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Jeanyoon Choi (b.1999) is a Computational Artist researching in interconnectivity and complexity through Multi-Device Web Artworks.

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jeanyoon.ch@oi /oi % cat from-semantic-interaction-to-phenomenological-interaction

From Semantic Interaction to Phenomenological Interaction

2025-03-05

System art should be semantic, interactive and modular. The challenge is to make a meaningful interaction approachable enough that a newcomer can begin without a lengthy explanation.

There are at least two directions. A nonsemantic bodily action can be transformed into a semantic consequence. Or an initially semantic action can become bodily and phenomenological through use. I am particularly interested in the second transition here.

A participant first presses a button because of what its label means. Later, they may press for the pleasure of the effect itself. Their attention shifts from the represented choice to the rhythm and force of acting. Everyday platform use contains a related movement from deliberate selection towards habitual gesture.

This matters because an exhibition visitor is not necessarily ready to provide substantial context. An empty text field or voice prompt may produce hesitation or a dummy word. Asking for a whole sentence at the outset can stop an interaction before it develops. A more responsive voice system does not by itself solve the absence of something the visitor wants to say.

A limited set of initial choices can be more productive. Buttons, lists, sliders, toggles, numerical inputs and multitouch allow someone to act with relatively little effort. Sensor-based input, language and environmental data can join later or operate alongside them.

A direct control is not inherently less immersive than a more technically elaborate sensor. Carefully composed combinations can become playful, fluid and Dadaist. Conversely, a bodily input can become semantic through the transformation of its effects.

In Junk Site, the participant could move through broad, intermediate and specific categories. At first they tap each button separately. As the response becomes familiar, their finger stops leaving the surface and begins sliding across the options. Context changes continuously, and websites appear or transform across the surrounding screens.

I imagine finger-skating: gliding over an interface whose semantic choices become a physical field. Multitouch could complicate that field. Sliders offer another route, especially when their orientation and arrangement are designed for the direction in which the hand naturally wants to move.

A familiar page hierarchy can provide a structure: broad category A, narrower B, specific C. Moving horizontally travels between levels; moving vertically scrolls within one. The ordinary grammar of a social or shopping interface becomes material for a more exaggerated interaction.

Possible contexts include shopping for political territories, or repurposing flight and hotel booking interfaces. A map already combines purposeful navigation with the pleasure of panning, pinching and zooming. It is both semantic and tactile.

Another possibility is a precarious system that appears balanced until an intense bodily intervention exposes its instability. I called this ‘punctum interaction’ in the notes: an external disturbance reveals something that the polished simulation normally conceals. Over time, the system restores its equilibrium and attempts to erase the disturbance. Ω suggests part of this structure.

The remaining questions concern the relationship between equilibrium, external shock and the participant’s bodily action. Hammer.js was one technical reference to investigate for the gesture layer.

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