Group Project Artist Statement

An idea we wanted to explore in our project was the idea of what beauty is and what society thinks beauty is. The ‘ideal’ face as represented in society, is a symmetrical face. We explored this idea through having a webcam window where you can move your face to create a perfectly symmetrical version of your face.

We also created a change in colour of the video from a blue when you’re making no noise to an red and orange when you clap. From a more mellow calm colour to a more intense angry colour when you make the loud noise of clapping. The change in colour is also a positive as it gets audiences to engage in the project.

In terms of technical challenges, as we still feel a bit unsure about how to work Max, we expected the whole thing to be a challenge in term of technicalities. One huge issue we had was changing the colours, then when we had worked this out we had ruined the symmetry of the videos, which was the main part of the project. After playing around with this we got some help and it ended up being an easy fix!

Individual Artist Statement

A theme I wanted to explore was playing a piano. In a general sense to play a piano you need to use your hands to press down the keys. To play around with the traditional sense of playing a piano, I created this project. To control the keys pressing down on the keyboard you simply move your hand from left to right in front of the camera.

I had no clue how to make this project when I first started, all I had was the idea, so I had a lot of challenges to overcome. I copied a basic template from one of the google drive examples and then expanded from that. My main challenge that I had after creating the project was making the piano less jittery. I don’t think I have completely overcome this, even in my final project. But it has come a long way since when I first started it.

Reflective Statement

The process of this project went really quickly and time absolutely flew by! Something I learnt about the creative process is that I really need to force myself to brainstorm ideas a lot quicker and earlier in the process. I found this time around I thought there was a lot more time than there was and I thought too long about what I wanted to do. I found an inspiration for my idea really late in the process and then I straight away started to make it. After starting to create it I realised I wasn’t in love with it and would have liked to hav thought of a better idea. I also am not too sure it’s complex enough for the second project. I should have advanced my skills a bit more by now, but I’m not sure if I have.

I have obviously learnt a lot about non-tactile interaction this time around. I have found it is a lot more difficult that tactile! A lot more technical skill as well as creative skill has come into play with this project. I think that my technical skill is not quite up to standard with how I would have liked it to be, but I think that I just got by. I had a lot more creative ideas for this project, but I knew a lot of them would be a bit too complicated for my technical skill.

I think that although my solo project may seem a bit simple on the outside. The work that went into it was very large. I have played around a lot with splitting video and I quite proud with how it has turned out in terms of technical.

In terms of my group project, it was harder for us to think of ideas. We generally weren’t in classes  all together. And therefore we just didn’t have enough time to do enough brainstorming as a group. Although when we did eventually had a base idea, it was easy for us to work together and get the job done as a group. We worked well together and I think the project turned out quite well.

I think that the solo project that I have completed could be vastly improved. I tried my hardest to make it as non glitchy as possible, but I haven’t quite achieved this to the extent that I would have liked. It had come a long way since how it was in the beginning. But the example I saw on Youtube of a man with a similar project was a lot better. The notes slide up and down the piano very smoothly and was actually a nice sound to hear. Whereas when I created mine it was a bit jumpy and also doesn’t sound way too appealing. So this is something that could be improved upon quite a bit.

Another thing I think that could be improved upon is how you hold your hand up to the camera. After playing with my own project for quite a while, I have realised that you need to hold up your hand very straight and slide it very slowly. Although I don’t think the audience who use it will know this, so this could be an issue. I wish I could have worked out a way to fix this, but I played around for quite a while and wasn’t quite able to make it perfect.

The last issue I found is that I couldn’t keep the dim and invert setting the same every time you open the project. Although it has worked a couple of times! I think I possibly fixed this issue, but I’m not entirely sure.

In the group project I think we could have improved a bit. We originally planned for the video of yourself to change colours when you clap and then stay that colour, then you clap and it becomes anotherand for it to go through this cycle with about 4 different colours. We couldn’t quite work out how to do this, so we ended up changing the idea slightly. Although it would have been cool to work out what we originally imagined.