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Fri, 10/14/2022 - 17:37
Edited Text
Alayna Aine Hughes
Masters of Music Technology Innovation
Valencia, Spain 2014
1
Introduction
Art has developed into many forms. With the development of more accessible
hardware and software in video, audio, and computers; more artists are integrating
technology into their art. A new sub genre called “New Media Art” has been created and
I have grown more interested in exploring this new outlet for artistic expression.
Culminating Experience Project
My culminating experience project is an immersive large-scale installation
incorporating technologies such as Max to create a final work of multimedia art. My
vision was not just to create a project that aims to showcase new and different ways of
presenting sound and visuals, but one that also serves as a topical art piece.
The title of my project was inspired by the role of advertising and media in our
lives. In American culture, our thoughts and values are shaped by what we are told by
media outlets that have decided how everyone should act, look, and feel. Through
commercials, print, and television news, we are constantly barraged with the opinions
others whose only intention is to turn you into a consumer of products or values. The
imagery and messages used in advertising display an idea or an ideal that is unattainable
by the average person and influences our conceptions about gender roles in society. In
addition to the themes derived from advertising and news, I explored the methods and
messages employed in politics to influence others.
I reviewed numerous commercials and news programs and selected videos and
sound bites with key phrases and themes to use in my project.
2
How the Work Contributes to the Profession
I am hoping that my installation will reach beyond one genre and will interest
people from a variety of interests. My aim is to attract the artistic community of the
region, however I also hope to also produce something different to represent the Berklee
community. In addition, I have been posting the progress of the project by making short
videos and I will be documenting the final show and posting it to my You Tube and
Vimeo page to share with others in the New Media genre.
Innovative Aspects of the Work
By incorporating visuals, themes, and sounds, I have produced a piece that
displays an innovative use of music and sound technology alongside an artistic
presentation.
The genre of New Media Art is built on artists using technology and multimedia
in interesting ways, so for the programming of the project, I decided to use Max and
Jitter. While I did use resources such as After Effects to pre-design some material, I
primarily relied on programming in Max that would vary the video effects and also
randomize the sounds and music being played. This type of approach is innovative as
many pieces of New Media Art that I have seen are installations that are the same
experience every time. By creating random programming, I have given the audience the
opportunity to have different experiences.
3
New Skills
It will sound rather boring to say so, but the greatest new skill that I acquired
during this project was that I attained a much greater ability for programming in Max.
When I began my year, my skills using the program were non-existent and now that I
have finished my project, I am able to not only program with more ease but I am able to
do it much quicker. The ability to program within Max is not just an accomplishment in
itself, but programming requires a certain way of thinking in order to accomplish the
tasks you have in mind. Like math problems, programming requires you to think
logically and problem solve. While programming my installation, I had to think in the
language of the program in order to achieve the look and sound that I desired.
In addition to the apparent skills, I also found that the research process was an
interesting study in the methods and imagery used in advertising and media. I entered
into my project with the understanding of how these outlets use key words, themes and
images in their campaigns, but it was interesting to see just how repetitive the messages
were. For the promotion of my installation, I decided to create my own form of
advertising influenced by street art and the work of the art collective Guerrilla Girls. I
suppose that promotion was another skill acquired during this project, as I succeeded in
creating a campaign that gained attention for the project.
Challenges
Most of the challenges that I encountered in the project were technical. The first
challenge overall was coming up with an idea of what I wanted each section to look like
and how I could accomplish that. By creating prototypes within Max and referencing the
programs help files; I was able to solve problems with my programming. My biggest
4
hurdle for the project was the need to attain a much greater grasp of Jitter in order to
produce the video portion of the project.
A major challenge with using Jitter is that it requires a lot of processing power in
order to run smoothly. When I had completed the video programming of my sections, I
had problems with my patches crashing or running slowly. In order to correct this, I had
to remove unnecessary objects from my patchers as well as optimize the patch for proper
frame rate playback.
The first presentation of my project presented several problems with the video.
Although I had done some optimization, the amount of video being used by my patches
were requiring a lot of processing which resulted in stuttered playback. The gender
portion crashed many times when trying to open as the patch had over 20 videos that
were being used. For my next presentation I plan to correct this by using other methods
of optimization, and for the ‘Gender’ portion I may capture the video generated from
Max and present it as a played back video in order to correctly display the section.
The sound portion of my project did not create as many challenges. I had done a
prototype of how I wanted the sounds to playback with files playing back while volumes
automated simultaneously. One problem that I faced once I combined all of my sounds
from all four sections was timing. Certain sounds were playing more frequently than
others and I spent quite a bit of time adjusting the metro objects as well as creating sub
patchers to play back certain files in ‘random’ or ‘drunk’ so that sounds would not occur
in the same order every time.
Future Plans for the Work
5
My hope for the project is to have the opportunity to display it several more times.
Currently, I have secured a viewing at the Sala D’Exposiciones at the Universitat
Politecnica de Valencia for July 21-30th. Before the next showing, I would like to make
improvements to the project so that it will be easier to set up and have better quality
video. After this date, I would like to propose the project to La Rambleta, the Valencia
Museum of Modern Art, and research galleries in Barcelona that I may propose to as
well.
Conclusion
This project has taught me a good deal about the importance of prototyping,
planning, and execution. When I first envisioned the project, I was not sure if I wanted to
create a live performance or an installation. It was important for me to fully utilize the
technology at hand to create this project, but almost more important to successfully
present the theme of the project. After the first showing was completed, I received
responses from viewers that they felt overwhelmed and that after spending several
minutes in the room; they felt somewhat upset. By creating imagery and sounds that are
meant to be a barrage on the audience, I feel that my project was conceptually a success. I
have learned a lot by completing this project and will technically improve upon it and use
this experience in future artistic projects.
6
My ‘Target Market” in the completed installation
7
References
ISPOT Advertising Archive http://www.ispot.tv/
You Tube http://www.youtube.com
Museum of Moving Image ‘The Living Room Candidate”
http://www.livingroomcandidate.org/commercials/
TV News Archive
https://archive.org/details/tv
Internet Archive (Public Domain Films)
https://archive.org/
“They Live” Film (1988) USA
Director: John Carpenter
8
Masters of Music Technology Innovation
Valencia, Spain 2014
1
Introduction
Art has developed into many forms. With the development of more accessible
hardware and software in video, audio, and computers; more artists are integrating
technology into their art. A new sub genre called “New Media Art” has been created and
I have grown more interested in exploring this new outlet for artistic expression.
Culminating Experience Project
My culminating experience project is an immersive large-scale installation
incorporating technologies such as Max to create a final work of multimedia art. My
vision was not just to create a project that aims to showcase new and different ways of
presenting sound and visuals, but one that also serves as a topical art piece.
The title of my project was inspired by the role of advertising and media in our
lives. In American culture, our thoughts and values are shaped by what we are told by
media outlets that have decided how everyone should act, look, and feel. Through
commercials, print, and television news, we are constantly barraged with the opinions
others whose only intention is to turn you into a consumer of products or values. The
imagery and messages used in advertising display an idea or an ideal that is unattainable
by the average person and influences our conceptions about gender roles in society. In
addition to the themes derived from advertising and news, I explored the methods and
messages employed in politics to influence others.
I reviewed numerous commercials and news programs and selected videos and
sound bites with key phrases and themes to use in my project.
2
How the Work Contributes to the Profession
I am hoping that my installation will reach beyond one genre and will interest
people from a variety of interests. My aim is to attract the artistic community of the
region, however I also hope to also produce something different to represent the Berklee
community. In addition, I have been posting the progress of the project by making short
videos and I will be documenting the final show and posting it to my You Tube and
Vimeo page to share with others in the New Media genre.
Innovative Aspects of the Work
By incorporating visuals, themes, and sounds, I have produced a piece that
displays an innovative use of music and sound technology alongside an artistic
presentation.
The genre of New Media Art is built on artists using technology and multimedia
in interesting ways, so for the programming of the project, I decided to use Max and
Jitter. While I did use resources such as After Effects to pre-design some material, I
primarily relied on programming in Max that would vary the video effects and also
randomize the sounds and music being played. This type of approach is innovative as
many pieces of New Media Art that I have seen are installations that are the same
experience every time. By creating random programming, I have given the audience the
opportunity to have different experiences.
3
New Skills
It will sound rather boring to say so, but the greatest new skill that I acquired
during this project was that I attained a much greater ability for programming in Max.
When I began my year, my skills using the program were non-existent and now that I
have finished my project, I am able to not only program with more ease but I am able to
do it much quicker. The ability to program within Max is not just an accomplishment in
itself, but programming requires a certain way of thinking in order to accomplish the
tasks you have in mind. Like math problems, programming requires you to think
logically and problem solve. While programming my installation, I had to think in the
language of the program in order to achieve the look and sound that I desired.
In addition to the apparent skills, I also found that the research process was an
interesting study in the methods and imagery used in advertising and media. I entered
into my project with the understanding of how these outlets use key words, themes and
images in their campaigns, but it was interesting to see just how repetitive the messages
were. For the promotion of my installation, I decided to create my own form of
advertising influenced by street art and the work of the art collective Guerrilla Girls. I
suppose that promotion was another skill acquired during this project, as I succeeded in
creating a campaign that gained attention for the project.
Challenges
Most of the challenges that I encountered in the project were technical. The first
challenge overall was coming up with an idea of what I wanted each section to look like
and how I could accomplish that. By creating prototypes within Max and referencing the
programs help files; I was able to solve problems with my programming. My biggest
4
hurdle for the project was the need to attain a much greater grasp of Jitter in order to
produce the video portion of the project.
A major challenge with using Jitter is that it requires a lot of processing power in
order to run smoothly. When I had completed the video programming of my sections, I
had problems with my patches crashing or running slowly. In order to correct this, I had
to remove unnecessary objects from my patchers as well as optimize the patch for proper
frame rate playback.
The first presentation of my project presented several problems with the video.
Although I had done some optimization, the amount of video being used by my patches
were requiring a lot of processing which resulted in stuttered playback. The gender
portion crashed many times when trying to open as the patch had over 20 videos that
were being used. For my next presentation I plan to correct this by using other methods
of optimization, and for the ‘Gender’ portion I may capture the video generated from
Max and present it as a played back video in order to correctly display the section.
The sound portion of my project did not create as many challenges. I had done a
prototype of how I wanted the sounds to playback with files playing back while volumes
automated simultaneously. One problem that I faced once I combined all of my sounds
from all four sections was timing. Certain sounds were playing more frequently than
others and I spent quite a bit of time adjusting the metro objects as well as creating sub
patchers to play back certain files in ‘random’ or ‘drunk’ so that sounds would not occur
in the same order every time.
Future Plans for the Work
5
My hope for the project is to have the opportunity to display it several more times.
Currently, I have secured a viewing at the Sala D’Exposiciones at the Universitat
Politecnica de Valencia for July 21-30th. Before the next showing, I would like to make
improvements to the project so that it will be easier to set up and have better quality
video. After this date, I would like to propose the project to La Rambleta, the Valencia
Museum of Modern Art, and research galleries in Barcelona that I may propose to as
well.
Conclusion
This project has taught me a good deal about the importance of prototyping,
planning, and execution. When I first envisioned the project, I was not sure if I wanted to
create a live performance or an installation. It was important for me to fully utilize the
technology at hand to create this project, but almost more important to successfully
present the theme of the project. After the first showing was completed, I received
responses from viewers that they felt overwhelmed and that after spending several
minutes in the room; they felt somewhat upset. By creating imagery and sounds that are
meant to be a barrage on the audience, I feel that my project was conceptually a success. I
have learned a lot by completing this project and will technically improve upon it and use
this experience in future artistic projects.
6
My ‘Target Market” in the completed installation
7
References
ISPOT Advertising Archive http://www.ispot.tv/
You Tube http://www.youtube.com
Museum of Moving Image ‘The Living Room Candidate”
http://www.livingroomcandidate.org/commercials/
TV News Archive
https://archive.org/details/tv
Internet Archive (Public Domain Films)
https://archive.org/
“They Live” Film (1988) USA
Director: John Carpenter
8
Media of
