contextually and materially-specific aspects. Although interactive media technology has “evolved” since the 1990s, the featured projects are still considered some of the most sophisticated early creative approaches to digital interactivity.”
Credits
Featured New Media Art:
Norie Neumark & Maria Miranda, Richard Vella, Greg White, and David Bartolo, Shock in the Ear (1998, CD-ROM)
DanmatsuMouse (computer mouse and software; exonemo, 2007)
Toni Dove, Sally or the Bubble Burst (2003, DVD-ROM with voice activated microphone)
Marina Gržinić, and Aina Šmid, Troubles with Sex, Theory & History (1997, CD-ROM)
Hugo Glendinning & Tim Etchell, 1997, Frozen Palaces, Art:Intact
Masakai Fujihata, Impalpability, (1998, CD-ROM)
Zoe Beloff, Beyond (1997)
Chris Marker, Immemory (1997, CD-ROM)
Bettina Ellerkamp, Jörg Heitmann, Killer.Berlin.doc (1999)
Exhibition Made Possible Thanks To:
Ina Cajulis, Ethan Gates, Greg Helmstetter, Ann Harris, and the Martin Scorsese Department of Cinema Studies and the MIAP program for emulating the collection so that more people can access this invaluable anthology of early interactive digital works.
See more on Interactive Media Exhibition Website
Interactive Cinema & New Media Advanced Seminar – Fall 2024
Ana Marks – Catalog, collection of links to relevant websites. Curated and organized information for the exhibition site.
Angela Kohout – Media Archaeology (Linda Dement collection), post-event summary
Carter Jones – Design(Digital Event Flyer, Website Header), Exhibition In-person assistance
Sophia Winkler – Exhibit pre-production (logistics and organizational support), Digital Event Flyer, post-production (gathering reports and uploading to the Interactive media archive)
Kieren Wheeling – Promotional Trailer
Loke Zhang-Fiskesjö – Media Archaeology (Frozen Palaces, Killerberlin.doc), Event Photography, Closing Report
Ronan Solomon – Design (Catalog, Music Curation), Event Operations (Videography), Post Production (Video Editing)
Sabrina Smith – Design(base image creation), event photographer
Vincent Antista – Exhibition in-person assistant, additional media archaeology post
Xulun Luo – Disk Emulation, Immemory Blog Post
Yushu Wang – Additional Media Archeology Post (Immemory), Videographer, Editor
Zhongwen Li – Base image creation, Header and Background image creation for exhibition website
Ayisat Bisiriyu – Social media coverage, Catalog contribution
On-site showcase event support: Nithya Balakrishnan, Gabriel Murray, Deven…, Jenn…, Patrick…
Marina Hassapopoulou is Assistant Professor in the Department of Cinema Studies, at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. She has previously served as Associate Co-Director of the Moving Image Archiving and Preservation program. Some of her areas of expertise include: digital humanities, transnational and border cinema, posthumanism, science fiction, reception and fan studies, film and media theory/philosophy, and hybrid pedagogy. Her book, Interactive Cinema: The Ambiguous Ethics of Media Participation (University of Minnesota Press - Electronic Mediations series, 2024), engages with a multitude of unconventional approaches throughout the history of motion pictures to offer insight into a range of largely ephemeral and site-specific projects that consciously assimilate viewers into their production. Through an exploration of radically inventive approaches to the medium, many of which emerged out of socio-political crises and periods of historical transition, Interactive Cinema works to expand notions of interactivity by considering it in both technological and phenomenological terms.
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