Artists Statement

Solo Work

In this project I wanted to explore the theme of memories. I attempted to find an old looking map to further show this theme, although a lot that I found were either not in very high resolution or didn’t clearly show Serbia, which was a landmark that I needed clearly marked. I compiled videos the I shot in different countries in Europe then created an old VHS looking effect over the top. I used this to further create the effect of memories. With the old VHS effects I added music that I think is like an 80’s kind of vibe. The expected challenges was pretty much everything to do with Max! Developing my basic skills, memorising different objects and learning different aspects of Max was my aim and I think that I did partly achieve this!

Artists Statement

Group Work

In this project we wanted to explore how colour and music can effect peoples emotions. We also explored how colours and music effects peoples perception of different images. We didn’t add the words ‘happy’, ‘sad’ and ‘angry’ in the opening screen, this further explores peoples reactions because it doesn’t directly show how the audience is supposed to feel.

The expected challenge I feel with all group work is splitting up the work effectively. Especially with a project like this where really only one person can be working on the file as a time and each person needs to be updated of the changes made to the file. I think that we did manage to do this quite well, although it was difficult sometimes as we weren’t always together.

Reflection

I learnt that just because you have an idea of what you want to create, that doesn’t mean that you will be able execute it easily. I thought that I had thought of a simple idea for my solo project that wouldn’t be too difficult to work out by myself, but I was wrong. I thought I would be able to find tutorials and forums easily online to help. But mostly all I found was Max 3D tutorials and forums on glitches, not instructions of how to use features. I did effectively work out some aspects through examples shown to our group. But most of the work was done by Camille, not myself. I also learnt that a lot of projects are not in the original plan. As I made my project and found forums and so on, I thought of more ideas to add to the piece than I had originally thought. So I learnt that you can’t plan everything and you just need to start making to really get the creative process going.

I learnt a lot about the techniques of interactive art making. Firstly I learnt that it is very complicated! I learnt a lot about the specific buttons needed, how to troubleshoot, the different types of playlists, how to show video in full screen in presentation mode and so on. I learnt a lot about how each step takes a lot longer than I had thought. For example I thought that pressing the letter ’N’ to change tracks would be easier than I had thought it would be. Although it required a lot of different steps that I never would have thought of.

I think the concept of my solo piece was successful and I am happy with how it turned out. I think effect of the VHS and the music with the concept of memories works well. Although I think the map could have looked better than it did. I also wished I could have had the videos pop up as full screen when you clicked on the map markers. Although I didn’t end up with the worst result in terms of that aspect. I’d like to also be able to build on my skills so I don’t need as much help next time. It would be nice to be able to do the majority of the assignment by myself as opposed to needing help almost every step of the way.

As we made the group project before making our solo assignments, Max seemed like it would be more of an issue. But because we had three minds instead of one, we could help each other out and it was much easier to finish than the solo project.

I learnt that the creative process in a group project is a lot different as its harder to voice your creative ideas and we also had less time together to really flesh out new ideas. It was harder to have the same creative process like in the solo project. Once we had an idea we stuck to it, rather than it evolving as we made it.

I think that although our group work was simple, it was effective in what we intended. I think that it could probably have been a bit more complicated though in execution if I had to pick something out to be improved upon. It could have included a few more technical details and possibly looked a bit nicer than it did. Maybe the idea was a bit too simple too. We could have played around more with the audiences expectations. Like putting different words with different emotions and videos.

 

***Edit: Tuesday 26th of March

As I reflected on other projects. I decided to download my own off the assignment discussion. I was very disapointed to figure out that I hadn’t fixed my issues completely and the music was not working in the project. I know that I can’t change it now, but I wanted to acknowledge this mistake now. And I have definitely learnt from that mistake! I should have downloaded and checked before I had submitted. Although I do believe it was working before I submitted it…