ESSAY TITLE: RETHINKING THE ANIMATE, REANIMATING THOUGHT
Why do they say that “In the animic otology, beings do not simply occupy the world, they inhabit it” (page71)
How can we relate primacy of movement? ” As soon as a person moves, he or she becomes a line” ( page72)
“Whenever there is live, there is movement” Why did they say that the sun and the wind is alive? (Page73)
Can we fully understand the condition of being? (page 68)
What is logic of inversion and how can we apply it? (Page 68)
Why do they say that ” Life in the animic ontology is not an emnation but a generation of being, in a world that is not preordained but incipient, forever on the verge of the actual”?
Why did they say that ” The environment might then be better envisaged as a domain of entanglement”?
How does tangle affect the meshwork in animic onotology? (Page 71)
Why is the weather so important in animic ontology? (Page 73)
Why did they say that ” The way to know the world, is not to open oneself up to it but rather to “grasp” it within a grid of concepts and categories?” (Page 74-75)
What is the mesh network?
How can we apply the primacy of movement in a mesh network?
What can we learn from this chapter?
How can we apply it in our studio and upcoming project?
“Whenever there is live, there is movement” Is the river considered alive? Why is this point important?
Why do they say that ” In the animic ontology, by contract, what is unthinkable is the very idea that life is played out upon the inanimate surface of a read-made world.”
Why do they say that ‘Yet along with openness comes vulnerability” (Page 74)
What is animic cosmos? (Page 74)
What is network thinking and relational perspective? (Page 70)
Why do they say that life is continuous birth? What do they mean by that? ( Page 69)
Why do we need to rethink the animate and reanimate thoughts? ( essay title)
What is the outcome from this concept? What should we expect?
I’ve read the essay 3 times and i find it hard to write a summary about the chapter. It is hard to connect the what the author explains as a whole. I feel that there is a lot of hidden meanings in the essay. Please enlighten me 🙁
“The risk of fallinging into anthropocentrism is strong. Indeed, I’ll take things farther” anthropocentrism is unavoidable, at least for humans.”
Problems with our work-
During group discussion last week, we are suppose to choose a word from Offenburg’s audio track and brainstorm audio and visual ideas for the next submission. We chose the word “Revolution” and our ideas were limited within the word itself. Even in my essays, I feel that my work is limited because it work always falls back to anthropocentrism.
How can we avoid falling back to anthropocentrism in our work? I am finding this a struggle in our projects and throughout the studio.
I have to confess, I haven’t done much last week- was a little overwhelmed with submissions .I’ve read Bogost chapter 3 a couple of times. spent more time googling and researching on words and terms that I am not familiar with. however it is still hard to absorb these terms in noticing and in the readings.
Things I can work on. Come up with word of the week from the readings and try to apply the word as much as i can in my blogs, and noticing maybe?
As mentioned in my previous post. I’ve learned another method in essay writing, which will be useful for upcoming essays.
Today we started off the lesson by a brief analysing our essays. Out of 10 people, only 2-3 feels good about their essay. I belong to the “so-so” group. Adrian asked us why are we not satisfied with our essays.
My workflow-
I tend to focus too much on the structure of my essay that my content revolves around this structure. Last Thursday, Adrian thought us the Pomodoro technique, this technique allows our essay to take us for a walk. I find this technique more efficient, it helps me to move on whenever I am stuck in a passage( which always happens). I wish I had more time for my essay as i practically churned out a new essay within a day..
We went through the these new words for our upcoming assignments today
“The truculence and clamour of things
a convivial making “
It sound so easy when Adrian gave us some examples, however, I find it hard to think of my own examples in our existing soundscape. *Need to re-read Bogost Chapter 03!
I tried to breakdown the essay question and it made me reflect- What will catch my attention? Here’s a list that I thought of randomly. This project is all about the list isn’t it? 🙂
a wild koala in the city
when my phone rings at 4am
when there is a huge crowd
when there is a long queue in a shop
when my favourite coffee shop is closed during lunch time
when the tram didn’t arrive in time
when the fire alarm goes off
strange smell
people giving out free stuff
loud noises
The list above are things that may be abnormal and the things that I am not familiar of.
What is normal? Who made up normal?
-US! human beings! human structure! human culture!
When we take remove the social relativism from things, we will be to be more attentive to things around us.
Social Relativism- structures within the temple of human cultural production
Watched Collateral Beauty today and I love it! It reminds me of our upcoming soundscape recording. Narrowing down our list and try a different approach to understand the object. In Collateral Beauty, Will Smith or rather, Howard wrote 3 letters separate letters to time, love and death, through his letters, he reflects his relation between each element and it is so much denser than its definition. It makes me wonder, If we are asked to write a letter to an object/location- what will we write about? and how much more can we explore or notice about the object/location
A letter to a tree:
Dear Tree,
My name is Michelle and I am writing this letter to thank you for all the things that you have done and to apologise for what we have done.I was taught that you are very important in our lives ,You take in carbon dioxide and potential harmful gases to release oxygen.You shelters the birds and animals in the wild. You grow fruits and nuts . Your cousin Blue Gum, provide eucalyptus oil. ( and the list goes on)
You are so important to us and yet we hire our kind to take your life. We used you to create paper, furnitures and many more. On behalf of human beings, I am sorry.
Warm Regards,
Michelle
Okay, I could have elaborate more in the letter but I need to work on my essays. With this simple exercise, it allows me to reflect and understand what a tree does instead of defining the tress. I end up doing some research about trees! Think about it! Trees are everywhere! They are in our bedrooms, kitchen, classrooms…..
Okay, I am doing this the opposite way but here is a list of a tree-
Readings- This week, I changed the approach towards reading, instead of writing down almost every sentences, I read through it once, highlighted the keys/important facts and try to summarise by referring back to the key points. I tried using Cornell notes method but I am still not familiar with it. Definitely had a better understanding from the readings.
Blogs- Sometimes I doubt my own content and wonder if my blog makes sense? I think I am not applying the readings into my post. I guess it is not wrong but it would help me better in my learning.
Group work- I tried to provide my inputs and help in every way possible. Rachel volunteered to write the script and Cameron did the recording ( He has a nice soothing voice!), We all submitted our own observations and I recorded some ambience sound from chosen location. According to the graphs we did last week, my strongest point is brainstorming and planning, I will try to work on other areas for the next recording.
Language- I find it hard to understand certain terms/theory from the readings/in class. I think this is the reason why I am not vocal in class. I have to admit that I may be slower in learning and understanding but I am hardworking. I am not a natural speaker and I need more of time to plan and rephrase my thoughts and reflections. I need to put extra time in in readings!!
Things I need to work on:
Readings- Apply reading to my blog post, prepare questions for readings
Ask more questions- I tend to stay observe more rather than participate in class.. observation is my comfort way in learning, I need to break out of that comfort zone and participate more in class by asking more questions.
