Category: 2024

I really appreciate her creativity and her willingness to explore different avenues in life. I admire how she takes risks to create and contribute something new to the world. At the same time, I was somewhat uncomfortable with her demonstration of people singing in her mouth. This concept is unusual and not aligned with my culture and religion, so I found it less interesting. Despite this, I greatly value her courageous approach to generating ideas in her profession.

Well….this is weird…is what I said when Mariana started showing us her projects. Not in a bad way don’t get me wrong, but what she showed us was very unusual and interesting to me, something I have never seen before. So she got my attention. Even though I agree with her that her music is not exactly the type of music you would put on whilst cooking, I was extremely interested about her creative process. Her works just scream CREATIVITY. It was very interesting to see how she modified pianos and also made her own instruments just to show what she feels and to express herself. I also liked her project where she had people singing in her mouth so we can basically hear from inside the body (not very sanitary though :). Overall I think this was a valuable visit!

I’m gonna be so honest and say this chapter was wildly difficult to read for me. There were a lot of visual metaphors without the visuals that I really just didn’t understand.

The only paragraph I felt like I fully understood was the one about “sequences of arrival of information” where they gave an example of a self-maximizing system. I think this kinda ties back to the Japanese-Buddhist idea of 初心 (Shoshin – Beginner’s Mind) we discussed. An expert on something might have some principles so deeply engraved in them that they can’t see it from the bigger picture. At least that’s my takeaway of it.

Although I only understood bits and pieces from some of the paragraphs, I think I get the general takeaway: the human mind is quick to make connections based on patterns and really good at staying that way. However, it tends to also assume that a similar but distinct pattern is the same as a pattern the mind already recognizes.

All in all this chapter was kinda confusing but I think I get the general gist.

This chapter reminds me of an aspect of teaching in a different book (How Learning Works) that I have read for a course, where they emphasized that the way professors (and experts in general) organize information and the way students (and beginners) do it are totally different. For experts, information is organized in a huge interconnected web, whereas for students it is generally a lot of small bubbles. The main strength of the former is that it is quite robust, but the latter is more malleable since they have less information and more gaps between them. I think this is why teaching lateral thinking to young people is even more important: we can give them more ways to connect information and create webs rather than eventually settling on the same web that is passed down from professors. In this sense, perhaps we can think of gaps in these webs as spaces to explore and create and even teach students to intentionally leave some in their mind.

I really like her attitude of just ‘screw it, we ball’. A lot of her stuff kinda make sense, even if the end product sounds a bit off to me. But the important thing is that she always seems to be on the pipeline of if it’s cool, she will do it, which is great for someone working in the art industry. I’m excited to see what other out of pocket ways of producing music she thinks of in the future. Other than that, she seems really cool and down to earth, which is a bit in contrast to what I expect of people who do ‘wacky’ art stuff.

Part of the reading explains that our memory can only be activated on a small part at any given time. This depends on what we’re currently thinking about, what we just encountered, and our overall state. As it was explained, it’s like pouring water on jelly—only the most recent drops make a mark. Reflecting on this, our past experiences shape more than our memory or attention, but everything else about how we perceive and interact with the world, and how or who we are. Like how past negative or positive experiences can influence our reactions to similar situations in the present. Similarly, our mood can affect how we see things. When we’re in a good mood, even routine tasks can seem pleasant, while a bad mood can make everything feels like a chore, for example. This idea ties into my Kermit blog; that our thoughts and views shape us. And how much our perception and interpretation of our experiences make up who we are and our reality.

I like how eloquent she was when talking about her works. The execution perfectly matched the conceptualization. She reaches a good balance between keeping the texture of human relations with the use of technology. And her way of thinking aligns pretty well with the forms she chose: experimental art. Would love to hear her talk a bit more about how the element of feminism plays out in her work.

I was thinking a lot about stereotype when I was reading this chapter. Using the terms mentioned, stereotype can be explained as a pattern of impression towards a group of people that come from established codes. Code can be universal or culturally significant, meaning that people growing up in different environment may have different systems of code. Our reliances on these systems and limited attention span cater us towards accepting information that can quickly fall into a pattern. By introducing randomness, breaking the patterns, abandoning the short cuts, there is a chance that we glimpse into the truth. Humor was used in critical moments, such as war time, to fight against the social strutucture where lateral thinking is highly discouraged. However, humor is just a product of lateral thinking, not an all-purpose solution. It may also fall into the trap of pattern thinking system. 

I think what’s the most impotant are to pratice lateral thinking individually and also try to foster an environment that encourage lateral thinking. As mentioned earlier, it is not enough to simply ackolwgede the existence of lateral thinking. Active practices are necessary to fight back the lure of easy, effetive, and default vertical thinking.

• Interesting 
• I admire how she comes up with her ideas and is able to execute them 
• Her work is Intriguing but not something I would enjoy 

Mariana is wildly different from Otis, just like Professor Aaron prefaced. However, that did not prepare me to watch her showcase the projects she worked on to us today.

I found her ideas really interesting to hear about, but I can’t say I would categorize her music as the same type of music I listen to regularly to vibe to. It’s more of an abstract art piece in the form of audio. As Mariana herself said, it’s something she makes for performances and not really for the home speaker. If a mainstream artist like Metro and Travis was to be compared to a digital artwork online I like looking at, Mariana’s music is like the art pieces behind display cases in a modern art museum. A lot less accessible but a lot more experimental and thought provoking. 

I hope her masters degree goes smoothly for her and I’m glad I was able to learn about all these experimental music techniques I hadn’t envisioned before.