Archive note: This text comes from the older Nomika Epilekta archive and is preserved with editorial care for historical and informational reading.

The world around us is changing and evolving. Technology dominates every field, advancing in impressive leaps, while art and architecture adapt those advances to our daily life. It often makes us wonder whether we are looking at art or simply at technological applications. Yet when art meets technology, the result can be striking. We live in an age in which the internet has taken a central place in our lives, and communication, entertainment, information and many everyday transactions now take place through it to a large degree. The distance between the real and the virtual has narrowed. Today we can combine the virtual with the physical in ways that once seemed unbelievable. Interactive environments, when they take the form of public art, become a new kind of reality connected with the digitization of data and the power of information in the modern world.

Interaction is a relationship of action and response between viewer and spectacle, while interactivity is the ability of a medium to receive two-way communication, that is, to accept stimuli and respond to them. Interactive media use computers and sensors in order to react to movement, heat, touch, weather conditions or other forms of stimulus. A person sends a signal, and the object with interactive properties, equipped with suitable sensors, perceives that signal. It is then processed, and the object responds according to its programmed directions. However complex this may sound, its application can be simple and fast. The possibilities for display are countless. Company logos, information, products, images and interactive works of art can decorate interactive media with changing content. They can even be used for play.

Shop windows can easily be transformed into interactive screens by applying a thin film on the inside surface. With the use of a video projector or LCD monitor, a high-resolution image is achieved. The first interactive shop window in Greece was installed in a bookstore in Patras. A customer can stand in front of the window and browse the book they want, then enter the shop and buy it. The image is projected onto the glass of the window, and specially adapted software detects hand movement and processes the image. However complicated it may sound, it is very simple to apply and at the same time an economical and practical installation. In the same way, a wall can also be turned into an interactive screen.

The floor, too, can become interactive, with very impressive results. For example, it can display a swimming pool so that, when stepped on, water effects and ripples appear, or it can show a field of flowers where each step leaves greenery behind. It can also present information, as happens at the Goulandris Natural History Museum while visitors move through the exhibition. The interactive floor responds to every step. It can be used in exhibition spaces, museums, organizations, shops, shopping centers and even, why not, in modern homes, for example at the entrance, where it would certainly impress visitors.

Interactive tables are equally impressive. An interactive table creates a unique entertainment experience for customers in bars and restaurants, while it can also be used as an advertising medium. The multi-touch system reacts to every object that touches its surface. Imagine a customer placing a glass on the table and, immediately around the glass, concentric circles or other designs and images appearing and moving across the table, energizing the room and creating a pleasant atmosphere for communication. The customer can also write or draw on the surface.

Guests in cafes and restaurants can also view the menu, order, have fun playing games, browse the internet for information, pay the bill immediately and call a taxi.

In the image that follows, the felt surface has given way to a video projector, and as the ball passes, everything moves.

The use of new technologies is now established in architecture and design. Interactivity is an evolving field of architectural practice and research. It is not limited to the media mentioned above, but also studies environmental conditions through sensors, so that buildings, through actuators, can adapt their form, shape and color accordingly.