Learning Visual Programming by Creating a Walkable Interactive Installation
Aristotelis Hadjakos, Heizo Schulze, André Düchting, Christian Metzger, Marc Ottensmann, Friederike Riechmann, Anna-Maria Schneider, Michael Trappmann · 2015
In this paper we explore the question of how to teach visual programming languages, such as Max/MSP, Pure Data, vvvv, to experienced media and sound artists. A pedagogical challenge with these students is to keep them motivated after the initial phase of learning the core concepts and creating first simple programs. This is the case because they already have their means for artistic expression and experience a mismatch between their current skill and what they would need to successfully apply visual programming in their art. Our approach consists of letting them develop an interactive installation based on the principles "media first", liveliness, design patterns and technical framework. The core idea is to let the students create and bring their media, in which they are experts creating and use this as the backbone of an interactive installation. Our students developed a walkable interactive installation bang!, which serves as a case study for this approach.