FEATURE
Interaction
as Performance
Steve Benford

University of Nottingham | [e-mail]

Gabriella Giannachi

University of Exeter | [e-mail] May + June 2012

interactions

There is a fascinating and poten-
tially deeply productive relation-
ship between interaction design,
theater, and performance. On the
one hand, interaction designers are
increasingly involved with artistic
experiences in which participants
perform with computers to express
themselves or to engage in a cultural
experience. On the other hand, the
spread of computers into public
settings means that our everyday
interactions become ever more
performative in the sense that they
are witnessed by others nearby [ 1],
who often embrace roles in these
interactions [ 2]. In either case, it
is illuminating to view interaction
as performance, an argument that
lies at the heart of our new book,
Performing Mixed Reality, published by
MIT Press [ 2]. Our overall goal is to
lay the foundations for a “dramatur-
gy of performance” by establishing a
framework of concepts—a language,
if you like—to help express the dif-
ferent ways in which computers
can be embedded into performative
experiences. We intend this frame-
work to guide practitioners and
researchers who are entering the
field of artistic, performance, and
cultural applications of computing.
However, we also aim to stimulate
wider thinking in HCI in general
around the changing nature of the
extended user experience and the
new challenges this raises.