max workshops hong kong march 07

in march 2007 i was invited to hong kong to develop and host a series of workshops. these were intended to present the participants with some puzzles that they had to solve. i developed 2 responses to this theme.

the first was based around the software max msp which is used by many media artists including myself.

i divided the day into three sections.

1

in the first section the participants were asked to wear tshirts each depicting a different object or function used in the software. these included things like metronomes, counters, basic mathematical functions, switches and so on. the operation of each of these functions was explained to the wearer and then they were asked to join with other people to make more complex systems. for example a metronome into a counter etc.

2

in the second section i again asked participants to wear tshirts. but this time the function of each tshirt was not known. they were called things like "perhaps", "maybe", "suppose" etc. in this exercise people were asked simply to connect all their inputs and outputs to other peoples inputs and outputs. (the objects used were developed so that any output could connect to any input and still work.)

3

finally in the third part of the day the participants were given five white helium filled balloons each. they were asked to think of their own max objects and to draw these on the balloons. after that the balloons were released in the street outside. when someone finds a balloon they should email the name on the balloon and the location and this will be used to construct a large max patch.

for more information on max see: http://cycling74.com/

more pictures here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/newtables/sets/72157600029205941/


© mark fell, modified March 15, 2011, at 04:00 AM PDT edit print