On Thursday we grouped up and gave each other feedback on our self-portraits. To keep this short and to the point, it was concluded that while my portrait was in no way wrong (it’s kind of impossible for a self-portrait to be wrong) it was quite superficial. The self-portrait only really portrays who I am on the surface, it lacks in personal depth. The point was raised that even after seeing my self-portrait the reader still feels as though they don’t really know me.
So since our first marked project is another self-portrait, I’m keeping all of this feedback in mind and self-analysing and brainstorming ways to portray myself on a more personal and less obvious way.
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“Self Portrait”
When we were told our first Media One project was a self portrait that captures the essence of who we are at first I was like “rad, that’s easy”. But after mulling over what to put in this post I realised it’s something I actually find quite hard and after talking to my older sister (and confidant) about how I was struggling with it a bit she replied with “Well duh, you never self-analyse.” And she’s right. She hit it on the head. I float around. Everything’s chill. I don’t think about it much; and maybe that’s the best way to describe me. “Relaxed.” “Buddha with hair.”
First is obvious; I am incredibly close to my family. I’m one of 4 girls and the tattoo on my wrist is all of our Chinese Horoscopes (mum has always had an avid interest in it). This photo was gifted to me the night before I moved to Melbourne, away from all of them. I miss them.
What even is unpacking? I’ve been here for over a month and pretty much everything is still in boxes. I don’t need much, materially, so this is basically the extent of my belongings and I’m so used to living out of my suitcase from living week-on, week-off between my parents that it doesn’t even bother me in the slightest.
I am not a morning person. I love sleep. If I have nothing planned for the day, chances are I won’t be awake before midday.
Down-time is important to me.
I hate silence.
I am the complete and utter definition of indecision. What movie do I want to watch? I don’t know/I don’t mind. What do I want for dinner? I don’t know/I don’t mind. Etc. Etc. Etc.
Even though I’m hardly ever awake for them, mornings just before the sun comes up are beautiful.
I find an odd peace in being in places that are usually crowded, when they’re almost deserted.
“The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation but your thoughts about it. Be aware of the thoughts you are thinking. Separate them from the situation, which is always neutral. It is as it is.”
-Eckhart Tolle
Silence
Week 2’s lectorial mentioned a famous piece by John Cage called 4’33”. When it was mentioned that all media students need to hear the piece as a ‘ride of passage’ I was thinking somewhere along the lines of:
Media is so broad, what single composition could possibly be so monumental that it’s needed to be touched on in the second week of our degree? Beethoven? Tchaikovsky? Lady Gaga?
Nope. It’s a 4 minute and 33 second piece of complete silence which is a totally genius concept because it forces you to become aware of every little sound in your surroundings. We ‘listened’ to 30 seconds and to be honest I don’t think I could take the whole 4 and a half minutes due to my general animosity towards silence. I think I would’ve been straight up uncomfortable being in the audience who first saw the performance of a man who sat down, turned to the piano and sat there in silence for the length of a song before taking a bow and leaving. He was trying to get across the point that silence does not exist. Sound is everywhere and media is everywhere. Which was the gist of this weeks lectorial; Media is everywhere.
Week 1 Lectorial
Week 1 had us reading a piece on hyper and deep attention. Deep attention being when a person is focusing and concentrating wholeheartedly on one activity at a time and hyper attention being the complete opposite; focusing on a range of activities at any one time.
While I’d love to be a person who can put whole undivided attention into everything I do, I’ve found that I’m much more accustomed to hyper attention. I mean I’m listening to music and drinking a coffee even while writing this post and it got me thinking –
Why am I a hyper attentive person?
What makes me a hyper attentive person?
Is it because I always did my homework in front of the TV as a kid?
Would I be any different if I had deep attention?
An interesting point that the report made was the explanation that multitasking is nothing more than ‘the rapid alternation among different tasks’ which begs the question in regards to the idea that ‘men can’t multitask’ – do men just generally have deep attention where women generally have hyper attention? I’d love to see further studies on the subject, it’s good food for thought.
What
Week 1 of Media Practical class has involved creating this blog to keep a record of everything happening throughout our uni course. My initial response is
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I’m finding this site rather confusing for the first setup but I’m an experiential learner so I’m sure I’ll understand more the more I use it.
I’m generally in a constant state of confusion so that fact that this website confuses me is no real surprise.
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