After I finished three of my studies by using ‘Max’ application, I feel that my efforts have been fruitful, not just learned how to use ‘Max’, but also learned what is interactive art and how to produce a interactive art.

When the first time I heard about interactive art, I have no idea with that, so I searched online and looked up some famous productions, I found that interactive art is an interesting art. Interactive art requires visitors to “do” something to make the art vivid and interesting, it has lots of uncertain effects which can bring surprise for visitors. When we be told to make a simple interactive art by our self, I’m worried because I’m not a creative person, I searched a lot production online, to choose a relatively simple art but also need to be creative one. Finally, I found a place that has lots of funny equipment which is located in federation square, when I hang out with my friend, I just found it incidentally. When I finished my first program, I learned the simple operation of ‘Max’, and I also learned that if we want to make a good interactive art, to find a great inspiration is the most important part, and we need to be patient when we looking for it. The second important thing to make a great production is how to use ‘Max’, this step is a quite difficult step and also be a challenge for me, I realize that simple operation can not present the meaning that I want to express, so, I tried to add some relatively complicated effects into my production, but there are more problems arisen: the operation need to be extremely cautious and can not be any mistakes, such as the connect order need to from down side to the upper side, the link looks are the same but if you link it from upper side to the down side, the effect won’t be showed. so I constantly update the code and see the result effect to make that get closer to my inspiration which is not a specific thing yet, ask for help from teacher and classmates is also significant for me, when I discuss with my classmates, we can exchange knowledge and produce more new things into my work, the teacher can help me to fix problems. To be frank, It is a great experience to learn the material of the interactive media, although it is a rough process.

The three different works I finished so far can be seen my progress, the first production I made is a simple work, which just used some basic effects such as flurry, chromatic and mosaic. When I did the second program, which is a group work, all of our group members has made efforts into that work, after we viewed other classmates’ work, we decided to make our work be more complicate and tried to search some tutorial videos and asked help from our teacher. The third work I made is focus on myself, I shoot a series footage to link to be a movement video, the operation is better than the other two works, I use keyboard and touch pad to control the footages and complete the presentation. Overall, after I finish those three programs, I can feel that my skills of using ‘Max’ to produce different interactive work are promoted, also my learning skills, even English also Improved.

However, there are still a lot of shortcomings I have, I realized my creativity are so poor and need to be improved. Therefore, I need to do some deeper research of interactive art and also need to be more creative. ‘Max’ for me is a new thing, the programs I made are all basic operation, there are many codes and unknown effects I can explore in the following lessons. Overall, the most important thing I need to improve in the next production is to be more creative and try to explore more interesting effects.

I found that some of my classmates did a great work by using ‘Max’ to produce a program, their inspirations are great and ingenious, their programs are various and make me feel surprised. When I saw their work, I feel that my program was so simple and rough, but I did learn a lot from them, some of their codes such as press a button to make a window disappear or some other effects can be used into my program. their work can also inspire me to have some great idea. I know that everyone have their own strong points, so some people can produce a great interactive when they just approach ‘Max’, but I always remember I am keep learning, maybe is slower than others, but I will make more efforts and also won’t stop my steps.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1xCVtoQuK1CjaDWtLIsLqJnWZrzWyxYvf

For my third study, at the first I don’t have any idea about that, when I called my teacher for help, he helped me to come up with an idea —- There are several windows, and I will put some different footages and combine them into a full video, my initial think makes some footages like a man ‘jump’ from the first window to the second one, and he throws a ball to the third window. So I made a window can be controlled by a button which is also set by me, so the final effect will be like I use the mouse to make the first window get close to the second one, and the video of the first window will be a person pushing the border, and then I will press different buttons to play the following videos in order. I am pleased with this inspiration and feel happy I can make that program to show my inspiration, of course, my teacher helped me a lot. From study 1 to study 3, I can feel that I’m getting more and more familiar with this application, although there are lots of things I can learn.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1-fSG6JyHpzafnvBYvIrn3TmWmDNZN5bX

In this fancy world, there are too much complicate things that cannot represent yourself, the only thing that can represent you is your true heart. So we made a program which has lots of windows as mirrors that only one can see yourself clearly, for the others, they are all blurry which you can not see the ‘real you’. There are many cameras, but only the middle one can be seen clearly and the speed is also normal, some of the other cameras have various effects, such as burry, chromatic, mosaic and so on, but all of them cannot be shown a real image, and we set a button, just press ‘2’ on the keyboard, all ‘unreal’ images will disappear. When we set the button, we had got a trouble, we remember one of our classmates has done that and our teachers showed us, so we tried a lot of codes but still not achieve, then we called our teacher helped us, when the teacher tell us how to make it, I had deepened my memory, so next time when I need to do that operation, it will be easier. Overall, the second program is much better than the first one I did, I learned lots of new codes and many effects, such as add music, overlapping two videos, even though this program is still a simple work.