Different Modes of Creativity
September 24, 2007 1:34 AM Subscribe
What are some creative ways of responding to a journal article or lecture, besides the usual "writing an article about the topic"?
For my Cultures and Creativity class, we are required to create a Creative Journal with responses to 6 of the lectures in the semester. They can be anything, but the catch is that they can't all be the same thing - so they can't be all writing, or all paintings, or whatever. (I'm not sure if occasional repeats are OK, but for the moment assume they're not).
What are some good ways of creative expression that aren't too complex (I have a month and a half) and can be easily submitted? Apparently one guy sent in a bar fridge last semester - interesting, but not so feasible. The journal itself can be in any format, and both can be physical or electronic or a combination.
Some ideas I've considered:
Documentary/interviews
Music video
Singing
Poetry
Short story
Non-fiction/essay
Recipe/cooking
T-Shirt Surgery
Photograph (single)
Photo essay
Collage
Drawing
Calligraphy*
Powerpoint presentation
Dance
Acting
Speech
Websites
I'm best at writing, particularly essays and short stories, but again I can't have them all be written pieces. I can cook fine and I'm OK with photographs. My drawing and craft/sewing skills need major work, though fortunately they're not really after skill here.
What other modes of creativity can I try? The more out-of-the-box the better, though I'm not sure stuff like sculpture would fly really.
I'm not sure what their policy is on collaboration. From what I gather, using someone else's work as part of your work (e.g. a collage) is OK as long as credit is given and it's not infringing on licenses, but I don't think I can just pull a random photo off Flickr and claim it to be my response. I'm also not sure if I can get someone else to do the production work based on my concepts (otherwise I could add a few things that I'm not skilled in, such as software coding).
* haha, this is more of a jokey idea. For some reason our uni seems to think Asian arts consist only of Japan and China with the occasional India, and during the Asian Arts lecture they kept banging on about the Japanese concept of ma and how fantastically exotic the Japanese/Chinese are, or some other crap. Being a non-Japanese/Chinese Asian, I found it all too silly, so I thought I'd respond by writing the Bangla syllable for "ma" in Arabic calligraphic style. Except I don't actually know written Bangla and I don't have calligraphy skills or tools. Ah well.
For my Cultures and Creativity class, we are required to create a Creative Journal with responses to 6 of the lectures in the semester. They can be anything, but the catch is that they can't all be the same thing - so they can't be all writing, or all paintings, or whatever. (I'm not sure if occasional repeats are OK, but for the moment assume they're not).
What are some good ways of creative expression that aren't too complex (I have a month and a half) and can be easily submitted? Apparently one guy sent in a bar fridge last semester - interesting, but not so feasible. The journal itself can be in any format, and both can be physical or electronic or a combination.
Some ideas I've considered:
Documentary/interviews
Music video
Singing
Poetry
Short story
Non-fiction/essay
Recipe/cooking
T-Shirt Surgery
Photograph (single)
Photo essay
Collage
Drawing
Calligraphy*
Powerpoint presentation
Dance
Acting
Speech
Websites
I'm best at writing, particularly essays and short stories, but again I can't have them all be written pieces. I can cook fine and I'm OK with photographs. My drawing and craft/sewing skills need major work, though fortunately they're not really after skill here.
What other modes of creativity can I try? The more out-of-the-box the better, though I'm not sure stuff like sculpture would fly really.
I'm not sure what their policy is on collaboration. From what I gather, using someone else's work as part of your work (e.g. a collage) is OK as long as credit is given and it's not infringing on licenses, but I don't think I can just pull a random photo off Flickr and claim it to be my response. I'm also not sure if I can get someone else to do the production work based on my concepts (otherwise I could add a few things that I'm not skilled in, such as software coding).
* haha, this is more of a jokey idea. For some reason our uni seems to think Asian arts consist only of Japan and China with the occasional India, and during the Asian Arts lecture they kept banging on about the Japanese concept of ma and how fantastically exotic the Japanese/Chinese are, or some other crap. Being a non-Japanese/Chinese Asian, I found it all too silly, so I thought I'd respond by writing the Bangla syllable for "ma" in Arabic calligraphic style. Except I don't actually know written Bangla and I don't have calligraphy skills or tools. Ah well.
I like all your ideas; here are a few more:
Non-permanent tattoos/henna
Comics
Letters to the editor, op-ed pieces in student/local newspapers
Designing/creating a wearable garment of some kind
Recorded interview/video chat with notable figure
Podcast
I wonder how your professor will be assessing all this work.
posted by mdonley at 2:11 AM on September 24, 2007
Non-permanent tattoos/henna
Comics
Letters to the editor, op-ed pieces in student/local newspapers
Designing/creating a wearable garment of some kind
Recorded interview/video chat with notable figure
Podcast
I wonder how your professor will be assessing all this work.
posted by mdonley at 2:11 AM on September 24, 2007
Body as cultural product: advertising campaign?
Youth subculture: band merchandising? (think Green Day logos on everything and bands with their own clothing labels)
Islamic cultures in text: Film mashup? (I know it says "text", but there are so many "foreign bad guy" films, right back to '20s Fu Manchu films, I think there would be enough material floating around to build a reasonable "Hollywood hates and fears foreigners" short. Make sure to put Die Hard in there).
I'm wondering how feasible it would be to produce a video game as a response. There must be some drag'n'drop construction toolkits out there for Flash, then you'd just need the images.
posted by Leon at 2:23 AM on September 24, 2007
Youth subculture: band merchandising? (think Green Day logos on everything and bands with their own clothing labels)
Islamic cultures in text: Film mashup? (I know it says "text", but there are so many "foreign bad guy" films, right back to '20s Fu Manchu films, I think there would be enough material floating around to build a reasonable "Hollywood hates and fears foreigners" short. Make sure to put Die Hard in there).
I'm wondering how feasible it would be to produce a video game as a response. There must be some drag'n'drop construction toolkits out there for Flash, then you'd just need the images.
posted by Leon at 2:23 AM on September 24, 2007
Oh, one more: You can get film emulsion in a tin - paint it on an object, then run it through a normal darkroom process to fix the image. For Photography & the body, I'd take a full-frontal naked image of a person and expose it onto a Barbie doll.
Speaking of dolls: a diorama, a 1:12 scale doll dressed up, a ball-jointed doll (they're very anime-influenced), puppetry.
posted by Leon at 2:29 AM on September 24, 2007
Speaking of dolls: a diorama, a 1:12 scale doll dressed up, a ball-jointed doll (they're very anime-influenced), puppetry.
posted by Leon at 2:29 AM on September 24, 2007
Graffiti (chalk, stencils, light, posters - photograph them in situ and submit the photos).
Toynbee tiles - if you can embed one somewhere on-campus...
I'll shut up now, but I wish I was doing your course.
posted by Leon at 2:37 AM on September 24, 2007
Toynbee tiles - if you can embed one somewhere on-campus...
I'll shut up now, but I wish I was doing your course.
posted by Leon at 2:37 AM on September 24, 2007
haiku
animation (think Flash or even using overhead projector transparencies as your cells, or a series of photos that run after each other make an animated GIF)
gardening
light display (um a group effort with torches in the Gardens theatre?)
mime (a la Marcel Marceau)
Flash mobs (SMS everyone you know a place to meet, a time, and an activity to perform - maybe have everyone meet outside the refect and have them stare at the Equity office for ten minutes and then walk away - I don't know what that says, but you're bound to get extra help by people who also have no idea).
Sand castles at Manly or Surfers Paradise?
Get the homeless people who sleep in the park near the uni to turn up to your lecture. I don't know - maybe offer them food, cash or clothing.
Do a solo Spencer Tunick.
posted by b33j at 2:48 AM on September 24, 2007
animation (think Flash or even using overhead projector transparencies as your cells, or a series of photos that run after each other make an animated GIF)
gardening
light display (um a group effort with torches in the Gardens theatre?)
mime (a la Marcel Marceau)
Flash mobs (SMS everyone you know a place to meet, a time, and an activity to perform - maybe have everyone meet outside the refect and have them stare at the Equity office for ten minutes and then walk away - I don't know what that says, but you're bound to get extra help by people who also have no idea).
Sand castles at Manly or Surfers Paradise?
Get the homeless people who sleep in the park near the uni to turn up to your lecture. I don't know - maybe offer them food, cash or clothing.
Do a solo Spencer Tunick.
posted by b33j at 2:48 AM on September 24, 2007
oh, my daughter mutilated a Barbie doll for a year 9 assignment - she painted fake blood all over it, and finally "killed" it with hanging. Perhaps you could mutilate a bunch of toys, or make scary versions of teddy bears. I often worry about Children Services visiting me when she hands in her homework.
posted by b33j at 2:51 AM on September 24, 2007
posted by b33j at 2:51 AM on September 24, 2007
Culture-Jamming, Back Masking, Link Bombing. (Love b33j's "charity as a creative act" theme).
posted by Leon at 2:52 AM on September 24, 2007
posted by Leon at 2:52 AM on September 24, 2007
Actually I think your ma/ma/ma/ma... idea is cute, but that you could go a different direction on the "all sound same" and "Asia not just JP/CN" frustration.
Many of the consonant (and vowel) sounds don't have good approximations in English, such that it can be really hard for English speakers to learn to pronounce them or distinguish them (think about the difference between the aspirated and non-aspirated t and d, for example).
A fun and simple project could be an "A is for apple" type slideshow/video composition with an image and vocabulary word that differ only in some of these difficult sounds (if it were the ma example, ma1 vs ma2 vs ma3 one after the other with corresponding images).
(My only background in this direction is Sanskrit, so I'm out of my language-league, but I think you get the idea.)
posted by whatzit at 2:54 AM on September 24, 2007
Many of the consonant (and vowel) sounds don't have good approximations in English, such that it can be really hard for English speakers to learn to pronounce them or distinguish them (think about the difference between the aspirated and non-aspirated t and d, for example).
A fun and simple project could be an "A is for apple" type slideshow/video composition with an image and vocabulary word that differ only in some of these difficult sounds (if it were the ma example, ma1 vs ma2 vs ma3 one after the other with corresponding images).
(My only background in this direction is Sanskrit, so I'm out of my language-league, but I think you get the idea.)
posted by whatzit at 2:54 AM on September 24, 2007
pft. make that ^Bangla consonant and vowel sounds, in case it wasn't obvious.
posted by whatzit at 3:02 AM on September 24, 2007
posted by whatzit at 3:02 AM on September 24, 2007
Would you each get credit for a collaborative effort? I would be thinking a spontaneous performance art piece, involving multiple members of the class. Possibly all members of the class silmultaneously.
posted by ormondsacker at 8:23 AM on September 24, 2007
posted by ormondsacker at 8:23 AM on September 24, 2007
For youth subculture, maybe a musical collage of ring tones from cellphones?
Or an actual visual collage of artwork from popular videogames (but I would be careful with this, as I am not sure how you would give credit to the appropriate sources).
posted by misha at 10:53 AM on September 24, 2007
Or an actual visual collage of artwork from popular videogames (but I would be careful with this, as I am not sure how you would give credit to the appropriate sources).
posted by misha at 10:53 AM on September 24, 2007
origami
knitting/textile/fibre arts.
scentwork - think essential oil blending or stuff like herbs, spices, foods - can be very visual as well.
puppetry/diorama creation
You've got 5 senses to work with. Use them all.
posted by ysabet at 6:51 PM on September 24, 2007
knitting/textile/fibre arts.
scentwork - think essential oil blending or stuff like herbs, spices, foods - can be very visual as well.
puppetry/diorama creation
You've got 5 senses to work with. Use them all.
posted by ysabet at 6:51 PM on September 24, 2007
Response by poster: FOLLOWUP!
This is what I ended up doing:
* A minibook with people's responses on what they feel art means to them
* Badges with quotes and lines related to stuff in the syllabus (e.g. "I think I am an epistemologist but how would I know?")
* A "magazine" article about activist/political art
* Photos of myself representing Exotic, Erotic, Sad, Comedic, and Hated (or something along those lines - it was from a lecture) and quotations related to each emotion on the back
* A poster with portions of art of every country in Asia (with a hole for Japan) and the caption "Asia: More than just Japan"
* A zine on my reflections on the subject
I got a 5 (C+/B-) on the project, which was pretty good considering that I wasn't getting anywhere with that subject otherwise!
posted by divabat at 12:33 AM on August 20, 2008
This is what I ended up doing:
* A minibook with people's responses on what they feel art means to them
* Badges with quotes and lines related to stuff in the syllabus (e.g. "I think I am an epistemologist but how would I know?")
* A "magazine" article about activist/political art
* Photos of myself representing Exotic, Erotic, Sad, Comedic, and Hated (or something along those lines - it was from a lecture) and quotations related to each emotion on the back
* A poster with portions of art of every country in Asia (with a hole for Japan) and the caption "Asia: More than just Japan"
* A zine on my reflections on the subject
I got a 5 (C+/B-) on the project, which was pretty good considering that I wasn't getting anywhere with that subject otherwise!
posted by divabat at 12:33 AM on August 20, 2008
This thread is closed to new comments.
Issues with cultures and creativity (basically a 101 type lecture)
Indigenous culture
Frameworks for understanding other cultures
Music (and indigeneity, though I don't think the response has to be about indigenous music specifically)
Asian cultures
Body as cultural product
Photography & the body
Youth subculture
Fashion
Politics, creativity, and culture
Islamic cultures in text
posted by divabat at 1:38 AM on September 24, 2007