With the ready availability of digital and code-based media, the opportunity to create interactive and playable artworks are more accessible than ever to artists. The ability for the audience to interact with an artwork in multiple ways to achieve multiple outcomes opens new doors for artists to communicate powerful ideas and reach people in exciting new ways, but it is also the most unpredictable variable necessary for a work to communicate successfully. Most artists will eventually need to confront a scenario where their work hasn’t communicated what it intended to, but with interactive works this scenario can become more likely as the artist relinquishes control of the outcome. Borrowing concepts used to analyze video game play, and using her own interactive works ‘Believe’ and ‘Into the Light’ as a case study, Brown will investigate how artists can leverage audience participation,--and the variability this entails,--to enhance the intended experience of their work.