EXPERIMENT. SCREEN. SENSATION 

Blog2：Last semester film 

I showed my work in the last semester of class. The studio of last semester was screen fashion, so our theme is fashion. First of all, the meaning of fashion I understand is an endless loop which is timeless and eternal. The past will rebirth, and the present will be gone. 

Timeless’ expresses the circulation idea of fashion through a suspense story. The whole story creates an imagination that the same person from three different timelines meets and shift roles via clothes changing.  Then the clothes become the symbol of identities, characters, and eras. The interactive lens will be tried to break the dimensional wall. And they represent ‘past,’ ‘present’ and ‘future’ which reveal the thought that fashion is like a Mobius strip — the symbol of infinite. Beyond that, ‘Timeless’ also delivers the idea that what people are chasing in fashion may already exist in themselves. Going with the stream is never the truth and attitude of fashion

The past

The present

The future

I want to continue to use fashion as a theme in my first assignment. At the same time, I used some unique angles to shoot in this film. I think I can continue to use this technique in the next one. On the other hand, I am not very satisfied with this video. I also could hear some noise in this shot film. I didn’t handle the sound part very well. Finally, I want to improve this problem through this semester study.

EXPERIMENT. SCREEN. SENSATION  

Blog1: new world…

Experiment. Screen. Sensation is a studio that I am very interested in. I am delighted to have chosen this class. First of all, I think this lesson is like a new world. I got in touch with many different types of video clips in the first lesson. Furthermore, I think some of the knowledge and filmmaking skills of this class are very practical, and I believe it will be a precious journey for me. At the same time, I know that the film I need to make this semester has no scope and any restrictions. This provided a huge creative space for me. I like this very much. Free creation is a good thing, but it is also a challenge for me. Creation is not an easy task. I understand that creation is a very complicated process. The creators usually need to spend a lot of time to come up with new things. I hope that I can improve my ability to create new jobs this semester. I used to take a week or two to think of a bright idea, and then I need to spend more time to process these ideas. But this semester, I am no longer working alone, so I believe I can save a lot of valuable time.

Moreover, I have a lot of ideas about my first assignment in the first lesson. I like fashion, and fast-paced film vision, so I want to make a film about fashion advertising. I am never aware that I have an idea so quickly. Finally, I hope that I can learn some of the film editing knowledge and technology that I have not touched, and I hope Experiment. Screen. Sensation studio that suits me very well.

I am delighted to learn to use Max this semester. First of all, I think it’s quite unbelievable. I didn’t hear about Max software four months ago. Now I can efficiently operate some shortcut keys and use the underlying technology in Max, although I still can’t master skills and fully understand the technical knowledge in Max. I am very fortunate that I chose Lights Camera Interaction, which allows me to discover a new skill set. Finally, the most exciting thing is that during the process of learning max, I came into contact with new technologies. It gave me a good understanding of the charm of interactive art.

By doing three new works, this time I am more aware of the hardships of creation, especially the three works is upgraded and changed in the original works. First of all, I feel that my creative process has been limited. I often can’t think of more exciting and attractive things from the original ideas, because I deem the previous work has been fixed the type and adding anything change is redundant. But the truth is, I have not made the flexibility to make changes. When one road didn’t work, I didn’t look for the next method; I waste my time obsessing over an idea. Moreover, the creative process is still not easy for me. I understand that creation is a very complicated process. When I encounter the creative bottleneck, I think the most important thing is to flexibly change my own ideas and find achievable goals. Finally, an essential part of the creative process is the flexibility to face all issues and make timely changes, and the creator will have more time to complete the most satisfying work.

Through these few weeks of learning MAX, I believe that interactive art is inseparable from the cooperation of artists and audiences. Before I learned Max, I didn’t understand why interactive art can bring so many marvelous feelings to people. However, the interactive art that I know is the artist use another exciting way to make the audience could feel more realistic and touch the charm of art. besides, interactive art is about participating and providing opportunities for audience participation. Moreover, each interactive artwork offers an opportunity for the audience to enter a particular environment autonomously and bring them a new experience. Interactive art makes art more intimate, and people could feel the existence of art while enjoying the works of art. On the other hand, I think interactive art is significant to be interesting, that will attract more people’s attention. And then, let me understand the meaning of interactive art when learning Max, interactive art allows the audience to feel the existence of art more specifically. When everyone personally experiences the participation in the production, they will let them understand the charm of art. Finally, some interactive art exists to make life interesting, not every artwork has a distinctive philosophy. Therefore，I want to continue to understand and learn more about Max. I also will try to spend more time to produce my satisfaction interactive art.

Regarding the aspect of success, first of all, I am delighted that all three of my works can be successfully completed. Although I have encountered a lot of troubles in it, I also feel the improvement of my operation. Moreover, I exhibited my study six work at the exhibition, which is the most satisfying and most interesting I deem. It is not similar to other people’s works. Many of my classmates used the concept of the game to complete their work. In comparison, my work will be a bit boring. On the other hand, my work is only to use a large volume to control the picture in the video, so the audience needs more time to see if it can catch the triangle. It also has some humorous elements that make people feel interesting. Besides, the first finished work I did was this work, completed this work, and reached my satisfaction. This has increased my confidence so that I will be more interested in exploring the future.

I deem the most regret is study 7, the results presented in this study are not the ones I am most satisfied. The idea in my mind is to allow viewers to appear on the live screen of the TV and hear the sound of themselves. I had found a lot of ways to achieve my goal. Unfortunately, I only made a live broadcast; there is no way to put the voice of the viewer into the same time. Moreover, I found a song to replace the sound of viewers, which makes my four TVs look a little boring. In the end, I didn’t achieve my target because I didn’t master Max, but this failed work also inspired me to spend more time researching and learning Max’s determination.

My last work about my study 8 is that I used the longest time to think about an idea. First of all, the elements in study 8 are from my work 2. In study 2, I used four pictures to represent the spring, summer, autumn, and winter. These four pictures will only change the background in the video. While, in study 8, I combined about three videos one by one. The viewer could use the “live slider” to control the transparency of the video so that they can appear in one picture at the same time. In my work I have two “live sliders” one for controlling video 1&2 and the other for video 3. Moreover, these three videos are three different instruments playing the same song. Besides, the similarity between these two works is that there are three or four different feelings in the same picture at the same time. Study 2 could let people feel the spring, summer, autumn, and winter without going out. At the same time study eight can enable the viewers to enjoy the music of piano guitar and Ukulele. Finally, this work I hope that the audience could feel relax and enjoy the charm of music.

Study 7 is my second creation based on the work of my study1. When I saw my first work again, the whole work had only one live broadcast of the mosaic. And then, I tried to use this element in my study 7, I thought that the TV was usually used for live shows, so in this work, I added an image of the TV to the background. There are four TVs in this picture placed in different positions. My idea is to play live broadcasts on every TV, but each image has a different place. Moreover, I split the entire live show into four parts, so the things that are played on the 4 TVs will be different. This will look interesting than every tv play the same image. At the same time, I keep the mosaic, and the mosaic in the live broadcast could bring a mysterious feeling to viewers. The player could control the position and size of the live view by changing the parameters of the data. I provided a simple data for reference (this data is in study 7 in my blog, it is a picture). Besides, there is a place in my study7 that makes me feel disappointed. I successfully created a live broadcast, but there is no way to put the voice of the viewer into it at the same time. The final result is that I found a piece of music to replace the sound of people.

For study 6, I chose to change the works of Kris. I thought it was great, and I spent a lot of time looking for inspiration. After that, I used his ideas to make changes. He used the sounds of people to change the color of the picture, while I my idea is used a song to change the background and color in a video. The concept of this study comes from the club at night. First of all, when people dance the most cheerful and swing, it is usually at the highest level of music at the club. Furthermore, the triangle is like a person who shuttles through the nightclub at night. And then, when people could hear the music sounds, we could slowly see his appearance. Finally, When the music is at the highest level, we could see that he is swinging on the dance floor, and the color change behind him is like the light in the nightclub that matches his swing. Furthermore, in the most primitive state, the viewers are unable to see any triangles in front of the screen. When people make a sound or click on the music which I put in the max, they might clearly see the triangle. Moreover, the triangle changes its color and background as the sound changes. As the volume increases, the changes people see are more apparent.

By doing three new works, I have some more profound understanding of the creative process and the process of cognition in the creation process. The commonality of the three works is that each time I think of an idea or need a new plan, it takes a lot of time to discuss it with my group mates. But this time is different because most of our works are group cooperation, it’s no longer one person who offers ideas. Hence, these few creations have more exciting elements, and when we combine them, it is a fancy work. The ability and ideas of a person in creation are limited, and the works of others could be used to create incredible works. Moreover, we went to see a few art exhibitions before I did independent work which helped me very much.Through the works of different artists, each of them has its style and elements. Through their exciting ideas, I might also create satisfactory worksmore efficiently, and integrate unique aspects into my worksand design. Therefore, I think that one of the vital things in the process of creation is to appreciate others’ works, which could also help us increase speed the pace of creation. At the same time, we could come up with unique ideas from other people’s works. On the other hand, the most significant trouble I encountered in this creation was I had a good idea, but on some technical aspects, we could not correctly and accurately present our good intentions. Therefore, the creative process needs constant revision to be realistic. Finally, during the learning process of MAX, I deeply understand the creative process is complicated. At the same time, creation is a very complicated process. I need a lot of time to explore and research. Every work that I have presented through MAX has made me more interested in creating more, and I want to continue my deep learning.

Through these few weeks of learning MAX, I think my understanding of interactive art has similar ideas to the previous assignment, and each interactive art installation could convey different information to people. At the same time, the feeling brought by this interactive art is that everyone has a special connection to everything. Besides, interactive art allows viewers to feel the existence of art more specifically. In the week 7, we went to ACM and saw different interactive artworks. Every piece of work made my viewers feel magical and exciting. I think the unique charm of interactive art is that everyone can experience the process of participating in the production. I have designed a small game in my work in MAX. I like this piece very much, and I am delighted. I find it amusing when I play this game. Interactive art I think it’s important to be interesting so that it will attract more people’s attention. Finally, I believe that interactive art can bring people a lot of fanatical feelings. A different unique experience can only be felt in interactive artworks.

Through these weeks of deeper learning and practice MAX, I feel that I have improved to use MAX. I think that study4&5 is all done smoothly. First of all, when we were discussing, we thought of a very novel idea, and then we made it through MAX. Among it, we have encountered a lot of unsolvable technologies. Every time we meet problems, we will think of new methods in time to replace the tasks that could not be completed before. When Study4 was draft one, the teacher taught us how to put a piece of audio, and then we quickly changed, and we used the same way into several different pieces of music. This makes our work look more interesting. Finally, I think the best we can do is to fix the errors and discuss the solutions in a timely manner, and this also increases the speed at which we finish. Successful completion of the work made me more curious to explore MAX.

Regarding my three works, although I have been completed, and there are still many problems that I have not solved. One of the most regrettable things is study 5. Our idea is to use a gesture movement to control music. When the music starts playing when the hand is moving, then when the hand freezes in one place, the music stops playing. However, in the process of production, we found that gestures could not be accurately identified. In desperation, we could only change the way to control the playback and pause of music. And then we think of a simple form to complete the work, when a hand disappears on the screen, a piece of music can stop. Furthermore, this work was successfully presented, despite there are many flaws. Finally, I believe that I will spend more time learning and exploring the use and skills of MAX, as well as researching reference and help in MAX. I could be satisfied with every work.

The last independent work is the most satisfying and favorite of my three works. First of all, I made an easy game to show it in MAX. The inspiration for this work is from the ACMI interactive artwork Color Wheel. An element in the complete picture appears on one side of the screen, and the viewer needs to use the wheel to turn the picture on the screen until the matching complete picture is found.  This interactive artwork is very appealing to me, and this game makes many people interesting. Besides, I made a similar game in MAX, the viewer could change the picture by letter K, until you think the small picture and the big picture are the same pictures, press the letter C, if the picture matches, a sound will appear and tell people to win this game. Conversely, there will be no change if there is no match. Finally, the message I want conveys is the most exciting part of interactive art is that it makes people feel excited and happy so that the audience will be more willing to invest more time to appreciate the art. Playing the game itself is a light thing, I want people to have time to rest in busy work.

The fifth work is that we added some difficulty from the fourth work， thus that it could attract more attention from the viewer. First of all, we added three different instruments of music in this work. When the music is combined, we hope that the audience could imagine that this is a small concert. At the same time, we added a new part to control a new piece of music，which is the eye. When the eyeball turns, the participants could open a new piece of music. Besides, this study is also the most challenging place for us. Which are we don’t just want to use the movement of the face to control the music. At the same time, we want to use gestures smoothly play a segment of music. For us, this is a combination look will be fancier. Moreover, the difficulty we encountered was that our idea was music to start playing when the hand was moving, and music would stop playing when the hand was stopping in a place. But the truth is that gestures cannot be accurately identified by MAX. We might only change one way. When the hand disappears on the screen, one of the pieces of music could stop. Furthermore, when we successfully connected every step in MAX, we presented our initial thoughts, although we were not very satisfied. In the end, we hope that the viewers can relax and play into this work, and the fun that this game will bring.

Regarding the fourth work of our group, we spent a lot of time, in the beginning, to discuss how to use non-tactile technology to display our work in the Max. This problem makes us very confused. First of all, our idea is to use facial recognition to control the playback and stop of several different pieces of audio. With the help of the teacher, we used the FaceOSC software to identify each person’s face to complete our work more accurately. Moreover, we tried to use the size of the mouth open and the direction in which the face moves forward to achieve the state of controlling the audio with the face. When the mouth is opened to the specified number (higher than 13), the sound will play, and when the face moves (near the computer screen) is higher than the value 5, a new piece of audio will play. Furthermore, this work we hope people could feel that they do anything that has a significant change or a small change to the world, thus when they open their mouths and move their faces, they can make a different sound. Finally, we reached our initial expectations, although we have experienced many difficulties in this work.