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Like the program, the memory in a computer is also invisible, but even more so because for information to get into or out of memory it needs to travel through the program. This process which connects the real world with the internal memory must involve transformation but may or may not involve interpretation. It usually does not.

For example a moving image is stored as a moving image and later played back as the same moving image. In this case transformation takes place at the input device, the camera system, by digitizing the image and at the output device by undigitizing the image and displaying it. This process is simply the regurgitation of raw data. It doesn't have to be. The current structure of the computer allows for the possibility of interpreting an input and subsequently storing this interpretation in memory. The original data need not be stored at all.

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This potential of the computer to be able to extract information from an input and store it not as raw data but as associated data is one the fundamental characteristics that allows for a work to be able to change and grow with time and even change its vocabulary with time.

To me this is one of the most exciting and unique possibilities in computer art and very little work has been done in this area. Works that perceivably never repeat themselves. Works that respond to their environment not just in a short term way, but in a long term way unpredictably and meaningfully. Easier said then done.

A short conclusion and then I'll show the last of the video documentation. The difference between an interactive game and an interactive work of art is not just in the subject matter. It's also in the program and interface, which are an important part of the expression of a work. Artists working in this field will continue to be odds with the models and directions of the multimedia industry.

Interactive art that uses a computer is not there yet. Probably the only meaningful dialogues that occur while interacting with a work, are between the viewers and themselves. Responses from the work that are altered reflections of the viewer's responses. The limitations that we are up against at this point are no longer technological. Possibly as we understand more about communication, it will be possible to express not a thought but a fragment of a way of thinking and growing.

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The difference between an interactive game and an interactive work of art is not just in the subject matter.

The program and the interface are an important part of the expression of a work. And lastly the computer industry's goals will always be in a different direction than artists who want to create interactive art so collaborate with a programmer.