Tristan's Media Blog

A2 statement 2

Statement: In my second study, my group and I aimed high with quite a difficult job of making a fluent Donald Trump censored twitter feed, that captured live tweets by trump and censored out a series of his words to make the tweets more pleasant. The theme in this study was to eliminate the controversy of his texts. Whilst developing the study, it became apparent that we were creating something that wasn’t fully tactile, as the computer was doing most of the work by capturing the live tweets and reformulating them. At this point in time, it was too late to change ideas so we had to create a tactile interaction by having the ability to press a button for the programming to then go ahead and capture the tweets. It would have been ideal to have more of an interaction between the art and the user. I would like to revisit this study later on In the semester and create a greater interaction with it, for example, being able to type in certain words live that you would like to censor and then have related tweets pop up and have those words censored. This would evidentially create a greater interaction with the study, instead of just having pressed a single button. There were many challenges that we faced in this study, including a range that had to be done outside of the program to capture the tweets. Credit to team member Ziggy who was exceptional at bringing together the most part of this study. On a personal level, this study definitely pushed my abilities with the program, however gave me a good insight to the things it is capable of.

Reflection

Altogether, the creative process of developing my three studies was challenging, yet engaging. I found myself often searching for inspiration to funnel my work in the right direction. However, I discovered that aiming to complete projects or ideas that pushed my limits on the program became the most helpful experience in developing my knowledge of MAX. This has led me to believe that it is always a good idea to try tackle the ‘big picture’ ideas as the journey to completing them will always benefit my knowledge and in this instance, tactile skills in MAX. Although I may not have completed the three studies all by myself, or to the best working abilities the program can function with, I have been able to use a wider ranger of functions and ultimately become better at the program with a great understanding of why things work and how to make them work. Discovering new tools and abilities was quite eye opening to see how many different ways there are for an artist to create interactive art. This was my first time using a program like MAX, before this I didn’t realise it was possible to create things in coding or visual coding programs, so it has been a really good experience to experiment with different artistic materials and media.

Whilst dealing with interactive art, I’ve realised that being simplistic in the design process can cause surprisingly entertaining experiences. Never would I have thought the idea of pressing a button to appear a smiley face could be so addicting, and so its provided a good insight into the world of art and how humans function with it. Using Max has also allowed myself to realise how many different possibilities there are surrounding interactive art, and using the program and its code like functionalities, has showed a whole new side to the world of interactive art. Having a tactile based assignment, its also been good to develop an understanding of how humans physically interact with art. The value of humans being able connect with art through a physical presence creates a whole new dynamic into how powerful an art piece can be. For example, in study 2 I found that we weren’t using a strong enough tactile approach and therefor it felt as if the computer was completing the art instead of ourselves, however moving onto study 3 I decided to make sure it was apparent that the humans were creating the art. That is when I made it only possible to interact with the art through the keyboard, which can only be pressed by humans and therefor making it a more inclusive experience. I believe when it came to this project, that using the keyboard or mouse was on of the best ways to make an audience feel included in the art, and whilst these functions are only a portion of what the program is capable of, they are still effective enough to create a substantial piece of interactive art.

So far in my development with MAX, I think I have been quite successful in coming up with ideas that the program is capable of carrying out in an entertaining style. I started study one focusing on ‘effects’ which, I now know only scratched the surface of what the program is capable of. This has leaded me to expand my skills to and explore other functionalities. For study 2 especially, working in a small group allowed us to combine ideas and attempt to create something quite difficult, however if pulled off, very cool. This was almost the case, as we managed to get extremely close to a functioning Donald Trump censored twitter feed, however we faced many implications along the way. Although we got to the final stage of the study, we still had a problem with making it work fluently, however the study itself taught all of us a lot about the program and made a funny idea into an almost hilarious success.

I believe my work can be improved by more experience within the program. I am aware that my work is still on a very amateur level, and that is a good thing knowing there is a lot more to MAX that I can achieve with developing my knowledge further. In aiding this development, I have used the comment tool a lot to guide myself step by step of what I’m doing and also to remind myself of why I’m doing those things. The use of the help and reference windows has also been extremely useful and guiding. The exploration of these windows will definitely be a faction in improving my work in the future, as I get more comfortable with the program. The key thing I could improve on however is finishing and working towards the final idea that I had, instead of having unfinished projects that are close to being completed. I would have preferred study 3 of my project to be completed in the state I originally wanted it to be, however I intend to revisit this and complete the study when I have to skills needed for it. Another key thing that I would improve upon my three studies is to explore how tactile I can be with the art and making it as interactive as I can. I’m aware there are other visual elements that can be worked with on the program such as motion movements that we will look at later in the semester, however I would still be interested in researching other ways to interact with the program whilst being hands on.

A2 statement 3

Statement: In my third study I went back to a complete tactile study of using key functions and words to display a relevant picture. For this particular study, I based it around a happy face and a sad face, with the intentions of having those appear and disappear when the words ‘sad’ or ‘happy’ were typed into the keyboard. My main theme in this study was to create a sense of emotion from someone using the keyboard to type in a key word, and then for the expected reaction to appear on screen. This links into the same theme I had in study one, where I wanted to create someone the audience was familiar with or use to seeing. However in this study, I didn’t put a twist on it, I decided to just create a functioning piece of art that listened to what the audience were physically typing into the computer. During this study, my major challenge was getting working with the program to get the relevant face appear when a word would be typed in. I managed to get the faces to appear and disappear with the touch of a single key, however it was much more difficult to make it work with a word. I explored a number of techniques to try and make this happened such as ‘TextEdit’ tools and ‘append’ tools, however my lack in knowledge of the program brought this experiment to an end. I want to revisit this study later in the semester and make it functional, I believe that with some more experience with MAX I can make it happen.

A2 Statement 1

Statement: In my first study, I attempted to link my theme with one that is relevant in the work of my chosen artists, Theo Watson, and that was to display things we are use to seeing in a different way than what we expect. I decided to carry this out through effects, manipulating the structure of a video feed (webcam) and creating a different appearance to what the camera shows at the press of a single key on the keyboard. Whilst experimenting with this I was able to explore the many effects provided in MAX. Although effects make up a very small portion of MAX, they were still helpful in linking my study to my researched artist. The challenging part of this study was to think about the effect the artwork will trigger in an audience, and how it can make an impact or be memorable to them. In research for Theo Watson, I noticed it was his ability to capture something that the audience was familiar with, and so I attempted to use this feature. In future studies I would like to explore the process of an audience being able to interact with the webcams in other ways, both tacitly and virtually. I’m planning on doing this through the use of the ‘help’ and ‘reference’ windows.

 

 

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