Please reference as: [Author(s)‐of‐paper] (2013) [Title‐of‐paper] in Cleland, K., Fisher, L. & Harley, R. (Eds.) Proceedings of the 19th International Symposium of Electronic Art, ISEA2013, Sydney. http://ses.library.usyd.edu.au/handle/2123/9475 Page numbering begins at 1 at the start of the paper. FROM INTERACTIVITY TO PLAYABILITY Olli Tapio Leino School of Creative Media City University of Hong Kong 16 Tat Hong Ave., Kowloon Tong, HK Email: <otleino@cityu.edu.hk>. Abstract This paper discusses the similarities and differences between participatory, interactive, and playable art. It suggests that computer games can provide novel perspectives on interactivity in interactive art. The paper also proposes that the implications of com- puter games to interactive art extend beyond what- ever purpose and value computer games are perceived as having as products of popular culture. Keywords: interactivity, play, games, ludology Introduction Museums and symposia have opened their doors to computer games. The MoMA collection in New York includes computer games, and for several years ISEA symposia have had sessions dedi- cated to games. This is not surprising, since computer games and interactive art share a number of characteristics related to, for example, their technological un- derpinnings. The relationship between an audience and an interactive artwork is in many respects similar to the relationship between a computer game and its player. These similarities can make it hard to formally distinguish between interactive artworks and computer games [1], and it is not surprising that the history of com- puter games can also be viewed as a history of interactive art, and vice versa [2]. Despite their similarities, computer games and interactive art seem to belong to different cultural spheres and are ap- preciated from different perspectives. Some scholars of new media art have expressed concerns about the infiltration of ‘playful’ impulses into new media art, [3], [4]. The separation is somewhat worrying, as the two phenomena have a lot to learn from each other in terms of strategies of audience engagement and meaning-making. The tensions that are at play between traditions of interactive art and computer games are supposedly due in part to how the phenomena we know as ‘interactive art’ and as ‘games’ be- come constructed in social settings, and the kind of cultural and conceptual bag- gage that are attached to the terms. As Chesher [5] puts it: “New media art of- fers forms of identity for gallery visitors that are very different from the identities that games offer players.” However, in addition to explaining the tensions as social constructions, as Chesher does with the help of Bourdieu, I believe that it is also possible, to a meaningful ex- tent, to trace the similarities and differ- ences between interactive art and computer games to the technological affordances of the objects in question, and the kinds of human/ technology rela- tions these affordances give rise to. In this paper I propose, following Dinkla [6], to situate computer games on a historical trajectory, beginning at par- ticipatory art and moving on to interac- tivity. I suggest that this trajectory be extended in terms of a contemporary shift from interactivity to playability. Following my discussion of this shift, I will argue that the notion of ‘playability’ offers a vantage point for analysis and criticism of non-playable, merely ‘inter- active’ artworks. Doing so will shed light on the differences and similarities between computer games and interactive art. My argument seeks to support the position that computer games, in the context of art, can be appreciated not only as yet another form of pop culture brought to museums, but more specifi- cally in the tradition of interactive and new media art: as contributing to the re- evolution of interactive art. This will help facilitate reflection on whether the childish stigma that new media art dis- course often imposes on computer games is justified. Participation and Interaction Dinkla proposed an art-historical trajec- tory from participation to interaction. Comparing interactive artworks to Kaprow’s happenings, Dinkla suggested that the involvement of an interactive machine allows the artist to be removed from the reception situation. Dinkla sug- gested that with technology, it became possible to control the relationship be- tween the artwork and the audience by ‘machinic’ means. The dialogue between the artwork and the audience in the re- ception situation, the very matter that Dinkla [7] views as the ‘artistic materi- al’, was ‘automatized’. In this setting, the machine assumed the authorial re- sponsibility of events in the reception situation. This automatization is, accord- ing to Dinkla, what justifies talking about the shift from participation to in- teraction. Broadly speaking, the common ground that exists between the genres of interactive and participatory art rests upon the fact that they both live by the input from the audience. The audience must invest energy and effort into help- ing to realize the artists’ vision. This gives us a working definition of interac- tivity in interactive art; if a work can be ‘complete’ even without any effort from the audience, it is perhaps best described as something else than Interactive. Thus, interactive and participatory artworks leave room for the audience: they afford being manipulated by the audience. This applies to computer games, too: it would probably be impossible, and make little sense, to analyze and critique a computer game without playing it. While computer games and interactive art share the mode of audience engagement described above, computer games commonly con- tain an element that is seldom found in interactive art, but whose prevalence in the context of games was pointed out already by Gadamer [8]: risk. The emerging tradition of game stud- ies has sought to conceptualize computer games mainly through an analogy to traditional games. In this ‘ludological’ reading, computer games can be concep- tualized with the same terminology one may use for the description of tradition- al, ‘non-digital’ games: the ‘risk’ that is essential to game-play appears in lu- dological analysis of a computer game as manifested in, and facilitated by, rules, goals, challenges, winning condition, and so on. However: there is no shortage of ex- amples of computer ‘games’ that cannot be won, or lack other qualities that would justify the term ‘game’ – perhaps the most popular of these are the games in The Sims franchise [9]. It would seem unwise to force the concept of a ‘game’ onto The Sims, since it clearly manifests a form different from that of traditional games. Hence, it is not surprising that the analytic and critical capabilities of the ‘ludological’ position have been con- tested. Woods [10], for example, sug- gests that for the purpose of describing computer games, mountain climbing or Sudoku would be better analogies than traditional games. The parallel between computer games and traditional games might be beneficial for the project of introducing computer games as products of popular culture into museums and other institutions, for the sake of, for example, the preservation of cultural heritage and/or PR and marketing. How- ever, the analogy to traditional, ‘non- digital’ games is problematic for the description of the shift from interactivity to playability. As I will show in the fol- lowing, to limit the analysis to digital ‘games’ only would be to overlook the technological specificity of the ways in which playable artworks enhance the kind of audience engagement we may be