Responsivity and responsibility in responsive environments: art and interactivity on a rupturing planet

The late-twentieth-century art form Responsive Environments comprised interrelations between artist, artwork, and audience, wherein responsivity and responsibility to an other, be it the social and/or physical environment of the artwork, could be tangibly evoked. Currently, such self-other understanding has become existentially critical, as the ecological and climate crisis collide with a new dearth of understanding concerning human-ecology and human-human responsivities and responsibilities. This article considers how Responsive Environments offered a unique means for exploring responsivity and responsibility between artist, artwork, and audience, and considers what the debates it once evoked might contribute to self-other relations in an age of human-induced planetary rupture, as expressed in climate crisis and mass extinction.