PROJECT 1

According to neuroscientist Benjamin Libet, the human brain “needs a relatively long period of appropriate activations, up to about half a second, to elicit awareness” of a given event. That is to say, by the time we are aware that something is happening, it has already happened.

To a computer, what we think of as “past” and “present” are interchangeable. In terms of the moving image, a half second stored digitally is comprised of around 15 to 30 discrete events (at standard digital video recording speeds); in terms of sound, it would be comprised of somewhere on the order of 22,000 to 96,000 discrete events. Yet such events could just as likely have be captured over days, months, or years—there is no difference to a computer.

For this project, utilize tools and techniques we have examined in class to explore your relationship between memory and the archive. This may take the form of manipulating “real-time” (i.e. slightly-deferred time) sounds / images, remixing historical works, juxtaposing past and present in ways that reveal common or divergent behaviors, or any other strategies you may devise.

You must use Max in the creation of the work (and upload / discuss the source files utilized), but the work itself need not be interactive or operating in “real time”; a fixed-media composition is equally acceptible.

Please upload a zip archive containing all code and materials used for your project to the Google Drive Folder below by Thursday, January 9 at 1:09pm.