During week 4 we discussed some strategies to make our collaborative practices and creative thinking more efficient. Many concepts, hints, and ideas have been discussed, including the following.
- curiosity: takes place in the left side of the brain as it concerns active reasoning and engaging. It is great to open up spaces and possibilities, can make the collaboration far easier and engaging.
- wonder, takes place in the right side. Both sides of the brain take part in processing emotions, however recent studies show that the right side of the brain has a larger influence on one's emotive response. Wonder can be described as a deeper engagement, a sense of sublime as a response to some stimuli. Wonder can involve both positive aspects (sublime, inspiration) and negative sides as well, when we feel like our response to the stimuli is passive ( we feel confusion, when not grasping the concept, stress, disconnection, anxiety, as if it something we can't control totally).
- cognitive engagement (a way of thinking, an active method of trying to solve problems)
- music psychology theory and music theory
- divergent thinking (DT) involves creativity, pursuing many lines of thought and ideas, opening up imaginative spaces, and consider different options or possibilities (Baer. J, 2014).
- convergent thinking: evaluation of the novelty (Cropley, A., 2006), linear thinking, converge and pursue only one idea, locking ideas down to one or a few (anchorage). In practical situations, divergent thinking without convergent thinking can cause a variety of problems including reckless change. Nonetheless, care must be exercised by those who sing the praises of convergent thinking: Both too little and too much is bad for creativity. (Cropley, A., 2006).
In their work "The runaway species" (Eagleman, D., Brandt, A., 2017) the authors refer to a mode of creative thinking beyond convergent and divergent thinking, based on innovation: "innovation never stops" (Eagleman, D., Brandt, A., 2017), that's why we will never find a perfect solution to a problem and will keep changing and innovating new possibilities. Creative thinking and progress can be enhanced through 3 modes: bending, blending, breaking.
The concept of aesthetics experience was also introduced in class. Schubert, E., North, A.C. and Hargreaves, D.J., (2016) explain the aesthetic experience as an 'affect-space' which consists of 3 classifications:
1) internal locus / interoceptive (the felt experience) and external locus / exteroceptive (the description of the object)
2) 'affect-valence', describe as the attraction to (positive valence, e.g. preference, awe) or repulsion from (negative valence, e.g. hatred, disgust) the artwork/object — versus 'emotion-valence' — the character/contemplation of an emotion (happiness-an example of positive valence, sadness-an example of negative valence)
3) deep versus shallow hedonic tone. "Shallow" can be preference, pleasure, enjoyment whereas "deep" can be affect-valence during the contemplation of an object amenable to an aesthetic judgement (beautiful, ugly etc.)
We also discussed how music is intuitive process, an inductive, rather than deductive reasoning. Where inductive reasoning is making future predictions and observations based on present information and knowledge, deductive is cognitive, rational and logical thinking. It can be an incomplete observation, a proposal, an option, a set of predictions and general conclusions, instead of a final solution, and these may be either true or false.
Low-fi animations
We paid particular attention to the low-fi animation works of Don Hertzfeld, and tried to analyse the sonic elements and how sound design is applied to low-fi animations. In particular, "Rejected"
- walter merch and francis ford coppola
Image below is a screenshot of a short GIF made by Yunshu Shu (2023), third year RMIT animation student (MAGI course) with whom I am collaborating on our next assignment.
REFERENCES:
- Rush, T. Burgess, L (2022). Left brain vs right brain: Fact and Fiction. Medically reviewed by Hammond, N. M. D. Medical News Today https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/321037
- Baer, J., 2014. Creativity and divergent thinking: A task-specific approach. Psychology Press. https://books.google.com.au/books?hl=en&lr=&id=DdCAEAAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=divergent+thinking&ots=4fn6RJn2-n&sig=txF2HO1qm_9Go-tULQaAvHXgFBY#v=onepage&q=divergent%20thinking&f=false
- Cropley, A., 2006. In praise of convergent thinking. Creativity research journal, 18(3), pp.391-404.) https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1207/s15326934crj1803_13?casa_token=kZ5dFCrB6hMAAAAA:lQxyM5AWcFMqNGNVqZPlKwklbIQ5b2XCG4wK-ZwQNvfNeWJYpKTadriwFCLpE5U-fhoBRQLb4dI-WDU
- Eagleman, D. and Brandt, A., 2017. The runaway species: How human creativity remakes the world. Catapult. https://books.google.com.au/books?hl=en&lr=&id=B44pDwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PT5&dq=the+runaway+species&ots=jDaYWT79Mp&sig=tB8P_M0VzW-ShW7kWIUK-MR9sLk#v=onepage&q=the%20runaway%20species&f=false
- Johnson‐Laird, P., 2010. Deductive reasoning. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Cognitive Science, 1(1), pp.8-17. https://wires.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/wcs.20
- Hayes, B.K., Heit, E. and Swendsen, H., 2010. Inductive reasoning. Wiley interdisciplinary reviews: Cognitive science, 1(2), pp.278-292. https://wires.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/wcs.44
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