More than half of this semester, I have a preliminary understanding of Tactile Interaction and how to easily operate max software through assignments 1 and 2. However, for assignment 3 which including two interactive studies and a major project. Different from study 1, 2 and 3, they no longer use the tactile interaction, but focus on developing techniques of non-tactile (hands-free) interaction. Before I came into contact with this lecture, my understanding of creative was a new idea, which is a simple word. In my past view, this concept seems to be correct. After completing assignment 2 and 3, I found that creative is actually a complicated process, not just a new idea can be summarised. It needs to compare or combine countless ideas to get a perfect piece. In this process, ideas need to be constantly adjusted and improved to make up for the shortcomings and defects of the work. Just like when our group was completing study 4 and 5, a project that needed creativity, there were so many ideas coming up in our mind, but after discussing with the group members and lecturer, we finished the projects you can see now. Although they are still not perfect, it has matured and improved a lot. Creativity is not an easy task which I also feel deeply through study 4 and 5. I need to spend more time than I expected to create and complete the work. In the process, I will often deny my own ideas, and even give up the original ideas to rethink. But all this is to get a better work, which is worthwhile.

For the first time I contacted max, it was novel, fresh, and also unfamiliar, terrible. At first, I felt that the operation was amazing because of the freshness of it. What I can see is that a small change will make the whole picture different. Max is a powerful platform that accommodates and connects a wide variety of tools for sound, graphics, music and interactivity using a flexible patching and programming environment. Max allows most computer users to write a simple, meaningful program within a few minutes, even with limited programming knowledge.

For the moment, I have known a lot about the interactive art which means a form of art that involves the spectator in a way that allows the art to achieve its purpose. Some interactive art installations achieve this by letting the observer or visitor “walk” in, on , and around them. And through the assignment 3, I have learnt about the non-tactile interaction, which can control the effect without touching. In study 4 and 5, the original intention of each work is to resonate with the viewers, so that they can feel the information and emotions we want to convey while watching. In study 4, we used the face recognition to fit the concept of non-tactile interaction. We use the distance between the face and the front camera in order to let the music on.

The most successful work is study 5 which is our group work. This seemed to be the first time we try to do some steps by ourselves. In this project, we combining face and hand recognition. We tried to use the front camera of the computer to identify the human hand, thus controlling the opening and closing of the music. The inspiration comes from the electronic music, Dj need to be manipulated by their hands and made the disc player produce sound. In order to enrich the experience of the participants, different songs were completed through different body movements. We constantly improved the technical details and finally completed the work. Although the work is not sensitive to the human hand, that cannot control the music pause accurately, it has been able to open the music successfully.

Study 4 and 5 are the good chance for me to contact with the complex techniques of Max, which can realise our group expectation. But my major project is based on the simple steps and operations. Although Max is a brand new software for me, I should conduct the research and exploration more in-depth. In other words, some more complex techniques should be added to my project and try to do it by myself. For example, in the major project, I can try to modify it on the current basis, change the background colour of the drawing board, or add some shape, or even preset the word ‘Hello’ without the touchpad. By completing the process of study 4 and 5 and the lecturer’s teaching, I found that Max is also a very interesting software.

What’s more, I still have something to improve, that is the lack of creativity. Creativity is not enough in all my projects. In the following assignments, I will try to think about more than one idea which discuss with the group members and lecture, thus to choose the best one to make it in Max. If I want to do something more substantial, it is necessary to approach Max as an actual programming language, by taking advantage of its various mechanisms for abstracting program elements into scalable, reusable components that can be combined in increasingly powerful ways. I hope that with the increase of class time and the improvement of the software operation skills of max, I can complete the more difficult projects by myself.