On Therapy for Autistic Children Using Interactive Media Art
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Journal of Education & Social Policy Vol. 6, No. 2, June 2019 doi:10.30845/jesp.v6n2p13 On Therapy for Autistic Children Using Interactive Media Art Ting Xu Ph. D. Student Graduate School of Core Ethics and Frontier Sciences Ritsumeikan University Kyoto, Japan Abstract This paper is based on the theory of interactive media art. It refers to the understanding of various domestic and foreign scholars on interactive media art. It first indicates how interactive media art is different from traditional art and from its predecessor - new media art. Reflection on interactive media art suggests that it can help people in need and especially help break the self-enclosure of autistic children. There is some theoretical research on this question both in China and many other countries. There is nonetheless not much literature on the treatment of autistic children using interactive media art or on various methods of treating children with autism which explores the advantage and possible therapy for children with autism using interactive media art. In the previous studies, only a few existing interactive art cases and data consider the role of interactive media art in children's experiences, care and education. Through theoretical research, it will provide theoretical guidance for future research on autistic children in China. Keywords: new media art, interactive media art, autistic children, experience, treatment 1. Overview and purpose In the context of rapid development of modern media and Internet of things technology, the definition and popularization of interactive media art play a positive role in promoting the current human civilization and future development. Interactive media art combines art with science and technology. As a new subject of digital media art in the field of art design, interactive media art has broad prospects for development. There are many names in China for digital media art in the academic world, but each has its own emphasis. Most are biased towards art, such as "multimedia network art" (Wan, Y., Wan,R., & Chen,S.H., 2007), or "digital design art" (Chen, H.Q., & Lv J.F., 2004), there is "interactive media art"1 (Guo, X. H., & He, Y. J. , 2008), as well as the opening of a program of information art design at Tsinghua University. Different names are also used abroad, Myron Kruger (1983) put forward "artificial reality", Paul Milgram & Fuio Kishino (1994) "mix reality", Stephen Wilson (2002) proposed "information art", Jay David Bolter and Diane Gromala (2003) "digital art", and David Robert &Cynthia Breazeal (2010) "blended reality". However, the above-mentioned approaches mostly focus on how these works are designed by computer, or in the case of art design on the principles of information processing. There is no comprehensive and thorough explanation from the perspective of art design, to help understand how to use it in life or in the market. In order to compensate that lack. In 2012, "interactive media art" was retained as the name of the discipline. Interactive media art is an interlaced and interacting art form that uses various media. It is thus a new multi-media art2centered on interactive ideas and interactive technologies. (Xu T., 2012). Bai & Li (2007) write that "to interact" is defined in the "New Age English-Chinese Dictionary" and in the "Oxford English Dictionary" as a verb that refers to interaction, mutual influence, mutual restraint, and mutual induction. 1 The "interactive media art" is different from "interactive media art"published by me in 2012. In my concept, the scope of media is broader and refers to the person or thing in which the two are related. 2 The definition of new media art is narrow and broad.In a narrow sense, it is mainly an interactive and comprehensive art with "electronic" media and "optical" media as the basic language and digital technology as the core. Broadly speaking, the new media art is a form of artistic creation that is reflected in the use of traditional artistic expression techniques, along with the development of science and technology using new products. It is not a fixed term, it changes with the progress of science and technology and the development of society. (Chen Ling, 2007, p3) 111 ISSN 2375-0782 (Print) 2375-0790 (Online) © Center for Promoting Ideas, USA www.jespnet.com With the development of science and technology, and the wide use of electronic media and computers, to interact now also includes interactions between human and machine and between machine and machine (Bai, X. Z., & Li, Y. N., 2007). There are further at least two different interpretations of the term "media". In the broad sense, as Marshall McLuhan (1964) pointed out, the term can be used to refer to any extension of the human body. In a narrow sense, "media" is a general term to refer to mass communication tools, such as the television, newspapers, radio, advertising and computer networks. In the interactive media art, media refers any communication tool, mostly electronic based but also traditional ones like a pen and paper. Through the use of special materials and tools art reflects reality in various forms, but also sublimates from reality, it promotes a more social ideology that can resonate with many people, and applies aesthetic abilities and skills. Creative work can be full of passion and vitality, but art can also simply be a noun that refers to a collection in a museum. Traditional poetry, fiction, music, and dance are also art and understood as a verb, art is a process, for example a performance. Interactive media art is different from traditional art forms. In a traditional art like music, listeners only listen. In traditional painting, the audience only looks at the painting. Thus, in traditional art creation, the artist holds the monopoly of the art work, and the work is limited by the tools that convey the information. The audience can only to accept it . The work conveys information to the audience in a one- directional way and does not need to obtain in return any information from the world in order to be completed. That limits most traditional works of art to being static. Of course, people are not simply blindly, passively watch. Different audiences have different aesthetic standards for judging art. However, audiences cannot feed their understanding back into the art works. That is, audiences cannot influence the art work with their own information (Chen L., 2007). In interactive media art the artist gives up his or her monopoly of power over the work and allows the‘experiencer’ to respond actively. The art work itself interacts with the outside world. More people can participate in the work. The audience can participate in it, give feedback to the composer, and the artwork will change with the participation of the 'experiencers'. The transmission of information between the work and the experiencer becomes bi-directional. (ibid, 2007) The work can pass information to the experiencer, and the experiencer can pass information back to the work. The work can be perfected by the participation of different experiencers. This cycle of information between the work and the experiencer is characteristics of interaction using different media. Although, as mentioned earlier, the media may include paper and other media such as metal or glass or a combination of both interactive media art mainly resorts to new media, which is to say those resting on electricity, using optical carrier, and requiring a computer or other electronic tools of artistic creation (Xu, 2015). Interactive media art is found in video art, in installation art, in game art, communication and network art, in interactive dance and interactive music, in virtual reality, and robotics. It thus encompasses a large variety of methods and tools and its defining characteristics is its interactive dimension. In this paper, I want to consider the possibility of using interactive media art as a form of therapy for children with autism. Interactive media art is not only a frontier discipline in Chinese art design, it is not only part of the creative industry, but also needs to be people-oriented, to serve humanity. We need to apply theory to practice, and in turn to test whether this theory can help those in need. Children with autism usually cannot communicate with each other or with other children. They live in the world by themselves, and even their self-perception is often limited. They need to be helped. I hope that with the help of interactive media art, exploiting its two way information transmission, its multi-sensory dimension and its fun aspects autistic children can come to learn through play and through different experiences. Thereby helping, educating and improving the life of these children. The biggest difficulty which children with autism experience concerns communication. They seem to be closed upon themselves and some researchers see them as "mind blind", unable to recognize that others have a mind and one of their more obvious feature is lack of emotions (Baron-Cohen, 1995). One of the most distinctive features of the interactive art is the two-way dimension of information exchange it involves, so that information from the experiencer can be fed back to the work and further improve its design. It modifies the output. Another remarkable feature of interactive media art is its multi-sensory integration. It does not only call upon visual experience, but mobilizes also a multi-sensory experience of touch, hearing and smell. This novel approach can help make these children interested, and perhaps learn some skills while playing. 2. Children with autism 2.1 Concept 112 Journal of Education & Social Policy Vol. 6, No. 2, June 2019 doi:10.30845/jesp.v6n2p13 Autism is a lifelong developmental disorder that occurs in a continuum called the Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).