The interactive installation is a form of novel arts which is made and matured by the presence of audience and interaction. In fact, the audience participation in this form of art acts as a fundamental element without which the artwork would be incomplete and nonexistent. The mutual relationship leads the art to be unrestrained that breaks down the traditional expectations of stability and restriction. In the case study of this paper, the Brazilian artist Ernesto Neto uses the possibilities of this new instrument in one of his interactive installations named “While Nothing Happens” he authenticates his artwork through engaging the audience’s maximum sensory faculties such as sight, tactile and olfactory to encourage him/ her to interact. The authors believe that the qualifications of the installation in terms of reconciling the body and the mind are certainly the objective of the phenomenological thought of philosophy because phenomenological knowledge and especially Heidegger’s phenomenological hermeneutics is based on the reconciliation of the human and the universe. Based on the apparent propinquity of the basis of phenomenological knowledge and the existential philosophy of Ernesto Neto’s interactive installation, the research is initiated with this question: how can one interpret the interaction between the audience and the artwork in “While Nothing Happens” by means of phenomenological hermeneutics analysis? In order to achieve the aim, i.e. finding the phenomenological hermeneutics bases on this interactive installation, the information is documented and then analysed by descriptive-analytical approach. The results show that the audience has an interpretive presence in the arena of the artwork and he/she is not only an identifying subject who defines the concept of an object based on a determined mentality since he/she appreciates the reality not only with referencing to what his/her eye sees but also based on other sensory faculties as tactile and olfactory. The audience’s body is turned into a part of installation elements in so far as he is integrated into the artwork.

Merleau-Ponty’s understanding of art is tied with his phenomenological view point of perception. According to him, the important matter in art, is not only about beauty, but about perception and expression as well. Merleau-Ponty seeks to describe the relation between the artist, the objects and the world he paints. In other words, he considered the relation between the artist and the artwork. However, in this study we are looking for another aspect of the relationship. Our purpose here is to describe the interaction of artwork and the audience. With this aim, rather than addressing his direct comments about art, we will return to Merleau-Ponty’s philosophical project. In this paper, first of all, we investigate fundamental concepts of Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy and then use these concepts to describe the relationship of the audience with interactive art event in general, and to describe the interweaving of the body of performer with the audience in an interactive performance in particular. In the end, by emphasizing on research data and analyzing them in the field of interactive art we look at the performance of “ Field “ (performer: Amir Mobed) and we analyze the importance of the aspect of embodiment in performer and audience in event and the interaction between them. It is important that interactive art, despite its expansion in the world of contemporary art and despite numerous research studies in this area, has been less studied from a philosophical perspective. By means of Merleau-Ponty’s philosophical views in the context of interactive art, it is a possibility to free a work of art from definitions, limitations, as well as dualism of outside / inside, artist / audience. Interaction of the audience with the artwork is the resurgence for art in order to establish a common world between the artist, audience and interactive art event.
According to philosophical concepts of Merleau-Ponty, in the performance “Field”, performer is not the source and promoter of performance and all the body’s actions are not independent from the audience. He is exposed to embodiment, including looking, sensation and movement, and also the expression and bodily activity of audience. Interactive event is the common world of performer and audience, in which they are exposed to eachother’s perception, and influenced by eachother’s actions. In this performance, Merleau-Ponty’s concepts of expression are frequently manifested prior to any thought and reasoning, which is because of the physical proximity of performer and audienc.