Make a collage machine. It can be audio, video, or both. Source material for the assignment can be found material, self-made footage or sound, links from the internet, anything. Anything, that is, except for the stock Jitter and MSP example media files.
Source material must be cut up or distorted in some way by the application on the fly. The material can be read in advance into buffers or matrices, or it can be recorded live, or it can be imported while it's working.
For the first time, credit will be given for innovative, elegant, creative and/or slick interface design.... because:
YOU WILL NOT PLAY IT.
Someone else, picked through my careful, time-honored method, will be the person who works your patch. You will be able to answer questions, but not to tell them what to do. To do this, your interface must be somewhat clean, unimposing and above all, tested.
A few recommendations about this:
Consider a physical interface. Those of you with keyboards or instruments should bring them into your patches right now. If you are proficient with physical computing techniques, bring in a sensor or two. Or try it with a Wacom tablet or USB joystick.
Make up your mind early about what it will do. Max development can be overwhelming when pushed at the last minute. Don't save it until the last minute, you'll kill yourself.
Do the file manipulation stuff first. It will most likely be the hardest thing.
It has to look and/or sound different every time it's played. If the results are beginning to surprise and/or amuse you, you might want to consider stopping and just working on the interface!
Save your drafts regularly with different names. Don't regret losing that patch from two hours ago where things were just getting good.
Don't be afraid of sound if you're not a sound person. Ditto on that for video. Taking a chance will look really good in my eyes.
The assigment has two due dates:
October 16: Come to class with a concrete explanation of the nature of your project. Have some sort of demonstration material ready, one step above just talking about it. Where are you getting your files from? Is there a high concept, a plot? (this is not a necessity. sometimes noise for noise's sake is ok.)
October 23: All patches and media due ON A CD-ROM. The patch does not need to be a standalone or a collective, but I do not want a last minute scramble to get all the media in the same place. TEST IT BEFOREHAND! TAKE THE TIME TO TEST! We'll play the patches in class and talk about the next steps.
This is a lot of work, but I'm giving you guys plenty of advance warning. I can't wait to see what you all come up with.
Last updated Fri, Oct 3, 2003, by Joshua Goldberg.