Archive of ‘Journal’ category
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? š
- 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
P.S is this when OOO comes in?
Watched Collateral Beauty today and I love it! Ā 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 Ā 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 Ā 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 someĀ 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-
Oxygen, Shelter, Oil, Paper, Furnitures, Wood, Silvichemical, Fruits, Nuts, Flowers, Carbon Dioxide etc.
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. Ā 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.
The paradox of value
Saw this video some time back and thought it was interesting. After reading Bogost’s Chap 1 & 2, this video made so much sense now.
Water is cheaper than diamond but it doesn’t mean that it is less valuable than diamond. In a situation when we are trapped in a dessert, a water bottle values more than a diamond. Again, it is not about how much things values but what each item can do. If we take out “human theory” in this video and let the otology of diamond and water speaks for itself, can a diamond outdo water? We focus too much on the value of diamonds and we undermined the importance of water.
Today, we discuss the philosophy of how things works in the age of machines.
Uber- the largest cab company without owning any vehicles
AirBnB- the largest rental company without owning any properties
Apple- the largest media company without producing any media content
this theory would sound ridiculously stupid 10-20 years ago but this is how the “system” works now. People tend to see apple as a software/technology company that produce both innovative hardwares and softwares because we only see what apple means and not what apple can do. It changed my perspective when Adrian mentioned how Apple is the largest media publishing company.
By using the Apple illustration, I had a better understanding of the projects and the readings.
I guess, we often focus too much of what an object means and not what it can do- by doing so, we tend to neglect the impact of the object, and not utilising them.
Project updates:
We went to flagstaff garden to observe the happenings in the garden, complied a list of things and sound we heard- the list was massive, we had problem selecting and categorising the list to structure our script initially but we’ve decided to pick random numbers off the list instead of choosing and structuring them because everything in the list are things that represent/describe/part of Flagstaff garden.
We wrote our script and we are in the midst of recording the soundscape.
Is language the enemy of the “List”?
Base on Bogost Chapter 2-
” When made of languages, lists remind the literary-obsessed that the stuff of things is many”
” List do not just rebuff the connecting powers of language but rebuff the connecting powers of being itself”
According to Richard F. Kitchener’s theory
Connecting powers of language-based human’s definition and observation (Ontography)
Connecting powers of bring itself ( Ontology)
Are we over analysing things base on human language/definition/theory?
Decided to make my own list while reading Bogost chapter 2 on Ontography
electric, ink, pink, dust, velvet, sticky , food stains, tree, cotton, birds, transport, gravity, engine, bugs, softwares, church bell ringing, vision, upbeat and the list goes on..
Double Loop LearningĀ (C. Argyris) Argyris (1976) proposesĀ double loop learningĀ theory which pertains toĀ learningĀ to change underlying values and assumptions. The focus of the theory is on solving problems that are complex and ill-structured and which change as problem-solving advances.
Adrian discussed about our approach in our reading and essays. We need to observe our practice, I tend to get anxious whenever it comes to submissions and deadline, I realised that I’ve spent too much time worrying about time when I should be more anxious about the process of understanding during my readings.
I need to change my mindset towards readings and assignments- I tend to get through the readings even if I don’t understand them.
There is this Chinese proverbs that says ” ę“»å°čå¦å°čā it means you are always learning as you grow and there is no age limit in learning. We learn news things everyday, new word, new recipes, new formula, new applications etc.
We are also very much often dependent on the internet. When I see an unfamiliar word, I will google search it immediately and that’s how i learn new words. When we see something new, we will probably describe it on the internet and we will try to find out what is it, what does it do, will it harm us etc? What if we don’t have the internet? We will probably spend more time observing every move of the object, it’s reaction to different situation etc. It will definitely take a longer time for us to learn but what we see is what we get, we are not dependent on information from others/ the internet.
Are we selective in our observation?
Are we trained to observe differently? How?
Does our upbringing and cultures affect how we observe?
Ignoring certain observation does not mean that it doesn’t exist.
