With my newfound interest in MAX, I wanted to explore more and use this program in a major work. That being said, I wanted to address some issues from the environment of my life that have always been tough subjects. I think that creating a work around this context would be cathartic, to say the least. I’d that it did help with some catharsis as it brought up some things from my past that I’ve always tried to push away. Oddly enough, I found that the response from my peers was the best step in the cathartic process. It was interesting to see how uncomfortable it made everyone and how many other people tried to avoid it. I know I’m not talking about it specifically in this post but it’s nice to know that the circumstances of my childhood consisted of a situation that most other people have trouble dealing with.
To talk briefly about the concept of the work, there are three portraits representing three different stages of life. Each of these portraits is audio reactive in their own way. The audio that is driving each portrait is sourced from an argument between a mother and a son. As the audio hits a certain frequency threshold each of the portraits begin to react. The portrait of the young boy is the most sensitive and presents a scenario in which the portrait shifts to a crying child. The portrait of the teenage boy is less reactive, however, the reaction is much more severe as the portrait changes to the boy having a fit of rage. The portrait of the adult man is even less reactive in order to represent the hardness and indifference that has formed inside him.
Technical difficulties could have been the theme for this project. I was constantly learning how to do the things (I thought) I needed to do in MAX. Once I got to the point where I felt comfortable with my output from MAX I moved onto the screen setup. This happened to be the day of the presentation but I didn’t predict the multitude of screen problems that would be involved. First, I tried to use some old Apple Monitors and the dongle daisy chain seemed to cause problems. Then my classmate helped me out showed me some other screen options, which I saw them were perfect. I was excited and began to set everything up only to find out that Apple’s last High Sierra broke functionality for anything more than two peripheral displays. At this point, I didn’t have any more time to explore other options so I ran two portraits on the screens and one on my laptop, the screen of which I rotated 90 degrees to fit with the portrait styling of the other screens. I wasn’t super happy with the presentation especially because that was something I want to do better in.
The initial presentation of this work allowed me to experience how it is received and how it works in the space. That being said, I think the initial style of presentation I have in mind needs to be iterated on to allow the work to have more of an impact. There is so much being said in each of these pieces that, at the advice of my peers, need to be separated to allow space between each portrait so that the viewer can spend more time with each individually. This has the potential to make each piece more significant to provide the buffer needed to understand the different nuances of each portrait before moving on to the next one and eventually grasping the concept of the piece as a whole.
Additionally, the rework of the presentation begs for bigger portraits, personally sourced imagery of individuals that have direct experience with this type of content/context.
Next steps including reaching out to local youth organizations to see if they are willing to cooperate in the research for this project, producing an audio component that is made specifically for this project sourcing various relevant inspirations, adding to the MAX patch (fade outs) and getting it running on different boxes with larger monitors, and working with more dynamic content to add more fluidity to the portrait transitions. I also think it could be interesting to add a component to the piece that is reactive to the viewer as well so that there is an interaction that happens in which the viewer could potentially help the individual in each portrait with kind words or predetermined gestures.