Final Reflection: Creative thinking!

For the final post for creative thinking, Term 1, here's an article by Elizabeth Gilbert to sum up my experience and thoughts for the way going forward.

With fingers crossed, hope that I will continue to remember these points and have them guide me for the rest of my creative career.

In the blink of an eye, the first term of school is almost coming to an end. Throughout this time, I've been asked about why I'm back to school despite having a degree. In the humdrum, I sometimes forget my motivation and get confused by the academic demands, until I remind myself of my motivation for pursuing fine arts...
It's timely, I guess, to repeat it now: I've come to study fine arts because I want to create something beautiful.

I don't know what I am going to do with the something after I've created the something beautiful, but I just want to be the person, for once, to create something beautiful. For now.

Wish me luck!

http://ideas.ted.com/fear-is-boring-and-other-tips-for-living-a-creative-life/



My favourite:

8. If something is authentic enough, it will feel original.

I am no fan of the aspiration to do original work. First of all, that creates an enormous amount of anxiety, and secondly, it is an impossible aspiration, because there’s no such thing as original work. If you show me a piece of artwork that everybody heralds as being totally original, I will bring in ten academics and critics who will look at that work and tell you from where that person drew their inspiration, who they had been reading, what painter they had seen … I’m much more interested in the chain of influence than I am in the narcissism of originality. The only way that you can create authentic work is to, with great humility and great faith and great curiosity, follow your own inquisitiveness, wherever it takes you, and trust that whatever comes out of you will feel original. That while other people may have done the same thing, you didn’t do it yet, and as soon as you do it and put your mark on it, it will, by its own right, start to feel original, as long as it has that authentic heart.

4 products combined into one winning patent!

The banana phone cover + swiss army blade

This new age self-defence phone gadget hides the phone in a banana shaped cover to conceal it from thieves and if it is discovered a button can be pressed to unleash a blade for self-defence.

The perfect product for modern ninjas!

Patent pending!!

Forced connection: Mask group work

Mask!
Cos halloween is coming

 

Group exercise: Combining 4 objects brainstorm

Combination of 4 objects into a face!

  duck (side view)

handphone stand

Reflection: The Creative Brain How Insight Works

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1gn21d_bbc-documentary-horizon-the-creative-brain-how-insight-works_lifestyle


While I'm intrigued and appreciative about the way science explains insight and creative thought, but the thing is, audiences need to recognise that science does not deny its limitation, and we need to be mindful that phenomena can't all be accounted for.

It's the classic case of whether the whole is the sum of parts. And my instinctive reaction is that it isn't. Whole is not the sum of part. Neither more than nor less than. it just isn't.

I went to attend a talk this saturday and the speaker said something along the lines that, well, everybody has different creative process, and our job is to understand and find the ones that work for us.

The very need to define creativity before scientists can go about investigating, to me is like this:
creativity is like water - we need to contain the water in a vessel before we can drink it or bring it around and use it. if the water is in the middle of the stream, ocean, or in the air as humidity, we can't really understand it. But well, ultimately, water in the vessel is not the true nature of the water, is it.
it's one way the water can behave but it isn't quite a true representation of the truth.

Fitbit

 The design is unobtrusive and the simplicity and minimalism is futuristic. Interesting to note the connection between zen and "science fiction".

Gotye's somebody I used to know

Triangles is my favourite shape > for now.
Gotye has interesting music videos. very fine-art directed.
I used to listen to this song a lot.

Somewhere only we know

Stop animation + illustration cartoon commercial
Beautiful work
A thought following from Felix thorne's cadbury project.

Video from Felix Thorne

I like the part when the recognisable cadbury tune comes on.
Also noted the use of colour to make it all coherent to the theme.

Reflection: Forced connection 2

http://thinkjarcollective.com/tools/linking-disparate-ideas-and-building-musical-sculptures-out-of-trash/

Wow I really like the art of Felix Thorne. the machines are good looking - steam punkish and yet organic, lively. and the music is clever and curious. reminds me of gamelan, but yet, fairy like.


I love these multi-disciplinary and multi-layered art. this one touches on the following disciplines:

1. performing art - music and visual
2. performance art - live show
3. engineering
4. computing
5. sculpture
6. Music (composing, as well as the playing out)
7. lights...
8. video (when the works are constructed for such platforms)

http://felixsmachines.com/

The reason that I enjoy works that offer/present multiple perspectives is that I had read and been influenced at a young age, that there are many facets and faces of truth. Truth is supposedly objective, but can only be interpreted subjectively.
Thus, I feel that it is interesting and thought-provoking for art to provide different ways of interpretation and can provoke the audience to understand different levels.

In some ways, I think that there's some truth expressed in sincere art works, and it's this subjective truths that are essential to the art work. and sometimes, it is this truth that makes a piece of work beautiful and moving.

Many would disagree with my sweeping definition or generalisation, for the problem with the definition of beauty and art are divergent lines that would never satisfy.

Sydney Opera house

After studying 3D fundamentals, i can better understand and appreciate the beauty of the sydney opera house and how far the esplanade stands, by comparison.

Did the architect connect opera with full sails on purpose?

Morrocan cheese

Will be interesting to go and draw perspective drawings of the angular terrain in a foreign country.
How does each culture decide their architecture?
It looks neat and it looks like cubes of feta cheese that I'm not sure if it's part of their cuisine. Feta is greek I think.

扬州八怪

http://baike.baidu.com/subview/2326/4987555.htm

One of the most creative group of artists, loosely connected, but all of the Qing Dynasty. Including Luo Ping who claimed to have seen the ghouls and ghosts he drew. This picture below depicted all of them together, which is also a figment of the artist's imagination and a forced connection that was made. For the 8 artists never conferred together like that.

Hammer head wears teeshirt

Sharks rule!

Reflection on Video: "Happy secret to better work"

http://www.ted.com/talks/shawn_achor_the_happy_secret_to_better_work?language=en

Here are some interesting points and reflections derived from the talk.

The importance of Outliers
They illustrate the manners or ways to rise above the average.Though they don't fit neatly in theories and thus inconvenient to explain or acknowledge.

Focusing on the average
There is a tendency to focus on the average or the normal. Even if the "normal" is above a greater average - for example in a class in one of the best schools.
Actually the idea of streaming in school in Singapore is similar to what he said about sitting in a class of smart peers in harvard or yale. people will just tend to feel less special or accomplished (as being a part of an increasingly homogeneous group) and benchmark changes. which in turn affects happiness as well.

Formula for success in singapore context?
The formula for happiness is not: if you work harder > become more successful > more happy
As that means your goalpost keeps shifting further in the other side of the next triumph or success.
Perhaps that's why the singaporeans are not so happy because we are always compelled to do better than our peers, and then streamed according to the results and so on.

Strategies to improve happiness
If we reverse the formula > positive training that will make you more success.
"3 gratitudes" exercise > will help train the brain to scan our environment for good things.
The critical attitude - the need for authority, supervisors, to "value add" by criticising the existing > results or corresponds to the way a sense of authority naturally comes with the one who would give pointers or a new perspective.
The correlation of authority and criticism is confounding, i think.
We ought to reexamine this relationship.
For true and worthy deference and respect is never given resentfully or offered in compensation to escape from a sense of inferiority from the, well, inferior.

Anyway, it's worthwhile to pursue these strategies to be happy and ignore the conventional measures of success such as status, promotion, money, and ostentatious luxuries, such as recognition and fame.

Propaganda

Sometimes propaganda makes forced connection
E.g. linking one's own country progress and greatness to declaration/ justification of war

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/apr/11/north-korea-propaganda-machine-us-boiled-pumpkin/

Forced Pinocchio

PINocchio

Forced salad

Forced fruit feta cheese salad!

Dixit

This is a board game that requires lots of forced connection thinking.
Players will try to connect their pictures with a term/reference, sometimes forcibly.




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dixit_%28card_game%29

Forced Connections definition

As powerful as the traditional brainstorming is, it has a drawback: All the participants have a common understanding, a collective mind frame that traps them equally in the same box or comfort zone. They all think about the problem in the common terms, and as a result, the normal process of associations eventually becomes unproductive. This is when you need to switch to another Power Thinking technique: Forced Connections.

DEFINITION
Forced connections are based on the brain’s ability to link two disparate items -such as words, objects, feelings, and ideas - and then use the new language generated by the linkages to think through the problem. It is called Forced Connections because it relies on random external triggers that force people to make a connection between the problem at hand and the trigger. These triggers cause people to broaden their perspective.

Extracted from https://brooklynbilbao.wordpress.com/2011/08/02/forced-connections/

9th Week: Forced connection

Group 4 groupwork done in class. Illustrate Pencil, candle, cup with the following adjectives:

1. Passionate
2. sad
3. Brave
4. Creative
5. Greedy
6. Hardworking
    

Noodles

This is what my mind's map look like. 

Airplane stunts

Are like...

synchronised swimming for... Machines?

Fireworks?

A waste of money?

Kinda unnecessary?

...

You tiao me what is lateral thinking

Punny jokes like this.

Mix fruit juice

Is a very creative endeavour.
Mixing different tastes. That works.
Liquid salad.

Passion fruit, honeydew, grape. = $3

Nafa best of best show 2015

Abstract forms have to be analogous when combined

Print X cut out

Reinterpretation of the way to present print in collage manner. In nafas "life after print" exhibition.

Reminds me that all mix media art is quite analogous.

Camera transformer

Also more than meets the eye.

Basically all transformers are examples of analogical thinking / design.

Crocodile transformer

Crocodile transformer more than meets the eye

Chicken and Bee

Group 4 group work 

To kill a cockroach

Group 4 homework 

I mature student therefore I am

Namecard is a media used to introduce one's professional identity. I wondered what is mine, as a writer, now studying in nafa... And created this.

It's analogical as it combines the idea of a namecard with my social entity instead of a professional one.

This was ultimately not used for 2d fundamental submission as it was too small for the requirement.

Ang Chiat's work

Combining Chinese ink and symbolism with icons and reference to computer technology through collage.

Mrt station + art gallery

Don't know who thought of it but mrts are good spaces to display art. Well, other than big advertisement panels.

Blue crystals

Scene of new cbd shrouded in haze. Coordinated blue glass facade and their angular shapes make the buildings to look like crystal formations.

Jaba the bubble tea

Combining elements of popular culture

Sumi ink and surrealist animals

http://www.spoon-tamago.com/2015/09/14/animals-camouflaged-by-cloudy-pools-of-sumi-ink-by-miki-saito/

Analogical thinking: coffee table

Bonus analogical faces in the lift area

Cheeky looking faces

Bonus analogical face: chains

 Bonus analogical face:

Sleepy chains in the doorway

Reflection: Familiar objects that embodies analogical thinking

This post is a response to an assignment that requires us to find 3 familiar items that display analogical thinking. These are some items that display analogical thinking in my everyday environment.

 Motivational pen holder with ancient poem
This pen holder is adorned with an ancient poem about the importance of learning. It provides functionality for the student as a pen holder as well as encouragement to study hard.

 Coffee table with little birds/ tree-design
This bird coffee table combines functionality as a table with an analogy or allusion made to a tree's branches and inhabitants as in the birds.

 This coffee table combines functionality as a table with an analogy to a wooden barrel.

 This is a plastic plant. I suppose the first maker of plastic plant also made a leap of creative thinking: a plant that doesn't need to be maintained or kept alive, which goes against the very basic idea of plants.
I thought this is a humble display of good analogical or parallel thinking.

Self-watering plant pot. A plant pot which helps to keep the plant in it well watered. This is an idea that is also analogous. For it combines a plant pot with the idea/action of watering the plant.

Analogical face 10: Bicycle and puddle

Nerdy and drooling bicycle and puddle

Analogical face 9: Lorry and trucks

Sad lorry with turban
with Crossed-eyed blur trucks