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.

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.

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.

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.

Noodles

This is what my mind's map look like. 

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.

Steal like an artist

Notes: I like his nifty summaries of good habits. But he kinda speaks too slowly for me.

Artists are collectors, not hoarders (collect indiscriminately), of ideas.
It's these ideas that provide fodder for new creation.

Nothing is completely original. New ideas are remixes of old ideas. transformation is flattery.

Left vs Right brain

This ad and many other portrayals glorify the right brain creativity and thinking. I think, however, the left brain is the one that allows "right brain" ideas come true.
The world might be a better place without these unnecessary dichotomies.

Reflection: Lateral thinking

Lateral thinking is solving problems through an indirect and creative approach, using reasoning that is not immediately obvious and involving ideas that may not be obtainable by using only traditional step-by-step logic. The term was coined in 1967 by Edward de Bono.

 

Somehow this topic reminds me of my work before. There were a lot of "consultant speak" such as lateral thinking, thinking organisations, learning organisations, from the gurus such as edward de bono, dave ulrich, and the guy who moved cheese.

I don't know how much of this can be taught or forced. Example problems illustrating lateral thinking tend to have one "right answer".

I prefer to understand and assimilate processes, identify patterns across industries and data. I don't think I deliberately think laterally. But I just try my best to think in as many ways as I can. Lateral, vertical, diagonal, random, tangent, off-tangent...

Despite my tone that sound like one of the many people who think that these strategies are just fluff, I am someone who fervently believes in systems and processes and metaprocesses, and not just in them, but that they can be learnt.

I like to akin the learning of skill as the installation of an APP in my brain (analogous to the smart phone). And since I enjoy learning, I do enjoy installing new apps in my mind.

I read books on thinking systems all the time. One of my favourites is Peter M Senge's The 5th Discipline. 

This is perhaps also related to my educational background being in psychology.

Reflection on the image of the Artist

For this week's submission, I focused my research on another congruent point of my interest - the image of artists, in particular, female artists.

I had a conversation with a friend about how an artist should style and present him/herself.

Clothes and presentation and image makes the first impression, which is important in setting the conditions and tone for the rest of the relationship. And subsequently, profile shots are important, especially in this digital age.

It's interesting thus, thinking about the though process of artists and how they chose to present themselves in the way they did.

Additionally, for the artists, the viewer's impression has another layer of effect, that is, on their expectations of the artist's works. If an artist dresses very conservatively, and thus, those give an impression that her work is very conservative - will then to disappoint audiences who look to her for that kind of art. The artist's image, has thus, become something like a book cover for her repertoire of work.

In the end, I don't know what I should contrive to dress like. There's a saying, don't dress for the job that you  have, but dress for the job that you want. But truth be told, I don't know what that's like until this weeks' research... that is, artists, usually wear black or white.

Another Ted video: John Green: The nerd's guide to learning everything online

And then, when I was in tenth grade, I went to this school, Indian Springs School, a small boarding school, outside of Birmingham, Alabama. And all at once I became a learner. And I became a learner, because I found myself in a community of learners. I found myself surrounded by people who celebrated intellectualism and engagement, and who thought that my ironic oh-so-cool disengagement wasn't clever, or funny, but, like, it was a simple and unspectacular response to very complicated and compelling problems. And so I started to learn, because learning was cool.

Learning is a kind of culture.
Culture shapes us all.

We cannot always choose our culture. but as artists - don't we hope to shape it? don't we hope to contribute to it? aren't we super sensitive to it?

I will still try to choose as much as I can.


http://www.ted.com/talks/john_green_the_nerd_s_guide_to_learning_everything_online/transcript?language=en#t-339405

Reflection: Tony Fadell: The first secret of design is ... noticing

https://www.ted.com/talks/tony_fadell_the_first_secret_of_design_is_noticing/transcript?language=en

Don't like this video as much - it's a matter of taste, really. it's more structured - and rehearsed, perhaps. It's okay.

The problem with working with the young, is that the young are so often annoying.

There's an artist in every child? or there's a child in every artist? Anyway, to gain new perspectives on familiar problems, I rather talk to mature people from different backgrounds, eg. culturally or professionally.

"Youth is wasted on the young." - George Bernard Shaw

Reflection: Isaac Mizrahi: Fashion and creativity

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

Realised that I watched this before. But nevertheless, re-watching it is a good reminder.

It's nice to listen to people who know what they're doing and how they're doing what they do, explain what and how they think and do things.

haha. so round about. sometimes artists like artists to write in round about and unclear ways because they think that it sounds very smart.

Anyway, I mean, it's nice to listen to people who are good at their game and who know their creative process, talk about their creative process.

But that's also because I like to learn about creative processes.


1) Anyway, back to the video. At some point after watching it the first time, I must have decided to agree with Mizrahi's strategy. That is to embrace my doing lots of things.

I must have like a thousand interests. seriously. literally. I've researched from things ranging from Queen's music to Anita Mui, to Albertina museum, to Camus's sisyphus, to Empress Wanrong, to the skins of the recticular python, to the breeds of orchids, to the breeds of gibbons. I don't remember everything. But I have come across very many things.

I also have a thousand ideas, and I also want to do a thousand things. Only half of my portfolio is on my website. because I don't want to confuse people.

My facebook community doesn't even know that I'm studying at Nafa yet!

"And you know, I don't say that I do everything well, I just say that I do a lot of things, that's all. And I kind of try not to look back, you know...Because if you do many things you get to feel lousy about everything, and not just one, you know. You don't master feeling lousy about one thing. Yeah, exactly."

Anyway, I think he's a good speaker. I don't like his art direction more than... Karl Lagerfeld's but I respect Mizrahi a lot.

2) And I agree - "I don't say it's good, I just think it's not boring, right?"

And that's my goal in creation. To make something interesting.

But then again, in VA, it's a bonus if it's also beautiful.
Because... a beautiful thing - is better than just a thing.
Like how an interesting thing is better than just a thing. 
So a beautiful interesting thing is better than just a beautiful thing or just an interesting thing.

In my books. it's a matter of personal taste.

My goodness - I can just go on and on.
 

Reflection: Steven Johnson: Where good ideas come from

Much of what he said about generating good ideas come from a culture of sharing ideas and collaboration. I like collaborations. I truly enjoy the creative exchanges between people.

I'd came across a saying about sharing ideas:

If two people, with an apple each, share their apples, they will each have one apple.
If two people, with an idea each, share their ideas, they will each have two ideas.

I forgot who said it.

But it convinced me to always try to exchange ideas with people. When in discussions, I like to offer up my ideas, and hope that the other persons would reciprocate by giving me a new perspective as well. This will accelerate learning for everyone.

But the thing is, I realise that people are no longer so open about sharing nowadays. Most are defensive and guarded. Many "leech on" ideas by asking others for their ideas, but they not share theirs in turn. Some are genuinely insecure about their ideas, while some feign modesty, or there maybe many other reasons. Valid, no doubt.

But ultimately, sharing a bad idea is better than sharing nothing. Or if one doesn't have any ideas to share, then share something. Somebody's else's idea, like a quote, or a book you read. It's a social exchange. Rules of engagement.

Competitiveness and hoarding in this way is negative. If people do this with their classmates, the class performance will lose out to another. If people do this with their schoolmates, the school will lose out to another school. If people do it with the countrymen, then the country will lose out to other countries. Shouldn't let's share and become as informed as we can be?

Nevertheless, I too, find myself compelled to keep my ideas to myself sometimes. It's conflicting I know.

I wish I can find a creative community that shares freely and openly. Frankly, tactfully, and sincerely. Helping each other to improve.

Reflection: Chinese calligraphy and 风调雨顺

A friend asked me about these characters for his artwork.

I explained that these four characters reflects the idea of literally, wind being tuned and rain being easy going. Signifying smooth proceedings.

I suppose it reflects my hopes for my fine art pursuits as well.

http://www.nipic.com/show/3/24/5996297k5183d23f.html

A lot of people don't understand my interest in Chinese calligraphy and ink, even close friends, especially when I come across as somebody who is very western in style and mannerism.
I think, well, as with any other artists and a medium they admire or choose, it's a complicated decision that is compelled by very many reasons.


At the practical level, I like the versatility and efficiency of just black ink and brush and paper. Say, as compared to the more complicated requirements of oil painting. As a water based medium, it is also easier to clean up!

At the basic level, it's because I am a writer and it is sensible that my entry point into visual arts is through writing.

At an intellectual level, I admire the literary and historical aspects of calligraphy, and that the philosophies reflected in the writings and lived out by the ancients. They occupy me.

At a personal development level, it helps me become more observant, patient, and focused.

Being a late starter and not being as strong as I'd like to be in the Chinese language itself, especially in writing it, and most of all, not having enough time and effort to practise more often, I am aware that the chances of me doing very well in calligraphy in this lifetime are low. In that sense, it's not so much about the outcome.

But, in spite of that, the benefits of Chinese calligraphy is still very valuable to me, and we must always remember to do things for reasons beyond the apparently important.

[300 words]

WK1 Assignment: Tim Brown's Tales of Creativity and Play

Assignment


Watch the TED Video Tim Brown: Tales of creativity and play (in Blackboard).
Summarise the 30 Min video into 200 words(you can use bullet points/diagrams).
Place into any of this weeks “a picture a day”

Summary 

• Adult habits
• Tendency to categorise, assimilate, edit (Convergent thinking)
• Must go beyond normal way of thinking and forget "adult behaviors" that get in the way of ideas 
• It’s hard to break these habits.
  
• Trust between collaborators allows play and creativity. 
• e.g. trust frees one from fear of embarrassment, and self-editing of making mistakes
• Play-like behaviors are useful to the creative process, including:
• Exploration
• Divergent thinking
• A stage whereby quantity of ideas is more important than quality
• Building and thinking with hands 
• Especially to better understand materials, 3D design, and product prototyping
• Role-play 
• Encourage empathy for user
• Improve understanding of problem > for better solutions
• Especially relevant for service and process design
• Transitioning in and out of play
• A rule to make play productive
• i.e. Divergence (play, exploration, divergent thinking) and Convergence (editing and refining)
• "...be a serious professional adult and, at times, be playful." Not "OR".  

(150 words)

Reflection

• Freedom
• Instead of trust, the crux is freedom from fear of embarrassment and resultant inhibition
• Besides trust, self-confidence and disregard of others' opinions may encourage sense of freedom.
• To see this in other ways, it's about transitioning between periods of:
• Self-confidence and humility (bordering over-confidence and insecurity)
• Not caring about others, and caring
• On "...be a serious professional and, at times, playful" 
• NOT "playful professional, and at times, serious"
• Irony: "play" here neglects fun
• Focused on practical purposes
• Yet play = "engage in activity for enjoyment and recreation rather than a serious or practical purpose." 
• http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/play
• Thus, Brown's "play" isn't quite play.