When I was on the plane here, I was very excited, but a little bit unsettled by this course. All my life I took myself as creative (and that’s even what I had as a main topic in my personal statement for my university application), and I didn’t know what to expect. Would it turn out that I wasn’t creating at all? However, I looked forward to it at the same time because I knew that it would help me towards my goal as a game designer.
On the first day, everything went smoothly, and nothing was unexpected, until the exercise of drawing in circles. I was a bit pressured and kept worrying about things like what if other people drew things that were so much more creative than me? What should I do exactly? What if the things I drew were so stupid that everyone laughed? With these worries, my head wasn’t functioning clearly and I just doodled random things on these circles. Eventually, everything turned out fine, and I was sort of relieved. It was after all these projects that I gradually realized that no one is going to judge my work, and that lead to a more relaxing creating mentality that helped me a lot when coming up the ideas of the makings.
During the experience, the things we learned and the things in the readings weren’t that unfamiliar. The more we go into the topic of creating and lateral thinking, the more it appears to me that it is things that I frequently use when coming up with ideas for these different projects. I used or came across most of them in my life already, but I never systematically thought this might be a complete topic for creative thinking. The course helped me categorize and sort out all these lateral thinking techniques that can be used for creative processes so that the next time when I want to create something, I will have a completely organized way of thinking about the topic and obtain creative outputs in a more efficient way.
Another part that I greatly enjoyed was the makings of all these makings (hmm…). These exercises helped me think of topics that I never thought about before. Every time a making was made, it was like I obtained a puzzle piece to an unknown puzzle waiting for me to solve. In the end, all these makings make sense together and that’s my topic for the final project. It will be about fighting oppression and incorporating some of my ideas about time, but I will not go deep into it here.
The artist visits are also a great part of the course. It is very enjoyable getting to know what other people are doing as artists and to understand their concepts and ideas when they are creating projects. It also sorts of answered my questions about how artists make a living because there is the stereotype that artists are all broke. It was also a good experience that when I found out some other artists go through the same creating process as I do, I felt a sense of belonging as someone engaged in creative design. I wouldn’t call myself an artist yet, as I believe there is still a long way to go. But I believe eventually I will get there.
One last thing is I am amazed by what an amazing city Berlin is. I have been here three or four years before, and it didn’t amaze me like this time. It was when you actually go into the arts realm and start noticing the art around you that you begin to realize how artistic this city is. I went to many places that I couldn’t even count, and I still feel I didn’t actually get to know this place well. The history is embedded in the walls of the buildings, and each graffiti piece tells a story of its own. It was such a great experience, and I can’t believe it will come to an end soon. I also like the food here. I am such a fan of meat (especially pork), and the local cuisines along with the coffee and their chill atmosphere are just relieving. The weather was usually great, and it was nothing like Abu Dhabi. I really liked this place and I hope I will get to visit here sometime in the future.