REFLECTION
With these last few studies, I found that my creative process had become even more so refined than I had stated in my previous reflection. The creative process of my three assignments I believe was quite successful, I am very pleased by the outcome of all three studies, however, as always I do believe that there is further refinement that can be done. Taking away the tactile aspect of interaction truly made me reflect upon how I will be able to create something that can adequately engage and interact with my audience in a way that I have never explored before, this posed a creative challenge. My creative process also may look very different from others as I have truly struggled with MAX, bringing my ideas to conception was quite difficult for me due to my little understanding of the software. However, I have come very far from the beginning of the semester, I have really learnt a lot from external research and my peers. Having an open mind and always being willing to engage and learn from others is imperative to advance yourself as a media creator. Yet my creative processes have most definitely conjured some failures, studies 4 and 5 caused a lot of difficulty with my group members and I, as there was a large trial and error process when selecting a range of numbers in which the software needed to recognise. Also being because of the many differences in individual faces and we wanted the piece to be as user inclusive as possible, however, we gave it our best attempt to refine the piece as best as we could. Yet ultimately, I really enjoyed exploring different ways of using non-tactile interaction in what I create.
What I have learnt about techniques of interactive art making throughout this semester, on a very basic level, what actually defines user interactivity and I have found the concept of giving the audience agency upon the outcome of an artwork very interesting.
What I would consider to be successful about my work so far is that I ultimately have created what I had envisioned, however, I have found that my pieces have had the potential to evoke an array of different emotions, I find this very interesting as my exploration truly shows the continuously evolving nature of art. I am quite pleased with all my creations as I believe that I constructed playful pieces that all ultimately invite the audience to engage. I believe my work to be successful to a certain extent (of course being realistic of what can be achieved under time restraints and minimal knowledge of MAX) as it relies on the participation of a user to determine the outcome of the piece, which was what I had hoped to achieve within all of my studies and is the ultimate objective of user interactive art.
How I believe I can improve my work is as I have stated numerous times, ultimately become more proficient with MAX, being more aware of different controls within MAX will allow myself to be able to actually bring my ideas to conception. So far I also feel as if I need to work a bit more towards creating a piece that is much more polished, a better understanding of MAX will help me with this.
Another element in which I believe I could really improve upon is the presentation of my MAX creations. What I have just noticed and I think that I should alter for the future, is simply my laziness or perhaps the belief that it is unnecessary, however, my Max creation should include some instruction in order for the user to understand what is actually going on. Perhaps a description of the piece or a prompt for the audience to begin engagement, I will most definitely look to include something like this within my future MAX pieces.
Compared to where I had begun with my practically non-existent understanding of MAX and limited knowledge of interactive art in general, I feel as if I have come a long way, and I am very much pleased. Each assignment I create I feel as if I have improved as an interactive artist, this incline of skill is very much evident from my first creation to my most recent. Overall I am quite content with where I am skillfully yet always eager to continue to learn and advance my works.