These last three studies I feel as if I have really exhibited my advancement as a media creator. The creative process of these three assignments I believe was quite successful, I am very pleased by the outcome of all three studies, however, I do believe as always that there is further refinement/advancement that can be done.

Prior to this semester, I had never even heard of MAX, so having to continuously use this software caused many difficulties, however, because of this I had to learn a lot within quite a small period of time. Previously, I tended to stay within the bounds of comfort and because of that I was able to actually execute what I had envisioned, however those creations were very ‘basic’ and limited. Yet within these studies, I really pushed myself as there were many new elements that I wanted to explore further. 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, I tried my best through external research and what I had learnt within class to construct an engaging piece of interactive art. With these last few studies, I found that my creative process (apart from the technical difficulties upon conception) had become even more so refined than I had stated in my previous reflections.

Techniques of interactive art making that I have learnt this semester include on a basic level what truly shapes user interactivity, being sensory elements such as sound, tangibility, sight etc that can all be utilised within interactive art. Also I had found that the concept of giving the audience agency upon the outcome of an artwork very interesting as most usually the artist holds primary agency. As there can be various users of interactive art, this provides a certain diversity in which would have not existed if there was only one sole creator (being the artist).

What I would consider successful about my work so far would be quite a lot in comparison to where I began at the beginning of the semester, but most notably is the appearance of the completed studies, they include both informative and decorative elements such as instructive text, photos or colouring. I have previously received a lot of criticism from peers referring to my lack of care for the look of my studies, so for these, I gave extra attention to making the finished patch appear polished. Yet ultimately, in all studies I had created what I had envisioned, with some compromises, of course, my studies have all been successful to a certain extent (of course being realistic of what can be achieved under time restraints and minimal knowledge of MAX). Going into this semester my ultimate objective was to create art which can adequately interact with a user for either a short or sustained period of time, which I believe I have achieved throughout all of my studies. Most importantly I feel as if my personal improvement as an interactive artist is most evident when comparing these three studies to my first. Not only are my creations much more technically advanced yet also the appearances of these pieces are much more refined. In comparison 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.

As I progressed throughout the semester with each study I had created, I feel as if I was constantly improving as an interactive artist, this incline of skill is very much evident from my first creation to my most recent. This form of art intrinsically relies on the participation of a user in order to determine the outcome of the piece, which is the ultimate objective of user interactive art and is what I believe that I have successfully achieved within all of my studies. Overall I am quite content with where I am skilfully yet always eager to continue to learn and advance my works.

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 (as I have mentioned previously) will allow myself to be able to actually bring my ideas to conception. At the begging of this semester using this form of technology in order to achieve numerous different effects was very much new to me, I still have moments of confusion or frustration as I don’t think I will ever confidently say that I have a complete understanding of MAX, yet with everything I have made so far I have been exploring/ improving with the software more and more. Ultimately, I am very pleased with all I have created this semester, I have learnt a lot about interactivity and what encompasses audience agency.

For my eighth and final study, I had decided to recreate a piece from the first assignment of the semester. Sentimental, I know, however it acts more as a display or exhibition of both my technical and conceptual advancement throughout the semester. Predominantly throughout all of my studies I have explored the correlation of audio and visuals, I had begun the semester with creating a ‘visual synthesiser’ the primary focus of that piece was purely surface level. So I also wanted to create another piece with the same objective, meaningless fun. However, I did need to advance some elements, such as rather than the inclusion of a keyboard, I felt that utilising a song would have a much more engaging and interesting effect upon the visuals presented. This patch was definitely one of the most difficult of everything that I had attempted this semester and thus required help from external sources. After thorough research, this creation ultimately exhibited many elements that I was unfamiliar with yet they created very interesting effects. Conceptually, I simply wanted to create something playful and frivolous, I believe that it is actually quite engaging for a sustained period of time as the colour patterns are beautiful to look at and after some time the piece actually becomes quite immersive. Like the other studies within this assignment, I put a lot of effort into the appearance such as including instructive text just to make it look much more inviting and polished. I truly wanted to challenge myself technically in a way that I have not previously, overall I am very pleased with the outcome and I believe that I have concluded this semester in success.

For my seventh study, I decided to rework my ‘sound artwork’ piece which I had created for my major project. I really admired this creation yet I found that it was lacking technical skill, I have attempted to both advance and refine this very simple concept. I really like the idea of being able to create something visual from sound, yet rather than merely asking the viewer to sit and clap their hands (or make any form of abrupt sound) they were prompted to select a song and watch as the shapes and colours move in correlation with the sounds, thus ‘watching’ their favourite song. Both having the user select their favourite song and the sporadic movement of shapes both tend to evoke longer engagement. In addition, like my major project this piece was quite decorative, the way the lines and shapes interact with one another reminded me of a cubist painting yet how these shapes also move with the music is very satisfying to watch. In terms of technical skill, this piece was not too difficult to execute as I simply combined two of my previous works and was quite familiar with all of the elements utilised, however in the future I would like to look into something more complex. I find that I am able to actually create what I have envisioned when I stay within my knowledge of max, but there are many things that I would like to explore further.

This study was a reimagination of Yating Shi’s major project who created a piece where the user clicks on an image and try to locate a hidden square within it. This reminded me of a ‘Where’s Wally’ type game and found that it had so much more potential than simply prompting the user to click around the screen sporadically until they luckily land upon the hidden square. In fact when I had selected Yating to base my peer review upon I had a lot of critiques to provide, probably the most I have ever given a fellow student, just because I saw so much potential within this piece as it was a simple yet very engaging concept. So, for my piece, I prompted the user to attempt to find the small dogs amongst various toys/objects when successful they will hear a little dog bark, and then they may proceed to the next level, there are five levels and they gradually increase in difficulty. This was simply designed to be a fun game testing the audience’s ability to focus upon an image. However, now to the most difficult aspect of this assignment, sustained interaction. I gave this my best attempt and I think that this piece most definitely has the potential to sustain interaction for perhaps five minutes but it really depends on how quickly the user progresses through the levels. I actually began with only one image, but I found that only having one level would not be engaging enough over a long period of time, that is when I decided to construct five levels overall, hoping to prolong audience interactivity.
On a technical level, it was quite simple to construct as a had a base (Yating’s piece) to work from, all I needed to do was remove some elements and add some of my own. In addition, within this assignment, I made sure to provide instructive/interpretive text for the user, which is something that I had previously overlooked and stated that I must improve upon for my following assignments.