How time flies, the term is coming to an end, I have a deep understanding of Tactile Interaction and how to operate max software through assignments 1, 2 and 3. However, for assignment 4 which including a discussion and reflection on the work of another student in the class and develop two previous studies with an idea, concept, or technique. Different from assignment 1, 2 and 3, they no longer use the tactile interaction and non-tactile (hands-free) interaction, but focus on developing techniques of sustained 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 1, 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 I was completing study 7 and 8, a project that needed creativity, there were so many ideas coming up in my mind, but after discussing with classmates and lecturer, I 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 6, 7 and 8. 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.

I remember that 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.

Now, 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 4, I have learnt about the sustained interaction, which defined as a sequence of at least three turns between two interaction partners. In study 7 and 8, the original intention of each work is to explore the MSP audio signal.

The most successful work is study 6. This seemed to be the first time I try to do some steps by myself. In this project, I try to create a version of Ikeda’s style. I need to input a microphone and ‘jit.catch~’ which function is to transform the signal data into a matrix and consider the signal as an audio signal. Next step is to create a display window ‘jit.pwindow’, and then the image of a certain part of Ikeda is presented in the picture, and the signal is being converted into a matrix. I chose to enhance its signal using ‘jit.op @op * @val 5.’. What I want to present is a visual effect that reflects the sound you are hearing. I want to study not only these simple lines and points, but the iterative works of Ikeda. It is like an oscilloscope for audio signals, just like a real audio waveform. Finally, I finished it by constantly setting and changing the position, color and dimensions.

Study 7 and 8 are the good chance for me to contact with the complex techniques of Max, which can realise my expectation. Although these two projects also based on the simple steps and operations, I tried my best to conduct the research and exploration more in-depth. For example, study 7 is a program that witnessed the connection of MSP audio signal into jitter and is also an interesting interactive system. Through continuous experimentation, we can see that the video shows a piece of audio and a video, the color of the video, the saturation can be automatically changed by the audio playback.

All in all, 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 my classmates 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.

In the study, I am trying to study the conversion of MSP, cycle and pitch and frequency. In the beginning, I started with the cycle, which is a sine wave, a module for very basic digital audio signal processing or any type of digital signal or song design. There are various types of waveforms, including sine waves, square waves, and sawtooth waves, which are usually named after the shape of the wave. Each waveform has a difference in sound. In fact, ‘rect~’ was used in Super Mario, the first generation of Super Mario consoles used a square wave sounder as the primary oscillator, which means the main source of sound for the sounder. Finally, I set the sound of the piano keys to Mario’s accompaniment to make them blend perfectly. The keys of the piano can be controlled by the numbers “1~8” on the keyboard, or by clicking with the mouse. Whenever a piano key is sounded, its corresponding note frequency is also displayed on the screen.

Now, simply changing the background color, saturation, and brightness of the video is relatively easy for us. But in this work, I want to have some deep study in non-tactile interaction. I tried to control the automatic transformation of the video by non-tactile interaction. In this study, I used the ‘jit.hue’ function to read a video file which can test the function of the program by starting with brightness, contrast, and saturation. Second, I set up an audio file, which is a piece of music used to automatically control the video. Once the music is played, it can simultaneously control the color, contrast and saturation of the video. This is a program that witnessed the connection of MSP audio signal into jitter and is also an interesting interactive system. Through continuous experimentation, we can see that the video shows a piece of audio and a video, the color of the video, the saturation can be automatically changed by the audio playback.

This work aims to create a version of Ikeda’s style. First, I need to input a microphone and ‘jit.catch~’ which function is to transform the signal data into a matrix and consider the signal as an audio signal. Next step is to create a display window ‘jit.pwindow’, and then the image of a certain part of Ikeda is presented in the picture, and the signal is being converted into a matrix. I chose to enhance its signal using ‘jit.op @op * @val 5.’. What I want to present is a visual effect that reflects the sound you are hearing. I want to study not only these simple lines and points, but the iterative works of Ikeda. It is like an oscilloscope for audio signals, just like a real audio waveform. Finally, I finished it by constantly setting and changing the position, color and dimensions.