Interactive Art is not usually Gothamist's bag, man. All those freaknick young artists tend to seem like extras from Tron or Blade Runner, outfitted by Jean-Paul Gaultier. Still, we don't turn down free beer, so last night we dragged ourselves out of Gothamist HQ and visited two interactive art shows. The first was the Parsons 2004 Design and Technology MFA show. Tip to next year's organizers: interactive art is best displayed in large, empty rooms. Trying to shove 50 or 60 interactive art exhibits together, all beeping and malfunctioning, is just not a good idea. There was lots of typical pretentious artist fluff, and one or two genuine good ideas. The Gothamist prize for most devious project must go to Josh Kinberg and his Bikes Against Bush project [video, project overview]. Basically, he cross-bred a bike, a computer, and six cans of referee line chalk to make an automatic, mobile-web enabled graffiti machine. He's planning on releasing it just in time to disrupt the Republican Convention. Now that's education!

After the first show, we headed up to everyone's perennial favorite altier, Eyebeam. Greg was having an out of control party celebrating the release of a new MoMa website, and we stole some of his candy and admired a selection of projects from the Prix Ars Electronica, the world's oldest electronic art show. Most of the art was pretty "inaccessible" (read: weird for weird's sake), but there was universal agreement among us that Lynn Hershman's America's Finest was cool. Basically it's a rifle that you aim at people in the gallery, and then pretend to shoot at them. Which is fun, because, um, it deconstructs the relationship between subject and object, or because usually you don't get to shoot guns in art galleries.

Check both shows out: Parsons MFA Design and Technology Thesis Show 2004 [66 5th Avenue and 2 W13th Street, until Sunday at noon] and Prix Selection [Until July 18th, T-S, 12-6pm, 540W21st Street]