Tag Archives: Noticing

A Heightened Sense of Things

Posted on by under Life, Networked Media

Quality. Photo: Stefan Dotti

If nothing has come of my time at University, it has helped me to strengthen and tighten my senses, giving me control over what I see, hear and retain. That’s a skill for life that’s going to help me regardless of what sort of career I end up in. If nothing sums it up better, its this statement Dilios makes in Frank Miller‘s 300:

A heightened sense of things. The seaborn breeze, coolly, kissing the sweat at his chest and neck. Gulls cawing, complaining, even as they feast on the thousands of floating dead.

Beautiful and vivid. That’s exactly the kind of attention I pay to my surroundings and environment. I have always had an attention to detail, the stimulation that comes from noticing is a reward for my brain. But between the concepts in Networked media, and the exercises performed in WMT, I have learned a greater control over my senses. Particularly hearing as well as retaining information. I collect vinyl records, so I am used to a higher quality analog sound regardless. I love the depth in the music when its played at its warm and ambient best. When you learn how to use your ears to distinguish, hone in on and control a selection of sounds from the soundscape around you, the experience is even deeper. From these two activities combined, my perception of sound has been completely altered.

I pay attention to tones, sonic qualities and textures in sound that I never experienced before. Even when hearing a song through my car stereo I can now separate the layers and elements of the sound and identify a much cleaner and crisp rhythm, beat, riff, or line. It’s the richness of the experience that I’ve come to enjoy.

It’s the same visually. Taking in the sights around me, noticing those little details and textures of a building, of a piece of furniture, of a car. It creates a more vivid and colourful memory. Something almost tangible. Lucid in its very being. This sort of thinking, the behaviours are only going to help me in life. If you can pay attention to things, retain this information and communicate it effectively, there’s going to be a whole lot of roadblocks that don’t impede you anymore. Paying attention to detail and caring about your environment are important parts of any aspect of life. But as I am starting a career in the media industry within the near future, it becomes even more relevant.

Lost and Found

Posted on by under Life

Lost and found. Photo: Rick Harrison

For someone with such an eye for detail, I have an incredibly bad habit of misplacing things. Sometimes I think of such clever places to keep things so that I won’t “lose them”, that I actually end up being unable to find them when I look for them. For instance, I have not seen my Mac mini to HDMI adapter for the past month or two. Today I had to go and buy a new one. Chances are, I bet that I will find it now.

So is this a big issue? No, but it certainly is a minor inconvenience. One that I’d be much happier without. Noticing things is one thing, committing the noticing to memory is another entirely. That’s something I’d like to be able to work on. Memory. I actually have a pretty good memory, when I use it. I think that the problem is I need to actually engage my memory to make it work properly. I guess that’s just a pitfall of being a human. I excel at memory games and activities which require the conscious engagement of memory and the brain. It just so happens that I have trouble remembering where I put things. Could it be that I don’t pay enough notice of the little things? Maybe I only notice things that I think are important. I guess this goes back to the article on “Noticing” by John Mason.

It’s an integral skill that we often take for granted, one that we don’t realise to its full potential. Perhaps it’s high time I started doing something about that.

Notice This

Posted on by under Theories, Theories and Philosophy

 

No nothing in this yard. Photo: Alist

As Researching Your Own Practice acknowledges, noticing is something necessary, as well as reflection, in order to behave and think in the best manner possible. In personal life, career life and education, noticing is something that most people don’t notice. Notice that is, that noticing is something we take for granted and don’t exercise complete control over.

So it’s simple, isn’t it? Just take more notice of your surroundings and your actions, your thought processes. But it’s not that simple, as John Mason discusses:

“Noticing itself is something that happens to us, not something we do deliberately, or at least, not something that the deliberate and conscious parts of us can decide to do. You can “decide” to notice some thing or some feature, but it may or may not happen.”

So what can you do? Discipline yourself and exercise your capabilities to notice and pay attention to detail. Mason suggests activities and exercises to practice and hone your senses. Theoretically, it makes sense. Put into practice it definitely helps to increase alertness and attentiveness to your environment and your own thought processes and methods.

For me, I am a perfectionist. I pay an incredible attention to detail that most people do not. I often catch people off guard, or surprise them with a specific detail or notion that I’ve stored in my brain. An example? I regularly attend AFL games (Richmond ones of course, I’ve been a member for 2/3 of my life) with my father. My father is a seasoned football spectator, but I notice everything around the ground, the movements of players, habits, action behind the play, injuries that occur, the whole lot. I often catch him off guard when I bring something to his attention.

“Look Dad, Daniel Jackson’s been hit in the head!” Maybe not a perfect example of noticing a minor detail. Photo: The Age

Noticing things in your environment is something, but noticing your own practice is something else. I also feel like this is something I excel at. I understand and notice how my brain works and the habits that I have. Personally, I feel competent in comprehending my behaviours, the only problem I have is committing myself to and creating a solution. Now this is another issue entirely, but it also comes back to noticing. Because to identify this issue and amend it, I have to take notice of it.

Well the problems have certainly been identified. It’s up to me to continue to develop my problem solving abilities and thinking strategies in order to enhance my practices and methods.

Learning never stops, we keep learning for the rest of our lives, so I might as well keep an open and active mind and try and make the most of it.

 

 

 

Disclaimer | Background image: Emma Gawen
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