This is a very cool studio. Although I’m late for half an hour, I’m still impressed by the work they showed us. Out of some reason, their Utopian Garden projects (or not this one, but one of the works he showed us) reminds me of The Starry Night by Van Gogh) They are thoughtful and inspiring. Moreover, I really like the vibe of their studio.
PS: Their dog is SOOO cute!!
I made a board game of our class. Here is the link:
The link where chance cards are chosen is the following:
https://pwlinkas.github.io/virtudeck
The document that has all chance cards is this
The document that has all 5 levels is this
The link to the random word generator is this
https://randomwordgenerator.com
Enjoy playing!
“Hey, I’m traveling to Germany in May, taking a class called ‘Creating’.”
“Creating? I wonder what that class is about.”
“Hmmm, I have no idea either. But the lucky thing is that I’m going to Germany :)”
When I first enrolled in this class, my initial thought was, “Hooray, I get to travel in Europe!” I had no idea what the class entailed. Due to an unpleasant experience with a J-term course I took during my freshman year, I had no expectations for this class. However, I am soon proven wrong. The class turns out to be so interesting and educational that it overshadows my two trips (at least they are equally meaningful to me).
To begin with, I really like how this class is structured. We are constantly in a cycle of learning concepts, applying them, and watching demonstrations. Typically, the professor gives small, engaging lectures on certain concepts, and then we are assigned homework to create something using the concepts we’ve learned. On the one hand, we have a lot of freedom in choosing whatever topic we want to work on. On the other hand, many of the assignments are intentionally designed to be challenging, pushing us to abandon our conventional ways of thinking—or, in cliché terms, to think outside the box. The good thing is that these assignments are SOOOO useful in helping us thoroughly comprehend the concepts. Lateral thinking takes practice; we can’t think outside the box without actually attempting to step out of it. The exercises we do help convert what we read into action.
Moving on, my favorite part of this class is the concepts we’ve learned. Throughout the course, there hasn’t been a single “Aha!” moment. Instead, it feels like a blend of known and unknown knowledge gradually flowing into my brain. The feeling I experience most often while doing our assigned readings is resonance. This class feels like it’s filling in my mental gaps with solid substances. For example, I’ve done why process when having debates with others, but I never knew how it could be linked with lateral thinking; thinking outside the box is a commonly used term but I hardly know how to do it exactly, luckily now I have taken our class; concepts such as flow state, fear of not getting accepted, how communication works, how our memory system works, etc. were like puzzle pieces in my mind, and I now get to link everything together. Overall, the biggest takeaway for me from all the concepts learned in this class is that if I am now given a random creative project, I wouldn’t be running around like a headless chicken. Instead, I would systematically think about which lateral thinking technique fits well and elaborate on that.
Last but not least, I would like to talk about the various guest speakers we have and the studios we visit. They are, I suppose, a key part of most J-term courses. To be brutally honest, many of their artworks are the type I wouldn’t look at during my spare time, but it’s good to have them so that I get to see art beyond what I am used to looking at or listening to. My favorite artist would definitely be Ming Poon. I never viewed dance projects as interactive projects with the audience, and his mentality of not knowing what the ending will be for each performance but still being confident deeply impresses me. Moreover, I agree with many of his ideas on art and politics. Mariana Carvalho is also very memorable. Her works embody creativity. I really like how she closely connects her work with her theme of “in and out,” and indeed, having others sing into her mouth is such a unique music production. I wouldn’t say all of the artists we have reinforce my comprehension of the concepts we’ve learned, but they all demonstrate subtle understandings of what creativity is to them, and such demonstrations leave marks on how I may create art myself.
Using another cliche term, time flies. I still recall the first days arriving in Berlin, unfamiliar with the German transportation system and unsure of what to expect from the class I was about to take. After this short span of two weeks, Berlin feels like another home to me (especially when I return from my trips), and I’ve become so familiar with all my classmates that it’s hard to say farewell. I will forever cherish this experience in Berlin, meeting all you awesome people!
Today’s visit was very interesting. I’m very impressed how Marco, first studied music and now working as an artist, becomes knowledgeable in sciences. His creations of the swan and monkeys look so interesting! The only unsatisfactory part about the studio is that it doesn’t have enough chairs… I felt so tired at the end because I was a little bit sick in the first place.
We start off with the why technique: why do we want two people to get to know each other? Because there are monetary rewards from doing so. Why do people want benefits? Because they want to get rich. We start here with the premise that being rich is a common desire.
Our initial idea was that two people will be placed together and get to communicate with each other. There will be guided topics provided. After 10 minutes, each of them will be given a set of questionaire about the other, and they will be given money based on how many questions they answer correctly in total. The questionarie will be written by an observer who improvises questions from their conversation. Based on this setup, we thought it was cliche to have it similar to a coffee chat in which they just sit here and talk. Therefore, we refined it to having the two people in different rooms, not seeing in other, and their voice altered by a voice changer. There might be some psychological facts about the effect of seeing in each other’s face and hearing the actual voice to our understanding of the other person.
The guided topics could be about the following
Hometowns: ask to describe their hometown and what they like to do there, find their hobbies; ask stereotypical questions in a non-offensive way (for example oh so you must like *** food); etc.
Job: ask what their jobs are; whether they like it or not; then ask for reasons, from these reasons deduce their personalities and ask them if they are like that, and continue.
Hobbies: in case the hometown question didn’t reach here, ask about hobbies and why they liked it, what they liked about it, find connections, and think about future activities to do together.
A graphic design will be the following
In which there is a wall blocking them. A microphone is used to alter voices and a headphone used to receive. The square is the paper with guided questions on it.
I find the flow diagram intersting and explanatory. Indeed, it reflects our learning processes and provides guidance on how to optimize our learning experience: the art of finding balance between challenge and skill. It also explains why we sometimes give up on learning something, and it reminds me of my experience with the card game “Avalon”. I learned this game with a couple of friends who were also new players. At the beginning, since we just learned the rule and no one knows how to properly play, our skill and challenge balances out, and we were all in A1. After few rounds, some people became better and studied some “tactics”, thus the group was divided into people entering the boredom state A2 and others entering the anxiety state A3 (the “how can they learn it faster than me” mentality comes into play), which drives us all to continue playing and practicing (back to A4). Therefore, in the first few weeks, we were all very addicted to the game and would spend long time playing it whenever given the chance. However, after months, where we all sort of knew the basic tactics and had invented some “rules” amongst us, our skill at that point surpassed our challenges. Due to not having outside players, the game became more boring and we nevered entered the flow state again. Therefore, we barely play this game now when we meet.
Thoughts on Robert
He’s a very cool guy, although looking a little bit shy. I really like his work, despite the fact that my interpretations may at most time different from what he has in mind when creating. But his work is the type of abstract art that I would just spend time staring at and not feel bored. I really appreciate the music in his videos: they fit very well with his paintings. Furthermore, his usage of 3d technology really impresses me. It’s enjoyable to look at the development of his work from 2002 to 2020, a fairly long timespan.
The two words random generator gives me are ignorant and bulb. What immediately comes to my mind after seeing these two words is a short story. Beasically, it’s illustrated by the following collage. Among all bulbs, there is one that thinks it’s different from the others. He believes his gifted uniques brings light to the whole world. For all the other bulbs, however, they know their very existence is created by mankind and thus their life is controlled. They think of their fairly short lifespan of about 750-2,000 hours and weep at the fact that they will be abandoned right after they use up all their energy. It remains unknown as to how long does it take for that ignorant single bulb to realize it’s no different than the others.
Again, I feel resonated a lot with this piece of reading. The idea of how external voices affect people performing not only applies to art. Human beings are social animals. To really not care about anyone else’s opinion requires a strong mentality with great confidence, which most people do not possess. Like myself, I can’t help to not care about what others view my works. To really brainwash me into not looking at them is like burying my head in sand. Therefore, what I’m working on is accepting the fact that not everyone may like what I have.
Going back to the topic of art, I feel like the key part for an artist is to be self-consistent. If the artist’s gole is primarily to make money, then this artist ought to make art that follows the public’s opinion and it’s important for his work to be understood, accepted, and approved. On the other hand, if the artist does art for self-entertainment purposes, then public’s opinion on his/her work no longer matters. Also, such artist should be prepared to not have his/her work understood, accepted, or approved by the public. It wouldn’t make sense if an artist keeps wants popularity while ignoring what the public likes; nor would it make sense if an artist with very unique/personal works keeps trying to win public’s approval on his/her work. But still, I believe most artists are somewhat in between these two extreme categories. Therefore, for them, I think what they need to work on is also accepting the fact that not everyone may like what they have (spend more time with the people who do understand their work).
There’s a lot in today’s reading that I feel resonate with, but also some that I don’t completely agree. Right in front of our NYU Berlin building, there’s a photo taking machine, and there’s a quote on it: The first 10000 pictures are your worst picture (something like this, can’t recall the exact words). This is exactly what this text emphasizes. Art never comes from emptiness. One has to keep trying, although making bad arts, but this imperfection is irrelevant. I feel so resonate with the part on how perfection drags us behind. I have the mentality of perfectionism, and this mentality affects almost every aspect of my life. Even in playing games, if I have like 100% winning rate in some games or characters, I would gradually stop playing so that this 100% rate would stay forever. Such procrasination stems not only from the mentality of perfectionism, but also a fear of losing. Therefore, this is the part I need to work on improving.
‘However, I don’t really agree with the talent part. At least for the areas that I’m working on, I feel like hard working determines the lower bound while talent determines the upper. This is because, I suppose, when entering a new domain, things are easy at the beginning but are getting harder and requires more talents. Like for my major, mathematics, I have met some really sharp people in some advanced elective course who could devise nuanced proofs that I would never thought about. Nevertheless, I had some of them as classmates in my MVC class, where things are not really hard, and I thought we were sort of at the same level. I wouldn’t attribute all our differences to talents, but I believe it indeed plays some roles.
Regarding the visit, I really enjoyed our trip. Visiting the studio gives a totally different experience from having guest speakers. They cleverly make use of the developing AI technology, instead of getting negatively impacted by it, like many other people in the creative industry do. Not only am I interested in their work, I also find their vibe of having close friends together in one studio be desirable. Overall, it was an awesome trip.
I really like the fact that we have a NYUAD alumni coming over. She can relate us better and we can learn from her experience. The fact that she mentioned about getting lost in university is normal and is okay not to have a plan is very touching. Although I’m not an art major, I find many of her suggestions useful. I like her works related to eyes, they look very interesting. Also, many of her projects look very fancy and cool.
