Analysis of Audience Communication Steps in “Interactive Digital Installation Mirror” Based on Erving Goffman’s Framework Theory Analysis

The advancement of digital technologies has impacted a variety of artistic media and provided the artists with diverse modes for expressing their ideas. One of these methods is using digital technologies in the form of interactive installations that achieve their artistic goals through the affective presence of their audience.
Understanding great artistic works occur simultaneously at the four levels of perception, emotional, mental, and spiritual. Therefore, a part of the strong effect of digital media is created by the five senses. Using the five senses in understanding artistic works has always been an effective method for aligning the audience with the work. Digital systems recreate and present a simulation of this method in most cases. Nowadays, technology creates messages alongside novel capabilities for artistic media to present a different presence and understanding for their audience. Technologies have different special capabilities and capacities that limit different types of interaction between audiences, content, environments, active message providers while creating different capabilities and interactions. Besides information transfers, digital capabilities present different experiences to the audience alongside. Any digital artifact is a wide page of video games, physical figures, interfaces, appearances, and feel of a user experience section. Any digital artifact will be shown to the user when needed. Still, artistic works that are created by the digital industry are capable of communicating for concept transfer while being able to recreate the creator's experiences indirectly for the audience or visitor. All techniques presented by digital technologies to the artist for creating their works can help users to leave behind their passive state and gain a novel active state.
Erving Goffman is an American sociologist that has many different theories in the field of sociology and social interaction. Erving Goffman was an idol-like character in the world of sociology for years and came to this high level of theory crafting in the 1980s. The framework analysis is one of his major theories. He published the framework analysis theory in 1974, which presented a novel analysis method that had gained his attention from the early 1950s. Goffman defines social organizations as places that limit the senses with their fixed obstacles where a certain kind of activity happens in it regularly. We regularly observe that these environments are divided into the behind-the-scenes, where the necessary preparations for a process are predicted, and front-of-the-scenes, where the process is performed. There are interactions in the Goffman social organizations that lead to information transfers. Goffman believed that when somebody is present in front of others, they usually start gathering information regarding him or active their previously known information. Information regarding anybody helps define the situations, enables others to know what he expects, and what they can expect from him. It seems that a fundamental dialectic is the foundation of all social interaction; when somebody is in the presence of others, they want to discover the facts of their situations while if they have information regarding that situation, they will be able to predict what will happen and facilitate the conditions for occurrence. Therefore, most knowledge and information regarding people's situations in facing others are gained using interactions when people are in the presence of each other. So, a definition of the intended situation is presented to the audience so that they could gain some knowledge regarding that situation. When there is an occurrence or interactions that happen on the contrary of the created situation or expectations, they create the following situations. The present research seeks to analyze the art of interactive digital installations using Erving Goffman’s “framework theory” theory through adopting a descriptive-analytical method and collecting data through desk research. The research also aims to address the manner of framework development in audience’s mind and examine how the audience develops a desire to interact with the piece of art. It is assumed that an interactive piece of art can adapt to the framework theory that addresses audience’s comprehension and how he plays a role in social life since it requires the audience to participate as a part of the piece to complete its concepts. This is because the audience of an interactive piece of art is first witness to another audience’s interaction with the piece, and is afterwards put in the piece’s specific framework and plays a role based on his inference.  Thus, should the audience encounter a predictable piece of art, the encounter shall be analyzed through the primary framework in which the witness is also considered to be the observer; but should the audience encounter an unpredictable piece that cannot be framed, he enters phases such as solution-seeking and story-making, marking the experience as a complex one in his mind. Such phases are guided by communicating with audience that have previously interacted with the piece. In the initial framework step, the audience or participator becomes the spectator of another audience member interacting with the work. During the second framework, the audience decides to interact with the work. He enters the work in the response step and interacts with the work under a controlled and planned method during the control step. After the work interaction step, the audience reflects on the work. The audience member understands the work message during the fixation step and terminates their connection. Here, the three-dimensional concept of the audience image creates a virtual reality, which considerably motivates him and other audience members. This situation is a scenario that provides digital layouts for its audience. Digital layouts have turned into one of the leading fields of digital art due to their technology-provided capabilities, and attention to the interactive nature of modern arts in the artistic work experience and interactive arts. Virtual reality allows you to touch three-dimensional images, which allows the audience to fully enter the virtual world created by the artist. Works of interactive arts intend to attract the audience by collaborating with the desired piece; therefore, the audience can be encouraged to collaborate with the piece by using the Guffman framework theory that believed in presenting an effective pattern by the main artist because in this way the audience member can create a story that will happen in front of him with experimental complexities while problem-solving.  According to the proposed theory, the relationship between the digital interactive art of the mirror from Nobimichi Asai with the stages of audience interaction has been analyzed in five stages of response, control, reflection, belonging and disconnection. In such a way that the audience will only see the work of art if they are observers; But it is in the second context that interaction takes place.  If the artist announces the framework and program of the audience's presence in the work of art to the audience and he is aware of the work process, this information will probably make the audience more willing to accompany and participate in the event; Also, if a model is presented as a general framework of the work, the audience, while finding solutions, will create a story and become familiar with the empirical complexities of the work, so a greater tendency to interact with the work will appear in him, which is one of the main goals of each work.