Observing audience attendance of a student assigned interactive art installation is posited relating to phenomenon of serendipity, brought about via cumulated conditions and strategies, synchronously resulting in an author-recognized ‘Aha experience’. Identifying of engagement, then disengagement, and subsequent re-engagement informs reflections and critique supporting assessments, iterative design, knowledge gain, and more. Observation openness, alongside pre-knowledge, pre-experiences, and prepared mind are components herein reflected aligning to perceptual and cognitive insight required to recognizing meaningfulness of Aha experience. Speculation to how multi-affordances in an interactive art installation can combine with perceptual and cognitive pre-knowledge, e.g. pervasiveness of sensors in contemporary society (as audience pre-knowledge), to influence audience expectation, explorations, and engage-ment experiences. This contextually illustrated in how affordances (false/perceptual/hidden) of the installation became aspects that unwittingly and coincidentally cumulated to establish a critical incident moment: A period in time that serendipitously and synchronously involved observation of audience disengagement following initial confrontation immediately followed by a sys-tem reset that stimulated (as if playfully) re-engagement. Conclusions question how a strategy of playful artistic design that incorporates such audience percep-tual and cognitive influencing through affordances can be a potential factor uti-lized in realizing interactive art installations. Posited thus is a contemporary art strategy goal to engage beyond artless mapping (e.g. one-to-one) toward more stimulating, intellectual, and enjoyable audience experience. The paper opens by briefly framing the work under the Aalborg Project Organized Problem Based Learning (POPBL) education followed by an overview of the exhibited installation to contextualize how reflections and critique led to this goal.