Digital Interactive Installations

The present book is based on the author's diploma thesis written at the Institute of Media and Phototechnology University of Applied Sciences Cologne and describes the recent development of digital interactive art and the usage of the graphical programming environment Max/MSP/Jitter. In the beginning, a brief overview of the present scientific discourse on the key issues interactivity and interface design are given. Furthermore, it portrays exceptional examples of digital art within the past five years, focusing on the main themes of digital installations and software art. This is followed by a description of Max's main features and programming methods, its extensibility with control devices and micro controllers, as well as differences to important alternative graphical programming environments such as Pure data and vvvv. The second part documents the whole process of creating an interactive installation using Max/MSP and its graphics extension Jitter. This includes a description of the creative concept, the different parts of the soft- and hardware as well as some of their important key techniques. Finally, a summary of user feedback and a personal reflection on the project is given. The book is dedicated to both technicians and artists seeking an introduction to the present digital interactive art and practical information about the new emerging graphical programming techniques like Max or Pure Data for creating meaningful interactive systems.