Saskia Kostic

Screenshot of my project! (click to get full screen!)

Please follow this link for a video of my project!

When I first started this project I was planning on fine tuning and adding some more technical pieces to my first project. I re-created my first project and I believe that I did a good job in fine tuning and creating it better than I did in the first project. I have completely changed how the technicalities of it work and I am quite proud of that and how far I’ve come. The buttons work better and I believe the extra window for the video makes a lot more sense. I am now able to effectively use buttons to make the video full screen as well as minimise, pause and play the video. I did add one extra technical piece to the project, which is the pause, play and forward button. I think this adds a good extra visual. In my first project I used keyboard keys to tell the audience to change songs. But with this little image I have created something that is familiar to the audience. They recognise what it means and what it does, so it doesn’t really need an explanation.

While creating this project I thought I would create something more technical about it to expand it. But then I was told to think more about the meaning. What I have done in this project is used vastly different genres of music to create meaning. In my first project it was all quite similar music that fit well with the videos. In this project I have used varying genres like classical, jazz, electronic, acoustic to create different moods. In the videos for the different cities and countries, I chose to use similar type of videos. All videos are cinematic/drone type. My intention with this project is to create one constant, which is the video, and one variable, being the music. With this I want to prove that different music genres create different moods. And different mood makes you interpret the video differently. Each song fits the video well, but in a different way and it creates a different feeling.

In the group project our aim was to create something that would sustain viewers but to also teach them something. We wanted to create something that could potentially be used as a learning tool. Our project was more about someone stopping and thinking about memorisation. As opposed to being so hooked in the interaction and clicking and so on. It really requires someone committed to learning for it to be sustained. Originally we wanted to create memory card game where you have to match the two cards that are the same. We quickly realised this was going to be difficult as there were so many options of which cards people could press on, so we changed the idea to something similar but simpler. I think although we created a simpler project, it is still effective and interesting!

In the group project I think that what we did well was creating something that could actually be useful to some people! People have to remember the words and can use repetition and speech to learn, which is the best way to learn! Something that we could have improved upon in this project was adding some more technicalities. I also don’t think that the project will be able to sustain an audience for 5-7 minutes. If the person was particularly invested in learning Italian, then they may be able to sustain their interaction for that long. But otherwise I don’t think that it is exciting enough for people to stay interested for that long. Originally we really wanted to have an animation for the cards flipping over. But we soon realised we weren’t able to pull this off. So I think that would be a great improvement if we were able to do that.

In terms of the creative process I learnt that it is easy to create an idea off a project you already had. I think it was much easier to expand a project that you have already created, than creating an entirely new one. Although the issue was that my creative ideas did not match up with my technical abilities. I wanted to create something too complex that I would not be able to create in Max by myself, without help. I figured that I would not be able to get the amount of help that I needed to work it out, so I decided not to go down that route. I wanted to make the original idea as flawless as possible and also add more meaning to it that I originally had.

I think that if I could improve my project I would create it a bit more complex in terms of technicalities. I think it would be really great if I could have had the globe like google maps that you could then click on to to show video. I think it would also be great if the window for the video didn’t have to sit to the side of the screen. It would be great if the video could pop up in a screen when you click on the markers. Although I believe that this is not something that would be able to happen in Max, I think I have tried both ways to create a video window. But I think that the way I used the window in this project was more effective than the first.

In general I think I learnt a lot about interactive art making this semester. My main discovery I believe I saw how broad interactive art making and Max can be. When I first started working in this class, I had such narrow ideas about what to make. And through watching other people develop ideas and get better, it has really changed my process as a maker of art. I am actually surprised how many different things people were able to think of! And I think that this has strengthened me as a creative maker.