Author: Darko Skulikj

To start off with the reading, I really enjoyed how in this class we are going to push ourselves to think differently, creatively, with the intention to deconstruct and reinvent, in one word, Laterally.

This short reading introduced us to this way of Lateral Thinking. Ever since we were little, we were prompted to recognize patterns because that is how the brain works most efficiently. However, this way of thinking even though efficient, does not broaden our imagination and thus Intelligence. Yes, I said it well, Lateral Thinking is closely connected to Intelligence and the reading encourages us to practice this and combine it with Vertical Thinking. You get the ideas with Lateral Thinking, Construct, Deconstruct and then you deepen those ideas with Vertical Thinking.

Overall I am really excited to learn more about this process.

Thoughts about the artist (Otis):

• Overall I really enjoyed Otis coming down and talking about his creative process. He seemed like a person who really enjoys what he does, with passion and dedication.
• It was really Interesting to see where life takes you, as with Otises life story, we can all learn that if we pursue what we really want in life and are dedicated enough, we can all make it.
• Lastly I was really disappointed I couldn’t make it to his Vinyl Listening Party (Mariam fell asleep), but hopefully we get to see him perform again in the next few weeks.

For this assignment, we were asked to both of our little sketches into one big project or art piece, so we had the idea to make a collage.

Let’s start off with what we both drew:

• These are Mariam’s sketches:

• These are Darko’s sketches:

What we can see is that Darko focused more on things he loved, like basketball, fitness, nature, while also thinking outside the box with the Tic-Tac-Toe game.

On the other hand, Mariam focused more on abstract things and at the same time, nature, eyes, waves and the symbol of balance in life, The Jin and Jang.

In order to combine these things we implemented a couple of methods like the Round Robin method which makes out throw ideas in turns under a certain amount of time. With this method we pushed ourselves to explore our creative thinking and just say what comes to our mind first.

The first Concept we thought of is. What if we find some eyes which would look at us , that would represent all the people and also technology companies who are looking at us all the time (It’s no secret that they can access our cameras and microphones wherever we are). At the same time the game of Basketball is all about pushing ourselves as hard as we can, all about working hard and scoring a basket, so we decided to add Darko’s favorite Basketball player, Derrick Rose. Since we both had something connected to waves, water and fish, we decided to add some colorful waves which would represent the setbacks we always experience and are pushing us back. In the Tic-Tac-Toe game fashion, Basketball is a game and we also represent life as a game. We also added a little crown on the Player to add that Game-like look where you would win a crown if you win the game.

Here is how the final collage turned out:

I have to be honest, I have never been a big fan of Ted Talks, mainly because through my education I was always shown Ted Talks of people just talking and talking, a lot of life stories (Yes I agree we can get some valuable Information from experiences), and just shows that repeat. Well I guess things change and this is the moment things changed for me. I really resonated with this Ted Talk from Kermit the frog and let me tell you why:

Being Creative is who you are!

This sentence basically speaks for itself. Ever since I was little I have always been the biggest fan of Legos. Heck yeah I still am, I buy 1 or 2 new Lego sets every Month! Apart from that, I always wanted to draw, play computer games and was always open to exploring new ways to express myself creatively. I vividly remember the days when Graffiti were so popular back home, that I watched so many tutorials and tried to put my own spin into the picture.

Find a Mentor!

This has always been a very important part of my life. Transfering from that childhood to early Adulthood life pushed me into exploring Computer Systems Building (Basically Legos for Adults haha) and I found a local mentor which was more then open to help me understand the subject. Even to this day, with every single PC I build, I find a new way to arrange the cables, crazy way to put the RGB Lights, maybe I mount a custom Water cooler or I just decorate the case with weird stickers.

Push yourself and have a beginners mind!

Having a beginners mind opens up so many more possibilites that the opposite. Be open to anything and everything, The biggest rule of creativity is to do something creative just because you can’t do it. Good things always come from failing and pushing yourself harder. That is how we learn and deepen our creative practices

Last but not least, surround yourself with Friends and People that motivate you and push you to be better every single day. Always hear them out, cause the best thing we can do to work on our creativity is to look at a manner from multiple perspectives!