The Trace in Digital Interactive work. A rethinking between identification and “technique of the self”

Abstract

Few thoughts on interactive action highlight the importance of the trace in the relationship which links us to our interactive digital environment. First, the question of trace will be rethink from the aspect of identification, by questioning the manner we learned to read the traces we generate. If Krauss's aspect of index is linked to a trace as identity, the digital aspect of the interactive work leads us to think how the immaterial of digitality generates an almost non-existent of the trace, involving a mystification, which can find back the glory of the omnipotence. In parallel, a reflexion from the theory of Barthes will leads us to understand the trace as an autonomous and a material entity.

Through this research, our goal is then to give back materiality to this trace, and give up this mystification. As independent entity, the trace is no longer a part of ourselves, but allows us to think on ourselves. From my point of view, digital data is not only a work tool, but a way to think, in a philosophical aspect, how the digital traces can be seen as a reflection on the history of the Self (Michel Foucault. Dits et Écrits 1957 - 1988).

The work Pulse Room (2006) by Rafael Lozano-Hemmer will enable us to reflect on this new epistemological approach to interactive digital arts, far away from an usual humanocentrist thinking.