Although much work has been done in the field of screen-based interactive art, the mode of interaction in these works is confined by the very existence of image material on a screen, the so called "graphical user interface". I am particularly interested in interaction which takes place in the space of the body, in which kinesthetic intelligences, rather than "literary-imagistic" intelligences play a major part.
The goal of Petit Mal is to produce a robotic artwork which is truly autonomous; which is nimble and has "charm"; that senses and explores architectural space and that pursues and reacts to people; that gives the impression of intelligence and has behavior which is neither anthropomorphic nor zoomorphic, but which is unique to its physical and electronic nature.
The formulation "an autonomous robotic artwork" marks out a territory quite novel with respect to traditional artistic endevours as we have no canon of autonomous interactive esthetics. Petit Mal is an attempt to explore the esthetics of machine behavior and interactive behavior in a real world setting. Its public function is to present visitors with the embodiment of a machine "intelligence" which is substantially itself, not an automaton or simulation of some biological system. More generally, Petit Mal seeks to raise as issues the social and cultural implications of "Artificial Life". The reflexive nature of interactivity is a focal issue: interactive behavior is defined by the cultural experience of the human visitor. As in the Turing Test, evaluation of interactivity is subjective.
http://www.ace.uci.edu/penny/works/petitmal/petitcode.html