My experience in this class has changed - we moved to a different room! We are now in Room 308 and the atmosphere is much better. There is more open space and there is better ventilation. We discussed a variety of things this day and Jimmy conducted 3 exercises with us.
One of the first things we discussed was concept development as a process – the journey from the beginning of a project or problem to the end. How does one develop a concept into a process? Well, it starts with an initial thought. We are in different situations everyday and problems come about quite often. When a problematic situation arises, one must determine whether or not he/she wants to resolve the problem. Choice is the ultimate factor in establishing a process and in doing so, it becomes a part of one’s methodology. A methodology is how one does something consistently; it is how a problem is approached on a consistent basis and the process by which it is resolved. It could be something as simple as tying one’s shoe laces to how one does their grocery shopping. The process by which someone goes grocery shopping could include the making of a grocery list to where one begins shopping in the store, whether it is one side of the store to the other or if one starts with the bread and ends with the milk.
We then went on to define other terms such as web server, IP address, CMS (Content Management System), template, and child template.
Our first exercise of the day was to create a new seating arrangement. Our instructions were to arrange ourselves in alphabetical order from A-Z by our first names and Jimmy made a hand gesture showing us to arrange ourselves in a zig zag pattern between the three rows of seats. Those of us with “A” as the first letter in our name would start at the front right corner of the class and we would end with “Z” in the back left hand corner. It didn’t seem too difficult, but it took a while for us to figure it out. Regrettably, some of us arranged ourselves right away and left the rest of our classmates to fend for themselves. Being honest, I was a part of that group. I found myself being stuck in the “dog eat dog,” “to each his own” mentality where my competitive spirit overcame the best of me. The first row and I found our places and just left everyone else on their own. I guess the confusion came from what direction the alphabet should go between a zig zag pattern and an “S” pattern. We were finally able to sit down and we were successful in arranging ourselves in alphabetical order, but we failed miserably in teamwork.
Our next exercise was a “what if…” exercise. There were a number of “what if…” scenarios presented that were more personal instead of being more generalized. I gave the example of “what if feelings didn’t exist” because in my opinion, feelings are the foundation of Art. Art is an expression of feelings that people are either experiencing at that moment or a representation of feelings they had in the past. We are very capable of experiencing emotions within ourselves but feelings are what we display to the rest of the world. If people don’t express their feelings, I don’t think we would have art.
In the last exercise Jimmy had us look at a series of photos. The exercise was to help us separate what we actually saw in the photos versus what we though was going on in the photo. We are already programmed to make inferences and automatically try to figure out what’s going on in photographs. We overlook the fact that a photograph is basically a composition of certain placements of figures, specific uses of lighting, facial expressions, body language, and props to create a situation or imply something that’s makes people come to specific conclusions of what’s going on. Photographs are also very powerful in conveying messages like the photo of Obama. Obama’s face was painted like the Joker in the movie, The Dark Knight. The photo conveys certain characteristics of Obama that may or may not be true and induces specific emotions from people.
The exercises we’ve done in class have all been enlightening in that it seems like they’re meant to bring us back to the basics. Our next assignment is due on Monday and I’m pretty excited to see what the next class is going to be about.
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