I think Kimmy’s idea is wonderful! When I first saw his work, I was still wondering why he could make a mobile phone. When I actually went to experience, I discovered that his ideas and practices are clever. He took a screenshot of his mobile phone and record the effect of some software when he opened it. The icon of the software in the screenshot is used as a switch for playing video. What a great design! His idea is good, but there are also many places to improve, for example, the control of the Home button is just to hide the video if he can stop the video effect will be better! I believe that if he is given more time, his work will be a more complete and excellent work.

Trista’s work is similar to mine in part, but I think she’s doing better because her song is complete and mine is only a small part of it. At the same time, the design of her works is more beautiful, appropriate and clear. Such an approach is undoubtedly very attractive to the audience. When the audience finished playing the song, the time must be more than 5 minutes, which also meets the requirements of assessment. This project is perfect, but I think there are also areas for improvement, such as the piano can be used as a switch for another video or audio, or when the whole song is over, the audience can also hear the music they play.

Ming’s work is my favourite! As a boy, football games accompany most of my leisure time. When I saw his work, I was shocked! By the time of his second assignment, the core of his work had come out, namely the penalty shoot-out. The second work needs motion capture, but in this assignment, he uses the game handle to control the players, and at the same time increases the possibility of shooting football, moreover, he has made two computer games! What a perfect work! I think his understanding of software and his later efforts are impeccable.

Solo statement:

The core of my solo work in assignment 3 is based on my last assignment. The requirement for this assignment was to keep the audience’s attention for 5-7 minutes. After my deep understanding, I decided to connect the video to the piano keyboard. In this work, the viewer controls the number of video appearances by learning to play the song “shape of you” and knocking the songs on the keyboard. The audience uses the computer keyboard instead of the piano keyboard to play the song, and the correct one pops up the sentence, and the score of the next sentence will appear. Only when the audience writes all the songs correctly in a specific box they can see the complete image. In this work, I made full use of the knowledge I learned in class, combined with sound, image, tactile interaction and nontactile interaction.

Group Statement:

This group assignment was inspired by our first group assignment – making choices. Since the requirement for this assignment was to keep the audience’s attention for 5-7 minutes, my team members decided on the theme of the assignment, Lost in House. This work is like a horror game, the room escapes – there is an unknown monster in the house, the protagonist needs to constantly choose various behaviours to escape the house. How to get to the next screen, most of them are prompted. However, in order to make the audience feel like they are racking their brains, there are no hints in some places. For example, before the door is opened, the screen will stop. Only when the audience enters “open” in the box, the screen will be triggered and the next scene and plot will be entered. Whenever the audience chooses the wrong approach, everything will go back to the starting point and they need to re-choose.

Kebby

When I saw Kebby’s 3D face model, I was shocked! Because this is the point I lack, her work really appeals to me. The idea that our team first proposed was to do a similar project, but because our team members didn’t understand how to do it, we had to give up the idea and turn to our current work. I think Kebby’s work is perfect, without any embarrassment. If I score, I think she deserves 100 points. But I have an idea to improve her work. It can appear, multiple face models, for example, two people appear in the camera and two 3D models appear in the picture.

Saskia

I really like Saskia’s solo project. In assignment 1, there was one classmate who has done the work of controlling the piano keyboard with a computer keyboard. Obviously, that does not meet the requirements of assessment 2, because this time’s work requirement is non-tactile interaction. But to my surprise, Saskia succeeds to control the piano keyboard in the air with the body movement. Although it is still insensitive, and sometimes it is wrong to identify, these do not affect this is a good job. If there is any possibility, I hope that next time Saskia can make a project that teaches the audience to play a song, it will be a perfect work.

Kimmy

When I saw Kimmy’s work, I felt that his work attracted me. He composed a large picture with four different small pictures, and the direction and colour of each small picture are different, which gives the audience a good first impression. Moreover, his work can use the voice and movement of the audience to control the sound effect in the picture. This is an aspect that meets the requirements of assignment 2. However, his work is also a bit simple, without complicated operations and deep meaning. In the next assignment, I think he can improve the interaction between sound and picture, not just a simple sound effect.

Solo artist statement:

The theme of assignment 2 is untactile interaction. After the NGV trip, I was inspired by the mirror inside. The easiest interaction is to turn on the camera, and viewers’ pictures will appear，but it’s too boring. So I developed the way to turn on the camera — using sound control. This is a good combination of the two most important factors of picture and sound. My project is to control the number of camera screens through sound, and combined with the “cut video” learned in class, the whole picture is cut into 6 x 6 small pictures which means a total of 36 small pictures make up a big picture. The small pictures that appear are controlled by the sound of the viewers make. The louder the sound makes, the more the small pictures will appear.

Group artist statement:

Our group work has profoundly applied to the two most important factors in this assignment – the picture and the sound which are the nontactile interactions. In the group project, we control the creation of a cube which is filled with the viewer’s picture by collecting the audience’s voices and actions. The greater the audience’s voice and motion, the clearer the picture in the cube. At the same time, the action of the audience is also the trigger of the sound effect in the project. Although our group work does not use a particularly complicated program, we fully reflected and completed the requirements of this assessment. But the initial idea of our group was not what we were showing, but the direction of the cube changed with the movement of the hand. This is a difficulty that we have not overcome, so we retreat and choose our current work. We also have a lot of things to improve, such as too sensitive motion capture of unstable images. In the next assignment, this is also the aspect we need to focus on correcting and improving.

Reflection:

The requirements of Assessment 2 are exactly the opposite of the requirements of the first assignment. The first one is that we need to use tactile interaction and this time we need to use nontactile interaction. For those of us who have just completed the first assignment, this transition is quite difficult. But everyone has enough passion and confidence to complete this work.

What we have learned during these weeks can be summarized into three points: picture capture, sound capture and 3D animation. These three points can be used separately and cooperate with each other. After the trip of NGV, we got inspiration from the mirror. At the time, after discussion by the group members, our group’s work direction was picture capture. In the previous assignment, we were more likely to go outdoors to shoot videos but instead use Max. I feel that our focus is wrong, so in this assignment, we will focus more on Max, using this software to reflect our ideas.

After learning 3D animation, we were amazed, because we could choose a variety of interesting 3D models instead of the simple images that were originally captured in the camera, so we decided to combine the two aspects of picture capture and 3D animation. After a period of trials and constant consulting, we were unable to overcome the various problems encountered in 3D animation. We had to give up 3D animation and chose to combine screen capture and sound capture. Only after having a try, we know whether it is able to achieve or not. The original idea is always good, but it is only after trial that we know its feasibility. When we don’t have more time to solve the problem, choosing another direction may be the best way at that time. After a period of continuous thought and veto ideas, we gradually got the direction of our group work. We control the creation of a cube which is filled with the viewer’s picture by collecting the audience’s voices and actions. The greater the audience’s voice and motion, the clearer the picture in the cube. But we also have a lot of things that need to be improved and improved. For example, the first one is that the motion capture is too sensitive, the small motion will cause the picture to sway continuously. Secondly, the movement of the audience and the mutual interaction of the cube are irregular, and we wish the rotation of the cube can be done to follow the limb movements of the audience. These improvements can be considered in the next assignment.

When I knew about this assignment, I had a preliminary idea of the solo work. The size of the sound is used to control the number of images that appeared, and these small images made up a large picture. At first, I thought that in all the work that needed to be done, as long as I knew how to use the sound control screen to appear in the presentation mode, the rest is basically a simple job. After consulting the teacher, this was easily overcome, so I started my solo work. But only when I started to do it, I know that the workload was huge. Because I decided to use 36 small screens (6 x 6), each small screen is separate small programming, and finally, all the small screens are connected together. This process is boring and requires patience, but fortunately, I have insisted. Another problem I encountered was that because I wanted small pictures to appear gradually, I needed to adjust the trigger timing of each picture. Which means that the number of the “greater object” of each small picture is different, and these numbers require constant trials to know how much is appropriate. But when I finished the project, I had a full sense of accomplishment, and I was very satisfied with the effect of my solo work. If I can, I hope that my next assignment can be based on my current assignment, and then continue to expand to get better work.

Nick

When I first saw Nick’s solo work, I was deeply attracted. The assignment requirement is to use tactile interaction, and Nick used the instrument piano. Because the piano is indeed a good example of a process of interaction between people and things. In his work, whenever a mouse clicks on a key on a piano keyboard, a different sound is emitted. I think it would be even better if he can connect the piano keyboard with a computer keyboard. At the same time, he also showed that he has a good understanding of Max because he does not simply only pasted what he learned in class but applied more complicated methods.

Kimmy

This is a perfect and interesting solo work! I think that in Kimmy’s project, he showed the interaction twice. First of all, he used the tactile interaction which is also the requirement of our homework. The viewer can click on the button he has set in Max to see different videos of a dog. Secondly, he showed his interaction with the dog in the video, although this is not what the audience did, it is also an embodiment of interaction. At the same time, he used the simple method that the teacher said in the class, and applied the template directly from Max. I think this shows that Kimmy has a good understanding of Max.

Jake, Kebby, Jenna and Sam

Among all of the classmates’ works of assignment 1, my favourite one is group work of Jake, Kebby, Jenna and Sam. Because I think this project best demonstrates the requirement of assignment — tactile interaction. In this work, using the keyboard to write anything, there will be a variety of different sounds, which means that their group has recorded different sounds for each key on the keyboard, which is a great and complicated job! I think that at this stage, this project is perfect and there is no need for improvement.

Solo Artist Statement:

When I first saw this assignment, the idea appeared in my mind is the combination of video, audio and the application I learned in class, to make a funny and interesting project. Unlike the group project, my individual work has no deep meaning, just to show my understanding and use of this application, and to show my personality. In order to better reflect the theme of tactile interaction, I shot 6 videos about my 6 different facial expressions and recorded 6 different sounds of audio. The audience can choose any video to match any of the audio, and the resulting effect is different, allowing the viewer to deeply interact with my project.

Group Artist Statement:

Life is a process of making choices. Every time we stand in a crossing street, we have to decide which direction to go. In this group project, the audience plays as a person who is constantly making choices in the Melbourne Museum. This is also a good match for the tactile interaction of this assignment topic. We shot Kimmy as the main person to choose which department to go like dinosaur hall, insect gallery and human bodies hall. When the project is presenting, it is entirely up to the audience to decide which direction to choose. In this scenario, each time a direction is chosen, the content and results of the audience are different. Our group wants to use this group project to reflect our lives. No one life path is wrong, as long as it is our own choice, there will be wonderful content waiting for ourselves.

Reflection:

Before this class, I have never been exposed to the application Max, not even heard of it. Although the use and understanding of this software are only at a basic level, I have found its power. Almost all of the project about interaction, this app can be completed. From the background introduction of the first lesson to the learning and practice of each lesson later, I have a strong interest and motivation for this application and assignment, and I am looking forward to each classmate and each group’s works.

For the group project, our original idea was to combine the lessons learned in the class to create a project which about video, audio and audience interaction. After discussion by the team members, we found that the idea would be simpler and easier to do, without challenges and without deep meaning, so we overthrew the idea and started a new round of brainstorming. Later we thought of a better idea which is the predecessor of our final work. We want to let the audience be the protagonist, all the decisions are made by themselves. At first, our topic was the lunch break. At lunchtime, what the students are doing, there are three options, meals, parks and libraries or museums. We went to the park to shoot a video of playing football, went to the restaurant to take a video of the meal, and also went to the museum to take a video of the touring. But in the end, we decided to delete the first two, only to save the part of the museum, because the variety of videos in the museum are enough to support the material needed for the entire project. We shot Kimmy as the main person to choose which department to go like dinosaur hall, insect gallery and human bodies hall. Through this group assignment, I know that doing something is constantly overturning the previous ideas to produce better new ideas. After completing the part of the material, we need to overcome the challenge of using the software. Our team members don’t want to simply use things we have learned in the class, so the difficulties we have to face are huge, such as how to branch in Max to complete the idea of “choice.” After the team members continually explored and tried, the data was constantly reviewed to overcome all difficulties and completed our final work.

For the individual project, because the individual’s energy and ability can’t be compared with the group, I can only choose to do a slightly simpler work. So I decided to shoot some videos of my facial expressions and record some interesting sound effects so that the viewer can choose any one of the videos to match any one of the audios, resulting in different chemical reactions. The production of this work is not very difficult, just show what we have learned in class. The only thing I have to overcome is to use different buttons to control different videos and audios. This difficulty has been solved after I consulted the teacher in the class. I hope that my works can be liked by my classmates.

In this discussion, the core vocabulary is interactivity. In order to have a better understanding of the course in the future, we first need to know the word interaction.  In the broadest sense, the interactivity refers to the connection between things. For interpersonal communication, the actions taken by one party, the expressed will or the information transmitted are answered by the other party. This process constitutes an interaction. The interaction between people, between people and machines, and between machines and machines can be said to be “interactivity.”

Pendulum Choir is a good example of how to interact between people and machines. This work consists of a weird large machine and some human singers. The machine is responsible for the steering and displacement of the human singer’s body, and the voice of the singer changes as the source moves and rotates. The machine and the performers together form a complete musical piece.

The reason I like this work is that it is more than just a work of art. It shows the form of abstract art by using specific stuff.The concept of a mass of sonorous and moving human bodies, going through a natural distortion under the effect of physical forces brings to mind a living organ. It evokes a muscle or a living organism emitting sounds in relation to its distortions. In order to write plastic and musical piece that has homogeneity, we used the representation of a lung. Each singer represents one of the lung’s alveoli. The flux of air going through the organ becomes sonorous, as sung by the singers.