Global Journal of Human-Social Science, A: Arts and Humanities, Volume 22 Issue 4

Interactive Arts and Creative Tourism Joaquim Sousa I ntroduction he topic “creative tourism” has begun to provoke a wide debate in society, segmented in the development of new technology and digital art products and services, within the scope of the creative economy and in particular the economy of experiencing. The author Leslie-Ann Jordan (2012) designates the strengthening of the intrinsic interconnection between the universe of arts, culture and creative industries as essential, aiming to develop new offers of tourist differentiation. From the outset, we can raise the question of what the role and/or impact of the arts of technological, artistic and interactive phenomenology could be in the potentiation of creative genre industries, leveraging new explicit paradigms of human-computer interactivity and contributing to the aesthetic, interpretive development and education of the sectors attached to the cultural heritage, and in this quality, to unequivocally promote new tourism models of creative innovation, based on the interactive arts that exponentiate new and unprecedented aesthetic cultures of emotional experience of products and services, enabling new tourist "branding" based on in its differentiating imagery offer. Salerno (2009) reinforces the decisive role of the creative tourism industries in the exponentiation of models of active participation and user involvement in creative activities, which can meet an experiential learning of positive emotions, making “pleasure the engine of experiencing” (Salerno, 2009). This scientific evidence reinforces the need to invest in the development of new innovative products and services that categorically stimulate the experiential creativity of cultural users/tourists, in particular starting from their spontaneous agency power to actively and constructively engage in experiences of co-creation of knowledge, namely in heritage spaces. The interactive arts/new media offer decisively unprecedented opportunities for cultural users/tourists to engage with cultural artefacts, insofar as they enhance interactivity, active participation, cognitive perception and affective involvement in favor of the discovery of knowledge and learning. Now it can be seen that the interactive arts/new media contribute decisively to the self-realization of the cultural tourist, based on the offer of experiences that enable their inventive and imaginary power, in favor of the artistic construction of new cultural and aesthetic signs. The incremental experience that enhances the creative verve of the user/cultural tourist constitutes a foundation for the promotion of their motivational spirit (formulated in the intrinsic desire to participate actively in the creative focus) also associated with the aspect of self-regulation in the prism of cognitive learning. In the 2004 UNCTAD report, the mix of arts, entrepreneurship and technology is highlighted as unquestionable structures in the development of creative industries. Evans (2009) emphasizes the value and/or contribution of the arts to the development of creative economies. In turn, Tung & Richie (2011) highlight the basic foundations of creative experiential tourism, focused on the feeling of positive emotions of pleasure and satisfaction, self-discovery activities and intellectual development, involvement, learning and, consequently, the acquisition of knowledge. In addition, the author Szarycz (2008) reinforces the idea that memorable experiences of creative tourism are evidenced in actions of self-discovery/personal development, reflection and construction of meanings and also essentially based on the development of mechanisms of social interaction, leading to purposes of learning, namely in immersive contexts of use. The authors Staiff (2014) and Smith and Robinson (2006) particularly highlight the desire of the creative tourist to actively participate in actions that request their emotional involvement. These evidences support the idea that there is fertile ground for the creative industries of aesthetic computational interactivity, aiming at the structuring development of innovation in technology and digital art and addressing the design of new products and services that can effectively empower the user/cultural tourist intellectually in the cognitive and co-creative elaboration of new challenges structured around the intelligible construction of new narratives of an aesthetic nature, which can cognitively and affectively absorb the user/cultural tourist in agency actions of random discovery of new and unprecedented meanings, which flow into their creative, experiential and educational eclectic function, with the ultimate aim of learning. Hosany and Gilbert (2010), Currie (1997) and Goossens (2000) emphasize the positive emotions of joy, pleasure and satisfaction as a fundamental axis of the creative tourist's emotional experience. Carr (2002) in this regard highlights the motivational factors of the “pleasure-seeking” of the creative tourist. The domain of “funology”, i.e. the science of entertainment associated with experiencing positive emotions such as pleasure T © 2022 Global Journals Volume XXII Issue IV Version I 21 ( ) Global Journal of Human Social Science - Year 2022 A 13 Author: e-mail: joaquimjorgesousa1@gmail.com