Environments.

User-driven exploration. Passive, static environments. The user navigates. The computer is essentially a storage device. [Typically: Network topologies: hypertext, hypermedia.]

Games.

Interactive, dynamic environments. [Often: simulated 3D environment ("virtual reality").]

Tools.

The user gets building blocks, to make whatever she wants. Typically, the space of possibilities is virtually infinite. For instance: programming languages, paint programs, virtual lego.

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References

Dieter Daniel: Art and Media in the XX. century. [History of MultiMedia / Intermedia / Interactive Art.]

Söke Dinkla: "The History of the Interface in Interactive Art" Proceedings ISEA 1994.

Lev Manovich: On Totalitarian Interactivity, 1996. [On interactivity as manipulation]

Ron Pellegrino: Levels of Algorithmic Composition, 1998. [On "end-user-art"]

Alexei Shulgin: Art, Power, and Communication, 1996. [On interactivity as manipulation]

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