Near The End Of The Road

Midterm season has arrived once again, and in my experience, for one last time. Being a mulitmedia student allows me to explore diverse forms of media. So I guess the main question here is what have I learned in Composing with Media thus far? Well lets start with the concept of real time media. Real Time Media allows limitless possibilities within interaction, exploration, gestural, manipulation, and distortion activities. Real time is pretty exciting to work with also because altarations can be made instantly without the hassle of rendering; allowing a non-linear pattern of images and information to form. A click of the mouse or push of a button on the keyboard changes the path of an image. While the concept of experimenting with real time is a great opportunity, MAX/Jitter has proven to be the most confusing program I've ever encountered. However, Max/Jitter transforms real time media into an intermedial art form, creating endless effects without any boundaries or restrictions.

Some of the overall work by which we've been analysing includes:

North Pitney: C74 Perspective
(where North builds giant mazes and tracks movement through them digitally, which consequently pushes the computer's capabilities and extends the relationship between computers and humans)

The Messa di Voce: Fluid

(where Max/Jitter program visualizes vocal sounds and transforms into a fluid motion graphic)

Lynn Hershman: The Fantasy Beyond Control

(where interaction within the artwork introduces the influence of how the concept of interaction responds to people; making art active instead of passive)

These works have one general idea in common: Fluxus
Intermedia allows the artist to incorporate several media forms and reveal an interaction or relationship with one another. This medium is not governed by rules or regulations, therefore intermedia includes the notion of "Fluxus." Fluxus pushes the medium to an innovative artistic experience with the intersection of different medias. Fluxus interacts with art and technology, allowing the viewer to interact with the pieces instead of being static. The combination with art and technology is somewhat never ending, in which art will expand with the growth technology. Max/Jitter is the program we use in class to create our own Fluxus performance.

During the course of this semester, I've composited a couple of patches within Max/Jitter. One recent patch includes interaction. This patch in particular was a challenge because in the course of my multimedia major I have learned to construct linear pieces. Like I've stated before, Linear is the exact opposite of real time, which in the long run made me pull out my hair in stress. Anyway, for this project I focused on facial expressions and how these movements convey the emotional state of the individual to observers. So I took a couple of cell phone videos capturing my different expressions, whether its happy, sad, angry...you name it. The viewer decides what face they want to see. I added texture video and narration to spice it up a bit.


For me, Max/Jitter is complicated. I'm having a difficult time grasping the reading of patches and numeric values. Nevertheless, I will continue to play around with the software and become more familiar with it.