Transactional Art as a Form of Interactive Art

Abstract

Interactive media, especially the internet, are often used in an economic context where interactions are actually transactions. We focus on artists who apply economic principles and coin those works as “transactional arts”. We will introduce a few historic (non-media) examples and then show that many accomplished new media works actually have transactional features. The characteristics of the internet economy seem to facilitate this kind of art form. In the field of transactional arts, buying and selling are means of self-expression, marketplaces are created as a forms of art, mesh-ups may resemble online businesses, commissioning and division of labor becomes a constituent of the artwork, personal finances as well as the financial markets are artistically reflected. Most importantly, in transactional arts incentives become artistic material and artists facilitate or participate in all sorts of deal-making. Unlike many purely interactive artworks, transactional art explicitly appeals to the rationality of the participants and often seeks some sort of agreement - in other words - some sort of deal. The notion of value as the entity to be exchanged often becomes the central issue and various forms of capital coexist or are converted into each other. The setting of the transactions may vary as well; some take place within the art world others involve the commercial domain. Transactional artists create not only aesthetic value but often also economic capital. They therefore tend to fulfill success criteria of both disciplines involved – here art and business.