UNI [THESIS] – SCHEMATIC OF MAX/MSP PATCH FOR INSTALLATION

June 26th, 2009 | Richard Almond

I put together a detailed diagram to help clarify how the MaxMSP patch for the installation will operate. The key to success will be the timeframe on which the patch operates. I plan to have various options for the total running time of the patch [6 days, 6 hours, 60 minutes], to allow for the different circumstances in which the installation may be used. Each of these timeframes will be divided into 6, equal parts, 6 x 1 day, 6 x 1 hour, 6 x 10 minutes, etc.

The HSFlow patch will run throughout the duration of the installation, data moshing the live camera feed, but during each of the 6 sections of the installation its effect will be different, due to a different range of presets being used. The effect initially will be subtle, becoming more and more abstract as each section of the installation passes.

A jitter matrix patch will also run throughout, sensing the presence of visitors by registering a disturbance in the pixel field. This will trigger a recording [the time of which depends on the total length of the installation and available storage space], which will be stored under a numerical name.

These recordings are subsequently overlaid back into the live feed at random in progressively increasing quantities. In the first section, one part in 6 will see a recording overlaid onto the live feed, in the second section, 2 parts in 6 will be previous recordings, in the 3rd section 3 parts in 6, etc.

A similar system will apply to images, which be grabbed from a harddrive or an internet server/flickr page and overlaid into the live feed.