With these last few studies, I found that my creative process had become even more so refined than I had stated in my previous reflection. The creative process of my three assignments I believe was quite successful, I am very pleased by the outcome of all three studies, however, as always I do believe that there is further refinement that can be done. Taking away the tactile aspect of interaction truly made me reflect upon how I will be able to create something that can adequately engage and interact with my audience in a way that I have never explored before, this posed a creative challenge. My creative process also may look very different from others as I have truly struggled with MAX, bringing my ideas to conception was quite difficult for me due to my little understanding of the software. However, I have come very far from the beginning of the semester, I have really learnt a lot from external research and my peers. Having an open mind and always being willing to engage and learn from others is imperative to advance yourself as a media creator. Yet my creative processes have most definitely conjured some failures, studies 4 and 5 caused a lot of difficulty with my group members and I, as there was a large trial and error process when selecting a range of numbers in which the software needed to recognise. Also being because of the many differences in individual faces and we wanted the piece to be as user inclusive as possible, however, we gave it our best attempt to refine the piece as best as we could. Yet ultimately, I really enjoyed exploring different ways of using non-tactile interaction in what I create.

What I have learnt about techniques of interactive art making throughout this semester, on a very basic level, what actually defines user interactivity and I have found the concept of giving the audience agency upon the outcome of an artwork very interesting.

What I would consider to be successful about my work so far is that I ultimately have created what I had envisioned, however, I have found that my pieces have had the potential to evoke an array of different emotions, I find this very interesting as my exploration truly shows the continuously evolving nature of art. I am quite pleased with all my creations as I believe that I constructed playful pieces that all ultimately invite the audience to engage. I believe my work to be successful to a certain extent (of course being realistic of what can be achieved under time restraints and minimal knowledge of MAX) as it relies on the participation of a user to determine the outcome of the piece, which was what I had hoped to achieve within all of my studies and is the ultimate objective of user interactive art.

How I believe I can improve my work is as I have stated numerous times, ultimately become more proficient with MAX, being more aware of different controls within MAX will allow myself to be able to actually bring my ideas to conception. So far I also feel as if I need to work a bit more towards creating a piece that is much more polished, a better understanding of MAX will help me with this.

Another element in which I believe I could really improve upon is the presentation of my MAX creations. What I have just noticed and I think that I should alter for the future, is simply my laziness or perhaps the belief that it is unnecessary, however, my Max creation should include some instruction in order for the user to understand what is actually going on. Perhaps a description of the piece or a prompt for the audience to begin engagement, I will most definitely look to include something like this within my future MAX pieces.  

Compared to where I had begun with my practically non-existent understanding of MAX and limited knowledge of interactive art in general, I feel as if I have come a long way, and I am very much pleased. Each assignment I create I feel as if I have improved as an interactive artist, this incline of skill is very much evident from my first creation to my most recent. Overall I am quite content with where I am skillfully yet always eager to continue to learn and advance my works.

For my personal creation, I decided to evoke sensations of discomfort, chaos and disarray through the display of sporadic lines and shapes in accordance to volume of audio. Within class, we were shown a MAX creation that I really admired, however it required tactile interaction in order to trigger the appearance of shapes. So in order to involve a non-tactile element, I decided upon sound, as I had explored it within my previous studies. Within my third study, I had explored pitch through the utilisation of a keyboard provided to the user, whereby for this study I chose to have volume govern the outcome of the piece. Due to my lack of knowledge of MAX, as I did for my previous studies, researched an array of methodology in order to guide this creation. I also found that exploring my classmate’s creations also helped me be able to construct what I had envisioned. On a general level, the purpose of the piece is to, as I stated above evoke feelings of discomfort, however, upon creation I found that this piece was actually quite decorative, the way the lines and shapes interact with one another reminded me of a cubist painting. So it didn’t quite fulfil the intended purpose of chaos, yet the unsettling effect may actually be caused by the partial control the user has yet not being able to govern the ultimate appearance of the ‘art piece’ in which they had created through their choice of volume. Ultimately there are numerous ways to interpret the piece apart from is playful nature.

For the second study, we were instructed to use insights given by members of the class from study 4 to try again and further refine/advance for study five. However, the only comments we received were quite unhelpful as we were instructed to merely present more dogs, which is alright as our class members really only had positive things to say. This is difficult as it does leave my group and I with much to alter, however, it is good because this allowed us to focus more so upon the efficient and proficient functioning of the piece. Here we definitely did struggle and gave it our best attempt, however, our most notable alteration was in fact (suggested by classmates) presenting more dogs. Not only does the piece prompt the audience to smile, which would naturally evoke pleasure, yet it also tapps into our natural endearment towards dogs, and the sympathetic erge provoked by the face of a distressed dog. Thus we were content with the primary notion of the study, however, it was upon conception where we faced many challenges. As I stated previously we faced many problems with the facial recognition software we gave it our best attempt to refine the piece as best as we could, as this is all a very new learning experience for my group and I.

For this fourth study, we were confined to creating an interactive piece in which was primarily non-tactile, this posed quite a challenge, however, I was eager to give it my best attempt. I actually really enjoy working on these assignments with others as I have very limited knowledge of MAX so this gives me the opportunity to learn. This piece’s conceptualisation had to be focussed upon a particular emotion, my group decided to choose happiness, whilst simultaneously we noticed that our creation had the potential to also conversely prompt sadness/ sympathy. We discussed what could almost always evoke happiness and we figured simply cute dogs. The premise of the piece is that when a person (in view of the camera) shows a seemingly ‘happy’ face, which is most generally identified by characteristics such as raised eyebrows and a smile (we ultimately decided to program the piece more so directed by eyebrow movement) an image of a happy dog would appear and if a sad face was present, a sad image of a dog would be shown. In order to achieve this we decided to utilise facial recognition software (as the non-tactile aspect of this assignment). I understood that this temperamental software would pose many challenges, yet we were willing to give it our best attempt (as this study was considered to be just a draft) and then refine it as much as possible for the next more advanced/ evolved version. Technical issues included the software not being able to adequately monitor a face (or aspects of the face) to then present the information to MAX which would them trigger the change of images, problems also lay within MAX, being that there was a large trial and error process when selecting a range of numbers in which the software needs to recognise. Also being because of the many differences in individual faces, the software had to ideally re-calibrate for each individual, this is something we looked upon for the fifth study.

 

The creative process of my three assignments I believe was quite successful, I am very pleased by the outcome of all three studies, however, I do believe that there is further refinement that can be done. I have never previously used MAX thus the creative process throughout these three studies have been more tedious as a lot of the learning had been done through the many mistakes in which were made. Due to my unfamiliarity with the software, it was difficult during the creative process as I would conceptualise various potential studies yet I would realistically not be able to construct them on MAX. This is why for study one I began with something extremely simple, I think that it was quite important for me to base my first study upon what I had learnt within class, as these are some of the most imperative commands in understanding the software on a basic level. I believe that my improvement as a creator is quite evident through the transition from study one to three, as my confidence in the software had gradually improved, as through experimentation my knowledge of what can be achieved had broadened.

I have recently learnt quite a lot about what defines user interactivity and I find the concept of giving the audience agency upon the outcome of an artwork very interesting. I was very much aware of the numerous forms/ techniques of interactive art, however, using this form of technology in order to achieve numerous different effects was very much new to me. I had never even heard of the required software and new little about this more tactile form of art. Yet through these studies, I’ve realised that being simplistic within the design process can still make for a very engaging piece, this was evident within my and many other of classmates first studies that were mainly kept quite simple. This is also evident with various interactive artists in which I have studied, complexity is not imperative in order to create an evocative artwork.

What I believe would be the most successful aspect of my work is that within all three of my studies, I had achieved what I had envisioned, to a certain extent (being realistic of what can be achieved under time restraints and minimal knowledge of MAX). I am pleased with all my creations as I constructed quite evocative pieces in very different ways, eliciting varying emotions, however, all invite the audience to engage. I believe my work to be successful as it relies on the participation of a user to determine the outcome of the piece, which was what I had hoped to achieve within all of my studies.

I believe that many things can be improved upon, I understand that most likely I will never be completely confident with this software, however, I will continue to create and broaden my knowledge of different things that can be achieved. Using external sources of information has most definitely aided my creation process In addition, I found that the use of the help and reference windows had also been extremely useful upon using particular objects in which I was not familiar with. The exploration of these windows will definitely help to advance future creations of mine.

I also find that I have been simplifying my initial ideas for the purpose of staying within time restraints and conceptualising an idea that can actually be properly achieved with my minimal knowledge of the programming software. I have challenged myself most definitely when constructing my third study, however, I hoped for so much more for my visual synthesizer, artistically. It was beautiful and playful but perhaps in the future with further research and refinement, I could input a song of choice rather than a keyboard, or even have the sound correlate to more intense colours and shapes. Something that I would like to explore further within future artistic endeavours are textures, when I say this I mean I want the visuals within my piece to be more complex, more layered, involving much more depth, I feel as if that will be very interesting to research further. I want to see how much I can possibly create visually with this software, being a very artistic person I want to explore this element further. Particularly how the user can be able to alter these visuals accordingly (dependant on visuals, sounds etc).

So far I’m quite enjoying this studio, much more than anticipated. The idea of programming and needing to attempt something that I never previously have made me apprehensive, but I am very pleased with what I have achieved so far. I hope to learn to further refine my studies, constructing more complex yet efficient patchers and improving my overall artistic processes.

As opposed to study #2, my primary focus upon the conception of this piece is purely surface level. This visual synthesizer is merely constructed for fun, the patterns and sounds change as the user presses different keys on the provided keyboard. This patch was definitely the most difficult of all 3 studies that I had created, this idea of mine required help from external sources. After thorough research upon creating a visual synthesiser on MAX I gave it my best attempt. Conceptually, I simply wanted to create something playful and frivolous and I believe that I have successfully achieved just that. This configuration of lines and shapes are dependant on the keys (and corresponding sounds/ notes) in which the user selects, this allows the user to have complete control over the visuals of this piece. In this third study I wanted to challenge myself technically in a way that I did not in my first, the outcome of this study I am sure is not perfect as most likely it can be more refined yet I hope to learn and improve my understanding of MAX for future complex/ more efficient creations.

View study #3 here

This second study required me to work artistically with three other people. The purpose of our piece was to be evocative, to not only elicit an emotional response from the viewers yet to also record and present it. We wanted to capture people’s initial reactions (which tends to be the most candid/ natural) upon presenting them with the controversial subject matter. The patch was designed to reveal 3 different images in which relate to both political and social issues. The image is only presented for a few seconds whereby then the viewer will see a playback loop of the few seconds that was recorded, allowing the user to briefly view their reaction to the content. Each reaction will vary depending on the viewer’s personal stance upon these issues. I don’t recall the group facing any major issues yet what we found was that there were numerous methods to achieve what we wanted, however, some were more efficient than others. This study was very interesting to construct as it was not merely something ‘playful’ or solely for the means of beauty, this piece was created to prompt discussion and cause the user to reflect upon personal beliefs.

View study #2 here

For this initial study, I designed my piece in accordance to an ideology in which was prompted by Felix Gonzalez Torres. His interactive artwork exhibited a small pile of individually wrapped candies however as playful as this piece may appear, it acts as an allegorical representation of the artist’s partner, Ross Laycock, who died of an AIDS-related illness in 1991. As the viewer unwraps and eats the candy, he or she becomes complicit in the disappearing process. I wanted to further explore this idea of the viewers ultimately being liable for the outcome of the piece. Due to my extremely limited experience with the programming software and this being my very first technical assignment of the class, I decided to employ techniques in which I was taught in class, as these are some of the most imperative commands in understanding the software on a basic level. I didn’t quite find any large/ unavoidable challenges as I did choose to approach the assignment with simplicity, allowing it to act more as a learning experience for future MAX creations. I understand the extreme simplicity of linking a keyword (remove) to the closing of the camera, however,  with limited knowledge of the software, I wanted to give the audience the opportunity to take away from the piece, by removing the most fundamental aspect of its conception.

view study #1 here 

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