Category Archives: Networked Media

August 22, 2013

‘Unlecture’ 5: Creativity.

Out of the 3 lecture videos this week, the one I was most interested in was Sir Ken Robinson’s TED talk. Particularly with the idea that schools kill creativity. We touched on this idea in a previous lecture, something about possums and kangaroos, and the way children see them in comparison to the way adults see them. Anyway, I just realised how true it is. Because I remember when were were choosing electives we wanted to do in year 10, and I wanted to do art, design, that whole deal, but I wasn’t able to because my coordinators thought it would be more useful if I continued Japanese instead of art, a subject I despised. Nothing against languages, languages are fun, its just the class that I didn’t like, for reasons outlined in this TED talks. I wasn’t good at Japanese, and it meant that in every class I would get things wrong, so I didn’t want to continue the subject. I know with languages there is a clear right and wrong, its not creative, but I know what it feels like to be that kid who keeps getting things wrong, and if that subject was art or design or something, I would have definitely stopped trying to be creative and I would’ve stuck to what was safe and what other people are doing. Because in school, being wrong is embarrassing, you know?

Actually at the moment I have been on and off teaching myself Korean language, and I have learned and remembered more from that then I did with 3.5 years of learning Japanese. Because in the comfort of my own home, yeah I get things wrong, but there isn’t the stigma attached to it, the teacher doesn’t give you that look of ‘wow, did you really just say that?’ and this means that I am happier continuing my education in this field, because I’m not afraid to be wrong.

And with specific reference to creative tasks, I have mentioned year 12 art a few times on this blog, possibly because it was a favourite subject of mine. But my former classmates and I all agree, that most people in the art world don’t like showing people ‘works in progress,’ particularly with technical drawing, photo-realism etc. Sure in the end its going to look great, but before you are finished, some things are in the wrong position and you have to re-do them, and some things don’t look right, and artists can see that and correct them, hence the title ‘work in progress.’ But there were so many occasions when we would be working away in the art rooms, only having just started a drawing or something, and ‘school tours’ would come around and look at what we are doing. The tour lady would make some rude remarks about whose art looks better up on the walls, and would shoot us judgmental glares if we were working on something sub-par, a kind of, “cant you make it look like the school makes good artists?” kind of look. If I was younger and more sensitive, I might have decided that I should just not do art, because I’m wrong, its not good enough, but luckily by age 17/18 I was able to decide the lady was just being a jerk instead.

In short, I would hate for anyone to think their creativity is inadequate, because, well, the TED talk explains why.

August 20, 2013

Just a thought about ‘essays’

Paul Graham’s ‘The Age of the Essay’ makes me wonder a little bit. Particularly in this semester, I have been hearing that in high school, people were taught to write essays in a way where they would make a point then argue for or against it, and honestly, I haven’t been able to relate. I haven’t thought of essays in that way since year 9 or 10. In year 10 and VCE, I started writing essays for all sorts of things, not just English, but Art, History, and even creatively. In English we  learned how to write an essay as a creative piece, only a short time was spent writing on literature, in the traditional sense. Particularly in Art essays, I found that they were not about convincing someone of something, they were more like reflection on your own ideas, with visual evidence supporting these ideas, but there is no right or wrong interpretation of art, so it was never about using the visual evidence as factual evidence. So to me essays didn’t really carry the connotation of  ‘an expository, argumentative piece of writing.’ actually much of the time, I don’t settle on a strong point that I argue in my essays, which is fine because from what I have heard, that would be wrong. Maybe I just went to a good high school.

August 20, 2013

Hypertext

The hypertext reading by George Landow was interesting. It pointed out concepts surrounding hypertext that I hadn’t really considered. Instead of thinking about hypertext as just clicking on something and it directs you to another page, ideas about ‘choose your own adventure’ style text were new to me. Like how hypertext makes online text differ from books, which are linear, have a distinct beginning and end and the physicality of the text is more separate from us than it is online. Due to hypertext, each texts borders are far more open, and all that is related to a topic is not required on one page. Books would generally provide a short explanation for everything so one is able to understand the main topic better and how they fit together, but if we look something up on Wikipedia, it saves time by just linking to the direct page to give us the information.

This reminds me of the very first unlecture, where we were encouraged not to repeat information that already existed. With the use of hypertext, the same explanation of something is not needed on countless Wikipedia pages, the one explanation of it can just be hyperlinked on all of the pages that require/ reference it. So although hypertext makes the spiderweb of pages and knowledge seem broader, it really makes it more concise. The spiderweb has more connections, but it is a smaller web in comparison to the world of books and encyclopedias.

August 15, 2013

As We May Think

It seems this reading touched on an idea from last week, kind of in a round about way, but it made me once again think about why some things in design fiction don’t get created or don’t become widespread. Because the real world can be difficult like that. Economic factors etc. mean some inventions are delayed, or never come to be. However, this article explains that that was more the case in the past, nowadays, we can create and advance pretty much anything and reproduce it like crazy. Pretty empowering, it seems the more humanity advances, the quicker it advances also. Each big new invention has less waiting time then the last, and then suddenly a new thing will come up,  because science has become so…awesome. And scientists have for the most part, banded together to get the ball rolling, but as the article explains, physicists have branched off somewhat and have been forced to become more creative, which is cool. It kind of breaks my mindset of science being all about what I learned in Chemistry last year, and more about innovation and doing something awesome for humanity. Badass.

August 15, 2013

Unlecture 4

The audience involvement this week was fun! Even though I didn’t really contribute, I still felt it kept the lecture more interesting, but still, I walked away without any specific idea about it, perhaps because although there was a ‘theme,’ it all seemed like stuff we had kind of covered in the previous week in regards to design fiction. I think the best thing, would have been to have this lecture last week, and just have everyone make sure they’ve done the reading before the lecture. that way, people can do the readings, come to the lecture with questions about it, go home and write their blog posts about it having their questions answered, and then reflect in the tute. I know this ‘design fiction’ stuff is sort of carrying over as an idea, but I was ready for some new discussion and new ideas. Honestly the lecture felt kind of like a tutorial to me, which is fine, except that I had been at the tutorial a few days prior and wanted to expand and develop on these ideas just a bit more in the lecture. HOWEVER, I can’t say I zoned out or anything, it was still engaging, and is in accordance with the feedback that has been given so far, so a solid 7/10. Pretty enjoyable.

August 15, 2013

Keeping Connections

I was reminded this week for the importance of keeping your connections, or at least, keeping them as an option, particularly in this industry; where for the most part, it is not what you know but who you know.

Much of this week has been focused on preparing for our TV pitch on Broadcast media. After deciding on the idea of the current refugee ‘by boat, no visa’ issue, my group wanted to show what a former ‘boat person’ had to say about the issue, as well as learning about their experience when they arrived in Australia. Mid way through our group meeting, I was suddenly reminded of someone, a well recognised former refugee in Melbourne (at least with our generation) because his book was on the VCE English curriculum. Najaf Mazari, who co wrote ‘The Rugmaker of Mazar-e-Sharif.’ He came to mind because I suddenly remembered that when I was in year 11, he did a talk to my class as we had read his book that year. At the end of the talk he said he was very active on Facebook and if we added him he would definitely accept. I don’t think he does school talks anymore, and I just kind of forgot he was on my friends list. But what a great connection to have, over 2 years later, when I am looking for someone to interview, and he fits the criteria perfectly.

Of course we also found another person who was happy to be interviewed, because in the real world you cant just rely on people you have on Facebook to get news segments, so we needed to practice that. But it was so easy to contact him, and he said he was happy to help.

Much like this ‘networked media’ blog stuff has made everyone in this course connected in some way, Facebook is a great tool for situations such as this, because so many people are connected by it. I contacted Najaf because he was fortunately already on my friends list, but we also found our other interviewee via Facebook. We contacted the admin of a page for refugee activists, and he put out an ad for us. Afterwards we received lots of support and enthusiastic volunteers. Networks are just so awesome.

August 13, 2013

Testing through fiction

Ward writes, “fiction as a testing ground for reality.” Testing ideas first through fiction is clever, it would really be reckless to put an idea into practice before speculating about it first. Fiction not only can imagine a world where the idea exists, but really, the expenses associated are minimal. Perhaps time spent speculating is the only thing at stake. For example, if one wanted to invent a new gadget. Rather than paying people to make it a reality and seeing what happens, one can spend time speculating on possible outcomes of the new invention and the implications of it.
It is like the loop learning theories. Putting an idea into practice outright and seeing what happens afterwards sounds like single loop learning, while speculating and then making the decision sounds much more like double loop learning. Then again, I am still trying to get my head around the loop theories, so this is just a guess… I think it relates in a way though.
Speculating and creating fiction from an idea tests it because it creates a space where there has been a change due to the idea, what is that change? How is the reaction? What are the possible outcomes of this change? These are questions that can be answered by yourself though speculation, so it is worthwhile to take the time to think about these things.
This may even include split second decisions. For example, I can choose to take either the train or tram home after uni. As I’m heading toward Melbourne central, I can create a fictional scenario in my head. I enjoy the train ride more as it is shorter, but if it is raining that day, I know I won’t enjoy the longer walk home from the station, so I may take the tram home, even though it is a longer trip, because the walk home is shorter from the tram stop. Thinking about the future counts as creating fictional scenarios and speculating about them in your head, so fiction as a testing ground for reality is really something we do everyday, it is not just about design fiction in big science fiction scenarios.

August 8, 2013

Simplicity.

It’s easy to forget the power of simplicity. The rage these days seems to be creating new things and trying to be shinier and more complex than whatever was before, but sometimes it is nice to take a step back. It feels like a relief. recently a music video was released that definitely impressed me, because it was so effective, yet was one of the simplest music videos I have seen in a while:

It took me until the second verse to realise what was off about it, it was that it was all shot in one continuous take. Of course once I realised this, I really didn’t mind it, I was impressed more than anything (Even Kai dropping his hat toward the end looked almost intentional.) Although the grey costumes on a grey background in a dark room initially sounds bland, things like clean choreography, flickering lights, and the fun exchange of 4 hats between 12 people kept it interesting. Here is an article discussing the video in more depth, (Although I disagree with their comment about the video being boring.)

After learning about ‘Design Fiction,’ I was interested by the idea of trialing prototypes and models of possible inventions through fiction, something so innovative and exploratory, but now I am also reminded that simplicity has its own positives, and is better than creating and including extravagant things just for the sake of creating.

August 8, 2013

Design fiction

Design fiction, sounds fun, interesting. It is clear that the most important aspect of this process is speculation. Imagining  what things could be like, what could happen, what we could do. Does this mean sci-fi things become less fictional as time goes on, as our world looks more similar to theirs over time? I wonder, how far it can go? It seems we will keep imagining and inventing things, but will there ever be a time when we are so advanced, it will become more and more difficult to impress people in design fiction. I mean, who would be impressed now at a device that can call anyone in the world, not many people, considering we have already invented it, but there was a time when it seemed impossible. How long will it be until we are unable to say ‘hey wouldn’t it be awesome if we could do this?’ It would be difficult to think about what more we can come up with once we live in a world like The Jetsons or something, but I suppose I have to assume we will never stop needing stuff, and thus, never stop inventing. Still, it seems like this would have to be finite….But that is definitely a tangent thought I had.

The actual reading is rather straightforward I found, just expanding on the idea of imagining and speculating being a big part of design, as well as testing out creations in fictional space.

August 8, 2013

Unlecture: week 3

*sigh* I think perhaps I was less engaged with this weeks unlecture. That conclusion only arrived when I realised there wasn’t one really strong or interesting point that resonated with me. Normally I can remember lectures by something that was said, even if it was insignificant, because it lead me to an epiphany. Perhaps that’s not the right word, but I suppose I try to take an amount of life knowledge and understanding from every situation or piece of information I am exposed to; a way of justifying to myself that I haven’t wasted my time. (not saying the lecture was a waste of time!)  I did think it was a step in the right direction including other tutors, and I did like the ‘you are the one who should make it relevant’ thing, but I guess if I’m going to every lecture there will inevitably be some that I’m just not that into. I guess this is that week for me…maybe I just got out of bed on the wrong side that day.