"You keep telling yourself what you know, but what do you believe? What do you feel?"

As anyone who, like me, just watched Inception (again), you'll recognize the quote. Also, I'm going to get this out of the way: BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAM. That line resonated with me, especially in regards to this assignment. As I mentioned in the class response, I associated "seeing" more with understanding or feeling and "looking" more with just the concrete knowing.

For this assignment, I "cheated" and used the response I gave for what I saw and used it. I probably would have been able to get away with not mentioning that it was mine, but omission would imply guilt. I really wanted to see what I could do to expand this concept and figured it would be better to create something that I'm proud of, even if it "breaks" a rule whose value is questionable, than to create something of lesser quality just for the sake of following it.

I saw me looking at myself in the mirror. Creating the perspective of being able to see me look at myself was simple; the challenge came in what I would see in the mirror. The idea of looking at yourself in the mirror has many meanings. Typically it's used as a way of telling someone to look at themselves and their actions. Throughout my short time on this planet, I've noticed myself become increasingly apathetic, or even negative, towards my actions. This seemed an interesting concept to bring to life, given the framework of what I saw.

Class Response - That totally looked like a butt

So last class was a discussion on rules as well as a discussion on perception. I'll save my thoughts on rules for later, though and just talk about looking versus seeing.

To put it simply, looking is knowing, while seeing is understanding. It's the equivalent of hearing and listening. If you hear something, your brain is perceiving sound waves; if you listen to something, your brain is perceiving a deeper meaning (however shallow it may be) to the sound waves it heard. Evidence of the link between seeing and understanding shows up in our grammar, too. "I see," is synonymous with "I understand," or "I got it." However, in a world where one of the primary means of communication (the inter-tubes) all but requires a WYSIWYG attitude to it (due to the inability to assume others are intending for deeper meaning), the ability to "see" things has become something that takes practice.


In regards to rules, and the question posed on Oncourse about when one has stopped me, I'm conflicted. Perhaps I'm just a boring person, but I can't recall a single situation where I was prevented from doing something I wished to due to a rule. I'm typically the person who, without thinking, follows the rules as in most cases I understand the purpose of the rule and don't disagree with it. Well, it's that or it's because I'm terrified of conflict and it's much easier to avoid conflict when you tend to go with the rules. I'm not entirely sure.

This is my egg. There are many like it, but this one is mine. 1-23-2011

Driving home from campus on the 10th, I started brainstorming. I wanted to think of something that wouldn't be an obvious "something:" to do with an egg, I came up with an idea to make a "photo hunt" game where I put the egg in a pile of stuff in my room and people have to find where, in the picture, the egg is.

I made a couple other shots, but the egg isn't as well hidden in the other pictures. However, I felt that this concept was too simple, so I wanted to do something else, so I made a CSI-Miami-pun comic to go along with the game, starring my egg.

Boom.

1/11/11 Class Response - The First Rule of Seeing Sideways is You Won't Be Able to Describe Seeing Sideways

Yesterday, I had an epiphany: I could not have possibly picked a better class to complement the rest of my schedule.  The other 4 classes in my schedule are all typical, very structured, courses: programming, history (even though it's video game history), and political science. Then, to contrast them all, there's Seeing Sideways, a class whose only rules exist for how to go on break in the middle of class.

I'm really excited about the class's unstated (or indirectly stated) purpose: undo the behavior training we have received throughout our lives that stifles creativity and makes everyone everyone less willing to speak their minds. Only time will tell how well the class succeeds in its purpose, but I'm looking forward to it.

I hope that we come back to yesterday's conversation topics later in the semester to see if anyone's thoughts on art, music, and design change or become more refined as we progress.

Expectations for the Semester - 1/11/11

I expect this class to show me new ways to look a the world around me and everything in it. In the event that this somehow doesn't happen, I expect to refine the way I currently look at the world around me.  I want to be better at being creative.

That sounds silly, but I'm aware that my strength is in the more concrete aspects of media creation: coding, editing, etc. I want to get better at brainstorming, at being able to think of things that are more than just a modified version of something that already exists. I don't expect the class to change the way my mind works overnight (though how awesome would that be?), but I expect it to help me along the path.

I'm really not sure what else to say.  I guess I expect the class to be fun, but that seems a far too arbitrary thing to expect of anything.