Final

Artists Statement:

I coded an interactive mouse toy in which the user gets to interact with a flashing X made of 4 different colours. I wanted the user to be able to move around the mouse and see a 'ghost' trail in which I really liked the look of when I was doing research earlier on and found other applications which use them. The reason I liked this was because it allowed the user to see where they had been and to create images that faded over time. Another one of my precedents had the object follow the mouse. I liked this too as it meant the user had control over what was happening, but the 'ghost' trail meant that a lag was created meaning the user had a sort of power over the application.

I wanted an unexpected reaction to occur when the user clicked the mouse. In my research I found things that were unexpected made the application more appealing. To achieve this I decided to use mouse pressed. When the user did this the ellipses making up the flashing X grew in size until they were as big as the screen. To add to this I also had the background colour change. I decided to use neutral black and white as the background colours. This was because of my colour choice for the X. In my previous project colour was an issue for my final. I chose a standard green and there was nothing special about it. For this project I looked up art I found particularly appealing with a piece of aboriginal art standing out. The reason I liked it was the variety of colours it used that all worked together. They weren't bright like my last project but were very earthy and natural which I chose on purpose as when the ellipses were in large and moved around they created a fire like look.

I am happy with the turn out of my interactive mouse toy http://www.openprocessing.org/visuals/?visualID=36355