I disagree with his point of keeping yourself open to other possibilities because of the competition. I believe that this line of thinking leads to insufficient time and effort spent honing your craft which would lead to worse results compared to if you had committed yourself fully in the beginning.
However, I appreciated hearing his strong views on art and expression. His unique descriptions of his albums and essays made me sense his passion. I was especially intrigued with his ongoing project which is perfume. I had never considered incorporating smell into a project, so seeing Markus thoroughly investigate and combine his personal passions into his professional work was interesting to me.
I wanted to see the technical side of music creation, however, he seemed to be more focused on the emotional/psychological side of creation in general which I also appreciated. Overall the visit was very thought-provoking and caused me to think about my big-picture motivator
In my second assignment, I focused on time travel. After exploring superpowers in my first assignment, I found the idea of time travel fascinating and captivating today. I created a short video using Ai generated images incorporating the way I imagine the past and the future.
Chapter 1 of “Lateral Thinking” by Edward de Bono lays the groundwork for the book’s exploration of a different approach to problem-solving. De Bono introduces the concept of lateral thinking as a departure from traditional linear thinking, emphasizing the need for flexibility and creativity. He highlights the limitations of vertical thinking and encourages readers to challenge assumptions and explore alternative perspectives. The chapter serves as an invitation to embrace a more open and unconventional mindset, setting the stage for the subsequent exploration of practical techniques to enhance lateral thinking abilities. Overall, it provides a thought-provoking introduction to the concept and importance of lateral thinking in problem-solving and innovation.
For my second making assignment, I decided to go with the concept of freedom. I was thinking about dinosaurs and the first thing that came to mind was how they have free will and the freedom to roam.
When I think about freedom I tend to think about an open air when one is allowed to roam around to live. I decided to write a poem about freedom to interpret these thoughts into words.
During our studio visit today, he emphasized the end goal of our creativity and where we want to be in the future. He kept on mentioning what we want to get out of all of this and to have a clear idea in mind. On the other hand, I believe that we don’t necessarily have to have an end goal in mind when we start creating. As mentioned previously in the TED talk and in class, one should have the mind of a child where everything is new and inspiring to them. As you continue on your creative journey, you gain inspiration along the way which develops and changes over time to eventually reach an end goal.
Additionally, he discussed the difference between being an artist or content creator and what category we see ourselves in. In my opinion, they both run in the same circle as they both lead to creativity. Moreover, I enjoyed the idea of using perfumes as a creative medium. I found it interesting how you can link certain scents to different emotions, places, or sounds. From previous experience, I know that certain scents hold memories when we come back to the smells. This is a very interesting and creative concept in my opinion to spark creativeness in our lives.
Creativity has been long regarded as a special talent, a result-driven perspective that people “without this talent” is difficult to grasp on. This book introduces the notion of lateral thinking, a mode of gathering and processing information closely related to creativity that anyone can learn to gain using his or her insight. This book describes lateral thinking as restructuring, escape and the provocation of new patterns, which I see related to one of our classmate’s thought on creativity as “remixing existing ideas”.
Lateral Thinking is complementary to traditional, or vertical / logical thinking used in math and logic. Lateral thinking is generative and vertical thinking is selective. Hence, I believe that one should master both in order to be creative. Moreover, vertical thinking is dealing with the middle steps between the starting choice and the conclusion. It is sound and strong, but cannot extend beyond the constraints of the initial perceptual choice. It questions the initial assumptions and prevents the arrogance of any seemingly rigid conclusion. Lateral thinking is like digging a hole at a different place. For me, it is like as if we are useing different probation techniques to understand the full properties of some new material.
My previous prompt was volcano so an alternative idea i got from that in the last class was eruption. I was thinking of how to make it more abstract, so I decided upon an eruption of ideas. As I reflected on this, a idea sparked in my mind — an eruption of ideas. I came to this idea as I wanted to delve into something more abstract, where the eruption wasn’t about molten lava but about the burst of thoughts and creativity within my mind. I got the visual inspiration while looking at the cover art of a book. I imagined a captivating image where my own head would erupt with a bunch of new ideas.
To give the image depth and meaning, I decided to include the words “Lateral / vertical thinking.” These words held special meaning for me as they encompassed the concepts I had learned about the same day.
The topic I chose out of the five topics I wrote down in class is Froot loops. Froot loops is “a sweetened, fruit-flavored breakfast cereal produced by Kellogg’s and sold in many countries. The cereal pieces are ring-shaped (hence “loops”) and come in a variety of bright colors and they share a fruit flavor (hence “froot”)”. I wanted to make a visual creation with froot loops, but I also felt like that would need some kind of story, so I made a rainbow-themed picture using bits and pieces of pictures from the internet and gave it a rainbow-themed story:
The Leprechaun’s Return Home
A leprechaun makes his way back to his home city Dublin, clutching a precious golden bowl. Inside the bowl lies a magical treat—the Froot Loops Rainbow Cereal, the legendary pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. As the leprechaun makes his way to town, a rainbow follows his every step. Together, they bring the promise of joy and wonder to all who taste the rainbow-filled breakfast bliss.
This assignment extends on the topic of the last one through the concept of creative lateral thinking. I first came up with five alternative concepts / meanings that are related to desert and then several things I can make from one of the five alternatives. The results are shown below.
Suddenly, the concepts of memories and magical realms lighted a spark in my mind. Even as an electrical engineering student, I have always been intrigued in psychological concepts, whose discipline investigating the brain, the closest thing that we cannot fully understand but utilize through instinct. Hence, memories, or other brain functions, can be having a sort of “magic-like” property under current understanding of neuroscience. I have also been actively collecting and sorting memories through photos, videos and social media posts to make them ready and able to be reviewed and relived anytime I want. Every piece of wonderful memory to me should be treasured, like gems in the desert of all information that I gathered through my brain. Moreover, I have been interested in and making transit maps for a long time so why don’t I merge these two together to create a map of my personal mystical realm beyond the furthest reach of the vast desert of consciousness?
Hence, I called my work the “Land of Memories” or “Erinnerungsland” in German. From my very own perspective and cultural and linguistic background, it is also interesting how the fusional nature of German word formation makes the word sounds like a place that exists somewhere in fiction. However, this realm is not consisted of actual detailedly grained memories but that feeling I escape to every time I feel frustrated. The general images / feeling of the memories that someone think of them a long time after they have experienced it are what remains to be long-term in mind, and they are usually the most positive / negative things you felt at that moment (of course for this work only positive ones are considered). It also included idealistic or fictional elements that I believe to be harmonic and connected with other real-world memories. This place should be an embodiment what I feel to be idealistic and perfect, and nourishes, fosters, and reboots my tired mind after frustration. Since the feelings are already abstract, I decided to put icons to represent memories instead of other literal elements. These icons
Using Canvas, a software that contains innumerable vector image resources, I can make this map. First, I took a sandy background to symbolize the immense desert of consciousness. Colorful sands are then added to different clusters corresponding to different kinds of valuable memories. Places and symbols are added by hand to give this map an antique and mystic vibe. The stars marks the places I wanted to be teleported to most whenever stuck in the corresponding feeling.
Explanation of the names:
Mirs Bay – My hometown of Shenzhen, a coastal town with alternative name “Mirs City”, contains golden memories of my family, core of everything.
Litchia – Rendered name of my elementary school, contains childhood memories.
Jungfrau – Jungfraujoch, Switzerland. A Childhood Trip that inspires me to care for Mother Nature. Contains relaxing memories spent with everything naturally created around us.
The Grid – My natural inclination towards systematic disciplines such as physics, chemistry, and engineering and my memories of seeing the beauty within the numbers and formulas.
Stella – Changsha, a bustling town in Central China that is always in party mood and never sleeps, a place where I had my middle and high school educations, made a lot of friends there.
Camellia Hill – Name of the place where my high school sits, contains good memories of me studying, competing, and preparing for applying our dream schools with my friends.
Gazelle Island – Obviously Abu Dhabi. Contains memories about how I transcended myself when being in such an international and accepting environment in the past years, as well as the meaningful conversations I had with my friends.
Grapevale – A trip to the Caucasus (Georgia and Armenia) last year, sparkled my interest in world travel and made two of my best friends in collage.
New Territories – Memories being made and yet to come…
The stars marks the portals that connects to places, symbolizing bad feelings.
Swirl of Nostalgia – Missing Home
Forest of No Return – Too obligated / concerned
Concrete Cage – Lost in the Modern Cities
Infinite Maze – Purposelessness
Some Island – Loneliness
Coward’s Pass – Defeated
Foggy Jungle – Pessimistic
Pond of Clouds – Melancholic
Timeless Town – Stuck in the Past
The direction indicator points towards “H”, meaning Home or Heart.
If made interactively, this may also be a good way for people to sort memories. Possible implementation: use AI to analyze and categorize gallery input and generate new “territories” and symbols as user record more of his or her life. The icons acts as an access point to the AI-synthesized video of that part of memory.
I do not consider myself a creative person, but this passage gives me hope as it says that creativity can be developed and honed through intentional thinking techniques. The concept of lateral thinking as a deliberate and purposeful process resonates with me.
Personally, I find that my default mode of thinking tends to be vertical, relying on logical reasoning and established patterns. While this mode has its merits in certain contexts, it can limit my ability to explore unconventional solutions and perspectives. The passage encourages me to be more mindful of when to switch to lateral thinking, recognizing situations that call for a more exploratory and imaginative approach.
This passage is a reminder to break free from the autopilot mode of thinking and to approach problems and challenges with intentionality. By setting the intention to engage in lateral thinking when needed, I can actively seek out alternative viewpoints, challenge assumptions, and restructure my patterns of thought.
Overall this passage shed light on the importance of “thinking about thinking” in which I would reflect on the way I structure my thoughts. Self-awareness is also a key factor as it is what makes a person able to even recognize what mode of thinking he is in so that he can adjust accordingly.
