Essay by Michelle McLachlan for Contextualising Practice
In an era where visual information is incessantly mediated, edited, and curated, the question of what constitutes ‘truth’ in perception has become increasingly complex. Artists working with responsive and interactive materials —those that change in reaction to environmental stimuli —have found compelling ways to interrogate this complexity. This essay explores how the integration of thermochromic, photochromatic, and hydrophobic materials in contemporary interactive art practices engages with feminist and auto-theoretical critiques of objectivity and perception. These materials, which transform in response to heat, light, and water, not only create visually dynamic works but also metaphorically challenge the idea that seeing is believing. They invite a reconsideration of how knowledge is constructed. Through the body, through experience, and through participation, aligning closely with feminist and auto-theoretical frameworks that question the neutrality of vision and the supposed objectivity of traditional knowledge systems (as observed by Haraway, 1988; Fournier, 2021).
Reactive materials provide a tangible metaphor for the instability of visual perception. Their visual transformations, such as colours shifting with touch, imagery appearing under water, or text revealing itself under sunlight, echo the broader idea that what we see is never fixed but always shaped by context and interaction. This aligns with contemporary critiques, by theorists such as Haraway, of visual certainty and with feminist epistemological arguments about the partial, situated nature of knowledge (1988). This concept resonates with The Patient exhibition at the University of New South Wales (UNSW), which explored how medical science frames the body through technological scrutiny. The exhibition emphasised how lived, subjective experience resists clinical, binary definitions of health and identity. Similarly, artworks that utilise reactive materials operate within a liminal space, revealing and concealing, and inviting viewers to question the reliability of visual evidence. Just as diagnostic technologies render the invisible visible, these materials expose how our environments and tools shape what we are able, or allowed, to see (Paul, 2015).
In my own practice, I use these materials not just for their aesthetic appeal but for their epistemological weight. For instance, a recent piece employed hydrophobic ink on a road surface, revealing a hidden layer of text only when water was sprayed onto the surface, or it rained. This act of revealing through interaction parallels the idea that knowledge often exists in dormant or unacknowledged forms, requiring particular conditions, actions, or sensitivities to surface.
Feminist epistemology, particularly as advanced by Donna Haraway, has long challenged the ideal of scientific objectivity. Haraway’s (1988) concept of ‘situated knowledge’ insists that all ways of knowing are contextually bound and embodied. Vision, which is often considered the most objective sense, is here reframed as a subjective, partial, and politically situated process. Lauren Fournier (2021) extends this framework through her articulation of autotheory, a hybrid mode that blends theoretical analysis with personal narrative. In her view, autotheory allows for the production of knowledge that is affective, embodied, and emotionally textured. This resonates deeply with how I approach my own artistic work. Rather than creating objects to be looked at from a distance, I create environments and surfaces that require the viewer’s physical interaction. For example, one installation required viewers to hold their hands on a sculpture embedded with thermochromic pigment. Their body heat would slowly activate the pigment, changing the colour to bring awareness to my personal experiences of illness and recovery. These materials are not just physical components of the work; they are collaborators. They change not only with environmental factors but with human interaction, reinforcing the notion that truth is not something pre-existing and revealed, but something co-constituted through relations and contact (as argued by Marks, 2002; Munster, 2006).
Autotheory reframes the artist’s role, not as a distant commentator but as a lived participant in the production of meaning. Fournier (2021) describes autotheory as a “lived methodology,” in which theoretical thinking is not only written or spoken but enacted through experience and creative practice. In this sense, my materials serve as epistemic agents. They behave differently depending on context, whether the room is warm or cool, whether the viewer engages physically or remains at a distance. They materialise the instability of knowledge, offering a direct analogy to the fluctuation of emotional, perceptual, and embodied truth. Interactive, reactive materials make visible what Fournier describes as the ‘slippage between the body and discourse’ (2021, p. 19). In my studio practice, I work closely with the limitations of these materials, including the fading effect of thermochromic inks over time, the unpredictability of water-repellent surfaces, and the variability in ultraviolet (UV) light exposure. These ‘failures’ or instabilities are not drawbacks; they are essential to the work’s conceptual foundation. They underscore how truth is unstable, how perception is fragile, and how knowledge is constantly in flux.
The role of the viewer is central to this conversation, particularly through the lens of interactivity. Ryszard Kluszczynski (2010) outlines interactive strategies that redefine the relationship between viewer and artwork. His ‘Strategy of Instrument’, for example, positions the artwork as a kind of tool that only becomes complete through engagement. This framework aligns with my own approach, where each viewer’s interaction yields different results. Because the materials are sensitive to heat, light, and moisture, the final visual experience depends entirely on how, when, and where the viewer interacts with the piece.
This echoes Michel de Certeau’s (1984) theory of ‘tactics’, wherein individuals manoeuvre within systems of control using personal, improvised actions. In my work, viewers perform their own tactics of seeing and revealing; they may blow on the surface to warm it, pour water strategically, or step into light to illuminate hidden elements. They are not merely viewers; they are agents, collaborators, and subjects within the work’s conceptual framework. By embedding participation into the material conditions of the work, I extend the feminist critique of passive spectatorship and Cartesian dualism[1]. The work exists not as a fixed object, but as an evolving encounter, each iteration a new, situated truth.
Beyond interactivity, reactive materials evoke emotional and psychological resonances that align with what Jacky Bowring (2016) describes as ‘melancholy’ in landscape design. In her terms, melancholy is not simply sorrow but a mode of heightened perception, introspection, and slowness. It resists the accelerated pace of digital consumption and rewards attunement to subtle changes. In recent experimentation, I explored this emotional quality through a slow-revealing fabric wall. When touched, the warmth gradually revealed fragments of handwritten journal entries. The revelation was not immediate; it took time and presence. This delay became a kind of meditative act, mirroring how emotional truths often emerge slowly, through embodied reflection. Melancholy here operates as both theme and method. The changing states of materials, appearing, fading, revealing, and hiding, mirror the unpredictability of memory and affect. They become affective artefacts that do not just show but evoke the instability of our inner worlds (see Bowring for an articulation of this, 2016).
Working with reactive materials is both a conceptual and technical practice. Thermochromic inks, for example, require careful temperature calibration to function correctly. Hydrophobic coatings are sensitive to application techniques and environmental conditions. These constraints are part of the work, not as problems to be overcome but as dynamics to engage with. They mirror the imperfect, unpredictable processes of knowing and feeling. Just as feminist epistemology embraces situated, messy knowledge (Haraway, 1988), my process embraces the material’s unpredictability. In this way, my practice enacts autotheory not only in content but in method. I bring personal narratives, emotional experiences, and theoretical frameworks into dialogue through the literal material of the artwork. My studio becomes a laboratory of lived methodology, where failures, surprises, and instability are not signs of weakness but evidence of the multiplicity of truth (Fournier, 2021).
This approach reflects Erin Fournier’s (2021) understanding of autotheory as a methodology that privileges lived experience, affect, and embodied knowledge. By describing the studio as a “laboratory of lived methodology,” I align my practice with Fournier’s assertion that instability, failure, and surprise are not signs of weakness, but rather essential components of knowledge production within autotheoretical work. These elements reveal the multiplicity of truth, challenging dominant notions of objectivity and reinforcing the value of subjectivity and personal narrative in theoretical inquiry.
These three artworks, Thixotropes, Text Rain, and e-skin—demonstrate how reactive and interactive art can serve as epistemological tools that challenge ideas of truth, objectivity, and perception. They provide valuable precedents for my own practice, where the viewer is not simply an observer but a collaborator. The materials I use —thermochromatic, photochromatic, and hydrophobic —serve as metaphors and mechanisms for revealing the conditions under which knowledge appears. As in the works of Troika, Utterback, and Scott, the act of viewing becomes an act of becoming, of forming a situated, embodied understanding of the work and, by extension, of truth itself.
To further ground these theoretical discussions, it is useful to consider specific artworks that have meaningfully employed reactive materials to explore perception, embodiment, and participation. These examples illustrate how thermochromic, photochromatic, and hydrophobic materials are used not merely for novelty but as conceptual instruments. Troika’s Thixotropes (2010) are kinetic sculptures made with colour-shifting materials that respond to both movement and light. As the large arms spin slowly in space, their surfaces shift from black to iridescent hues depending on the viewer’s angle and light source. The work engages the viewer not only visually but spatially and kinetically, requiring movement and time to perceive its full range of possibilities.
This aligns with Haraway’s (1988) notion that knowledge is embodied and situated. Perception here depends on physical position, environmental context, and viewer participation. In my own practice, I draw from this logic of instability: viewers must move, touch, or wait to witness transformation, reinforcing the concept that perception is never fixed but relational and dynamic.
In Text Rain (1999), Camille Utterback uses motion-tracking technology to allow viewers to interact with falling letters projected on a wall. The letters ‘land’ on the viewer’s silhouette, creating the sense that the body is catching or influencing the textual content. While not reactive in the material sense, the piece exemplifies the integration of body, language, and perception, offering a powerful metaphor for how knowledge is always embodied and co-produced. Text Rain deeply influenced my thinking about the viewer’s role in autotheory. Like Fournier (2021), Utterback suggests that bodies are not separate from theory, they are its platform. In my use of thermochromic surfaces, text and imagery are often hidden beneath a monochrome top layer. Only through the heat of touch does the viewer ‘read’ the work, making the moment of interpretation inseparable from the viewer’s physical presence.
Jill Scott’s e-skin is an interactive body suit and video installation that simulates the sensory perception of touch. Viewers engage with reactive surfaces that mimic the skin’s response to external stimuli. The work merges technology, biology, and digital art to explore how the body can be both the subject and medium of experience. This artwork exemplifies Munster’s (2006) argument that embodiment is central to digital aesthetics. It also speaks to Bowring’s (2016) idea of slowness and reflection—e-skin is not immediate or spectacle-driven; it requires careful exploration and attention to subtle shifts. Similarly, in my work, the materials resist quick consumption. Instead, they invite slow looking and active, tactile presence, echoing the melancholy and contemplative dimensions of perceptual instability.
Notes
[1] Cartesian dualism, developed by René Descartes, is the philosophical theory that reality consists of two fundamentally different substances: the mind and the body. According to this view, the mind is a non-physical, thinking substance (res cogitans), while the body is a physical, extended substance (res extensa). Descartes argued that although the mind and body are distinct, they interact with each other—most famously, he suggested this interaction occurs in the pineal gland. Cartesian dualism laid the groundwork for the modern mind-body problem by raising questions about how these two separate substances can influence one another.
References
Bowring, J., 2016. Melancholy and the Landscape: Locating Sadness, Memory and Reflection in the Landscape. London: Routledge.
Certeau, M. de, 1984. The Practice of Everyday Life. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Fournier, L., 2021. Autotheory as Feminist Practice in Art, Writing, and Criticism. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Haraway, D., 1988. Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective. Feminist Studies, 14(3), pp.575–599.
Kluszczynski, R.W., 2010. Strategies of Interactive Art. MediaArtHistories, 1(1), pp.81–100.
Marks, L.U., 2002. Touch: Sensuous Theory and Multisensory Media. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Munster, A., 2006. Materializing New Media: Embodiment in Information Aesthetics. Hanover, NH: Dartmouth College Press.
Paul, C., 2015. Digital Art. 3rd ed. London: Thames & Hudson.
Scott, J., 2003. e-skin. [interactive installation] Available at: http://www.jillscott.org [Accessed 8 Jun. 2025].
Stern, N., 2012. Interactive Art and Embodiment: The Implicit Body as Performance. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing.
Troika, 2010. Thixotropes. [kinetic sculpture] Troika Studio. Available at: https://troika.uk.com/projects/thixotropes [Accessed 8 Jun. 2025].
Utterback, C. and Achituv, R., 1999. Text Rain. [interactive video installation] Available at: http://camilleutterback.com/projects/text-rain [Accessed 8 Jun. 2025]