Evaluation

For the past weeks in this module I have learned a lot more about MAX MSP and feel that this can be a useful tool for my further studies or even professionally. Reflecting back at my project, I am really happy how it turned out especially after days of frustration in getting the RFID Reader to work. Also getting MAX MSP to do what I want, all in all it has taught me a lot more about efficient researching.

We have seen some interesting concepts during the presentations with different implications; social, political etc. It was good to see what other students had done and how they had progressed their ideas over the past few weeks.

Before the presentation, when I had set up my project a lot of people played with it and the random combinations of the adjectives and nouns resulted in some hilarious combinations.

I would like to believe that my presentation was satisfactory and I was able to demonstrate exactly what I planned to create for Assignment 3. Most importantly I succeeded in creating a fun Digital Arts object, which I would try myself if I would find it exhibited in a gallery. As mentioned in my presentation this project is not just limited to an RFID reader you could also place it somewhere near a door with a sensor, so when people walk through the door it will play random words.

I think the Arduino has really pushed everyone to test out some things or look at certain aspects of their project in a different light, since this was completely new to everyone and everyone had to work hard to figure out how to make it work. In the process developing their ideas and making them better along the way. That is certainly how it worked for me, researching for code brought me new ideas because I discovered new options and possibilities of what I could incorporate in to my project.

Still I would like to recommend for someone to have a look at the earlier mentioned BugLabs Systems in my blog. This seems very interesting and maybe easier to get into then the Arduino.


Guido de Koning
20220908
DfIM

MAX MSP Final Code

I have been able to get the MAX MSP patch fully working now. With Card ID 1 it will choose randomly from 5 adjectives and with Card ID 2 it will choose randomly from 5 nouns.

I have incorporated a delay into the patch so that if a card is swiped it will just play the word once before another word of the same category is played again. This to prevent a word being activated 5 times in 1 second.

WAV Audio files

I am having some problems with MAX MSP, because it does not allow me to load WAV files automatically when a patch is opened. It seems only possible when you buy a WAVES plugin for MAX MSP.

So now I will just limit my project to 5 adjectives and 5 nouns to make sure that I have enough time to load each audio file manually.

MAX MSP

I have been playing around in MAX MSP and I succeeded in being able to trigger different words linked to the ID numbers of the different RFID enabled cards.

See MAX MSP code below,



As you can see in the screenshot above the cards will trigger four different words,

This Is Experimental Media

With these four words you could also reconstruct the sentence in to something different,

Is This Experimental Media
Media Is Experimental
Is Media Experimental
This Media Is Experimental
Is This Media

Text to Speech engine

I have found a website where you can convert Text to Speech for free. Which I will use for my project. They have different voices, male and female also in different accents.

http://www.research.att.com/~ttsweb/tts/demo.php

Project Ideas v2.0

I still want to build on my original concept of being able to activate words via a RFID enabled card. I had an idea as well where I would be able to construct a sentence with a few words or try to construct different sentences with the same words.

Second part of the first Semester

We have had our Christmas break now and I am starting now on the final phases of my project to finalise it. So that I can present my project fully working in Week 8.

I aim to get it fully working, because I feel confident that I will be able to do that. As for my concept I do want to slightly change this and make it more interactive.

I want it to be a fun interactive project where people will feel encouraged to participate in the interactivity. The reason being is that when I visit a gallery I also want to be able to participate in some of the works or able to play with it. Kinetika always has some interesting stuff on display and sometime you are also able to play with these projects, making the overall experience a lot more interesting.

I think that is a great advantage in Digital Arts, a lot of the time people are encouraged not just to think of the social or political implications of a piece, but also to get more intimate with it themselves.