For our video adaptation experiment, I decided to adapt Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet (1934), a beautifully immersive and intimate collection of letters that explore themes of creativity and a deep appreciation for life and existence. While I found the text inspiring and strongly resonant with the idea of social media as a space for creative inspiration and collective creativity (Acar et al., 2021), I struggled with adapting it into a video designed for a platform like Instagram.
Through the adapted text, I aimed to highlight an appreciation for everyday, mundane moments—especially in connection to the way Rilke was writing to a friend seeking advice and inspiration, much like how many people, including myself, seek inspiration from creators on Instagram. However, I found it challenging to balance old archived footage from the Internet Archive with a few clips of my own artwork. While each visual was inspiring on its own, blending them into a cohesive and engaging Instagram reel proved difficult. In hindsight, rather than combining archival videos, my own footage, and photos of my art, the video might have been more cohesive if I had focused on just one of these elements.
As Milton and Cobelo (2023, p. 242) noted, the COVID-19 pandemic changed how people create and engage with content on social media. During that time, I turned to Instagram to watch people share their creative processes, which became an important source of inspiration for me. This experience has shaped how I view creativity on social media and has now become something I want to explore more in my own work. While I believe my chosen text carries a deep emotional resonance, I would like to use its inspiration to create a series of drawings and perhaps film my intuitive artistic process for future social media experiments.
References
Acar, S., Neumayer, M., & Burnett, C. (2021). Social Media Use and Creativity: Exploring the Influences on Ideational Behavior and Creative Activity. The Journal of Creative Behavior, 55(1), 39–52. https://doi.org/10.1002/jocb.432
Milton, J., & Cobelo, S. (2023). Translation, Adaptation and Digital Media. Taylor & Francis Group, ProQuest Ebook Central. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/rmit/detail.action?docID=7252505
Rilke, R. M. (1934). Letters to a Young Poet (M. D. Herter Norton, Trans.). W. W. Norton & Company.
Video Credits
Du Bois, J. M. (n.d.). Insects on flowers [Film]. Prelinger Archives. https://archive.org/details/0812_Insects_on_Flowers_00_49_29_00
Murphy, O. (Producer). (n.d.). The conquest of light [Film]. Prelinger Archives. https://archive.org/details/6043_Conquest_of_Light_The_00_19_56_00
Harmon Foundation. (1936). A study of negro artists [Film]. Prelinger Archives. https://archive.org/details/0491_Study_of_Negro_Artists_A_01_38_22_20
Hammid, A., & Deren, M. (1947). Private life of a cat [Film]. Prelinger Archives. https://archive.org/details/PrivateL1947
Splice Originals. (n.d.). Sokous Rufisque [Audio]. Adobe Rush.
Personal videos and photos, including artwork created by me.