Reflection

During the four weeks, I have come into contact with a new software- “Max”, this is a new challenge for me. In the first class, our teacher requested us to find some interesting interactive arts and make a power point and then do a short presentation in class. The purpose of this small task is to find inspiration and then use Max to make your own idea and show it to the teacher. During the week 1 and week2, I search the meaning of interactive art online and then I find an interactive art called “THE MOMENT” on the website.

“THE MOMENT” is an interactive art that allows audiences to replay their actions that have just passed and no longer exist at very slow speed. The creator use camera record each different movement which cannot be discerned by the naked eyes. So, I create a program which can be associated with this art. There are two windows which can show the image with slow speed and another is normal speed. During the period, I read some research, I have a little understanding of the techniques of interactive art making. For example, in “the movement”, the moment is a type of a time machine that allows viewers to see their action at a slower speed. A high-speed camera is installed to capture each movement in frames that cannot be discovered with people’s eyes. A quick and sudden movement by viewers triggers a slow motion for about 5 seconds on the display instantly. The slow motions played on the screen, such as jumping and swinging arms, appear like leaps and gestures made by a dancer. In my opinion, interactive art is an art form that connects the audience in a way that allows art to achieve the goals. The creator use some machines like camera, mirror or lights to request observers or visitors do some movements to make art become interesting and have some vivid moment.

For the first time I use Max, it is quite hard for me to create a program. Because I never use this software before, and it’s very unfamiliar to me. So, when I did the first study, I just know how to make some very easy effects like how to change the clarity and speed of the image. However, when I see the other people’s program, I know how monotonous my work is. For instance, in the first study, someone do the hidden effect, which means when you press a number, the image will disappear. And someone do the overlapping, burry effects in their work. So, this has great influence for me. When we do the next group work, we wanted to try to make the whole program complex. We tried to use different effects on images, like overlapping which means add a video on an image and then turn up the brightness to create a special visual effect. We also use a skill which press a number then some images would disappear. Maybe the final program is not acceptable to all but we try to do more skills and effects. In the third work, I use a new style which different with study 1 and study 2. My teacher help me to do a window that can control the position of images. When I press a different message, the position of images is different.

During the four weeks, we did three works and I learned a lot of skills about Max. I think the successful about my work so far is that I did not understand everything from the beginning, but I can do some simple even a little bit complex program now. I understand the creative process is very interesting and amazing. When I saw the teacher’s exercises in class, I always feel this process is magical, like using some simple passwords to record image and sound. However, compare with other students, my works are still boring and simple and my knowledge is very superficial, because I only know how to imitate teacher’s teaching in class, and sometimes I have no ideas of my own. The most important thing in class is creative thinking, so I need to open my mind and do more creative exercise out of class, like do a draft or draw a map before do program formally. In the next weeks, I want to improve my skills and learn more special effects. In the study I reflection, I said the big problem for me is that I don’t know how to show my complete idea via Max, because I am still unfamiliar with the software, I cannot do the clear and amazing effects to show people. So, I want to overcome this difficulty in our next assignment though our tutorial, classmates’ help and my own creative thinking. I believe I can do better work than these three programs.