Noticing can be simply observing your surroundings, whether it be the important and integral aspects of the world, such as what is in-front of your next step, or the little things, such as the colours of the leaves on the trees on your way to work. During the first week of class, we as a collective discussed the different ways we as people notice, such as through our senses, how we often notice the strange and out of the ordinary, and how we have become more aware of our technology and what it tells us.

In the set reading for this week, John Mason’s Forms of Noticing , the author discusses the accidental nature of noticing, and how it is so much harder to deliberately notice specific aspects of our life.  An example of this is posture, gesture and breathing, some of which are mentioned in Mason’s work. Once we start intentionally paying attention to these things, they become harder to manage and control, such as with becoming self conscious of your movements and presence, as well as ‘forgetting how to breathe’.

During the group exercise in which we listed what we noticed throughout our journey to class, I was surprised with how much I could recall, and the detail I could do so, down to the specific colour and style of a bag belonging to the person sitting next to me on the public transport I took in, or the number of cyclists I saw pass through a roundabout. This task showed truly how much I do notice in everyday life, and how much I can recall on demand.

For this assessment task, we are required to set ourselves a goal, using the prompt ‘tomorrow I shall notice…’, and pick something that we don’t often purposely pay attention to in a regular day. I have chosen to notice and mark the cracks, as I feel these are things I don’t often unintentionally seek out.

Mason, John. “Forms of Noticing.” Researching Your Own Practice: The Discipline of Noticing, RoutledgeFalmer, 2002, pp. 29–38.

I once considered non-fiction to be a style of writing that focuses purely more on facts and reality, telling true stories and details about the world of the film. However, this idea is quite open ended and vague. After a class discussion, I’ve determined non-fiction to be both extremely broad and yet also succinct. Non-fiction can be, but is not limited to a vast range of educational multimedia, as well as personal content such as vlogging, or even the current process, blogging. Non-fiction is the conventions and narratives of documentaries and in most cases, mockumentaries (more so the conventions). It is maps, dictionaries, news (most of the time) personal diaries. The extent and depth of what non-fiction can be is endless.

This idea is further shown in David Shield’s Reality Hunger, a collection of quotes from various sources, compiled in a way that presents the truth found throughout humanity. These quotes show realities of many different people in many different situations, as well as words that are often lived by. Examples of this include ‘All the best stories are true’ (149) as well as an exert from 147 asking ‘What did it feel like? What was it like inside his skin?’.  I felt a strong emotional response to some of these quotes. In context with the overarching theme of truth and reality, these sections often brought on a sense of shared pride in a lot of the quotes, that the truth is upheld and honoured. It is somewhat unexplained, and extremely inspiring.

Discussing and analysing non-fiction has given me a new found appreciation for the form, as I know understand how broad the media form can be, and how much inspiration it can give audiences.

Shields, David. Reality Hunger. Hamish Hamilton, 2010. pp. 52-53