Is there a difference between practice-based and action research beyond the fact tat educators use the term action research and artists (and others) use the term practice-based. Or are the two otherwise interchangeable? D agreed the educational discipline may be the only difference....have a great looking book on Action Research by Lynne (???) which may shed some light, plus articles by Celia Pearce?
.....yesterday at the brilliant Dana evening with performances of HipDrawing by Danielle and the Reactable by Sergei Jorda, Danielle said "The body always tells the truth".
Is that really true? What if we are acting? I think I'm pretty good at masking how I feel. Perhaps I didn't fully understand what she meant by that....but I find my body doesn't always tell the truth even if I want it to...it can indicate pain when there's nothing wrong...and sometimes I get confused as to whether the butterflies in my stomach are excitement or fear or something I ate!
I remember when i was moving from business to academia I was asked what I thought the difference between the two was...3-4 years ago I saw many differences but as the world changes, I see fewer and fewer and I also feel as if universities are now playing catch up. The technologies I was using 5 years ago in an insurance company are starting to permeate higher ed. Is this a good thing? It means cost and efficiency rather than richness of experience are becoming increasingly important factors...for students as well as those educating them. Probably not so good, but certainly realistic.
Esther de Lilas
CDG Rhubarb Sherbert
Ananas Fizz
Khiel's cucumber essence
The sweet ones: Lea St Barth, Serge Luten's Santal Blanc, Biel pe02, serge Douce Amer,
CB I hate perfume: Russian Tea Caravan
CB I hate perfume: Mr Hulot's Holiday
Monyette Paris...every now and then....esp when pregnant!
great looking
http://rubble.heppell.net/places/
Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.
I love this installation/game by Mary Flannagan.
A giant joystick for whole body, co-operative play, and an alice in wonderland sense of disproportion
Add it to my list of co-opetition games...
This is an illustration by Toronto artist Jody Hewgill, www.jodyhewgill.com
A lovely presentation by Peter Elbow, in which he discusses how difficult it is to dictate sentences. That when we speak, and stop thinking about the language, and speaking in sentences, words come out much more easily (in a similar way to freewriting). He suggests a similar way to think about it is the difference between "uttering" and "composing". Peter argues that in fact freewriting is just the same as speaking onto the page (perhaps that's true - I don't think I am able to do either effectively yet so it's hard to compare). In my blog I am definitely still composing but trying to get a bit closer to uttering without losing clarity. (but maybe losing clarity now and then might be OK). He makes an argument for a greater acceptance of plain speech in academia. Less self-monitored. The power of using speech, the virtues are:
-It's easy (if it IS free, I found it hard to be free!).
-It may lead us to ramble and digress but it's also very helpful when cutting through to the main point.
-Speaking onto the page, we are more likely to think of AUDIENCE. And in fact then clarity.
-We make blunders when speaking but even the blunders may be more coherent than writing when we're constantly monitoring, crossing out and rewriting. In writing, we actually just HIDE the blunders! We might have spoken a thought to a friend or a public audience....use that. Start with a transcript and then use the slower process of writing to add details. So we're less likely to lose sight of our points.
-It produces flexible syntax (bad grammar!). Sometimes we just break off during speech. e.g "but notice how, and this is my main point here, professor X is only intersted in..." OR "Brown felt that his mothers gaelic background (she grew up in ...), gave her a ". This works well. People speak it but do not usually use interruptions in their writing - and they're so effective! Inserting digressions, or reminding readers what you're writing about. You can exploit syntax to create more interesting writing. If we want flexibility we need to do more freewriting/speaking onto the page.
The list goes on and on - I'd like to include them all but maybe when there's more time. Just watch the video!
I have found a very like mind - in terms of interest (couldn't say intellect! If only).
http://www.regardingjohn.com/papers/
John Martin is interested in embodied learning, location-based media, space and place-based games. I'm frantically writing down all the books in his bibliography. Definitely someone to watch. I'm curious to see how much he refers to embodied cognition - I'm trying to work out right now how relevant that is to my own interests. As well as the relationship between kinesthetic learners and embodied learning. I'd have argued that we are all embodied learners. It's suggested we are not all kinesthetic learners. Where's the gap?
a neat idea
Cognitive Science is really an affiliation of disciplines: AI, linguistics, neuroscience, psychology, sometiems anthropology and the philosophy of the mind. It also has many streams.
Scientific imagination mutates radicaly from one epoch to another and the history of science is more like a novelistic saga than a linear progression...a story that can be told in more than one way (?) alongside the history of science (described her as human nature), there is also a parallel history of mind and nature (many precursors in other words to cognitive science).
Technology has made an important contribution (almost by contrast) as it has raised questions such as "Can language be undertood by a machine"?
The authors propose the term ENACTIVISM for the version of cognitive science that questions that cognition is fundamentally representation. It argues that the mind is not a mirror. We pick up and recover aspects of the world by internally representing them, and our perception is subjective. They describe it as a third way because their study is neither "objective" nor "subjective" (but I haven't quite got my head around that yet..at the moment I recognise it can't be 100% objective)
To the authors there is a "Fundamental Circularity" which is core. I think the argument is...."It is only because the brain undergoes interactions in an envionrment that we can lable the ensuing behaviour as cognitive" (is this the same as the falling tree in a wood argument?!!), and "changes in the brain reveal themselves in behavioural and experiential alternations). But any such scientific description must itself be a product of the structure of our own cognitive system (maybe this is linked to the idea that a computer can't build itself..can't make itself?)... Oh God this is really pissing me off! I don't get it. These ideas don't interest me. Perhaps I need to start with something more simple.
what role does smell have in our life?
There is smell for attraction: that might be attraction to a person or attraction to foods,
There's smell for repulsion or alerting: that might be someone who doesn't smell good, the smell of something rotting, of something burning, danger.
Then there's the smell of emotion: I've noticed that when people are highly stressed, when adrenaline is coursing through their body, perhaps they perspire and you can smell something, usually because they're wearing perfume or aftershave. That seems to radiate more. Same in the theatre - there always seems to be an actor or actress or wears perfume and is wafting it all over the audience - I like to think because they're realy in their role. Working hard.
There's smell for emotion : smells can not only reveal how we feel but also affect how we feel. Lavendar for relaxing, citrus to make you feel alert, ylang ylang for sensuality (apparently!).
Smell for orientation - we know if a smell gets stronger that we're moving towards it, the same in order to move away.
Smell for memory and recognition.We recognise people by their smell - my Mum: atrixo handcream! And also places: my Oma's kitchen - green things, apples, clean tea towels, smoke, cows, ozone.
we use incense in churches and tend to associate that smell with those spaces. Chili (my son) sweet waffle mix (really!), hospitals? we all know that smell....
Following on from that I suppose we could say that smell is for marking out territories.
And whilst scent can be used to augment our smell, it might also be seen as veiling or masking our body scent.
How does this translate into a shareable, explorable experience?
What about a game in which everyone smells like food: you'd have to combine smells to create dishes....
Just distinguising smells can be a bit of a challenge in itself. Attraction and repulsion would be a simple mechanic...
What about a game in which you smell, and you also have a smell to find. And several people may smell of the smell you're looking for but only one of those people will also be looking for the smell that you smell of..that could be the first part of a pairing game.
Then once you've found your match they disappear and you have to find them again - but following a scent trail...but of course other people will be using a similiar scent, so you'd get crossed paths sometimes..perhaps you'd need other clues...like a trail of glitter, but limited glitter so you'd have to be sparing and use the smell as well..
I think there could be a game where you have to try and propagate with as many people as you can, and each person has a different smell, and you have to do this without your partner, smelling all the different smells that there are, that they've been collecting, so it might be more sensible for them to be propagating with people of similar smell, and of course, you smell would be getting stronger, if you are propagating with people even if it’s the same smell – because each time you propagate you get spayed. So someone with a really sensitive nose would be able to tell that there have been multiple interactions anyway. there could be game there, it's a bit of sad one though, isn't it though. Of course, it might be good if your partner is sensitive, perhaps, being able to recognise the things that you've been doing is not a bad thing in the game, for example, it might be that one person is going off and doing things. And they aren't allowed to communicate through speech. So the other player has to somehow use the smells, in order to ascertain what their partner has been doing, and that could be a plus. I can see it could be a game where the players might visit locations and in those locations there are smells, and they take a path through the smells, and then the other player has to follow the same path but remembering and tracking the same smells. That would be a bit of a memory game. It’s a game for two players then. Or rather teams of two players who could play whenever and there’d be a score board. And you’d be able to play more than once as well.
These are all what-ifs. How do I convert that into a play piece?
Actually here's a simple game: Each player has their own smell and a swab of another smell they must search for. Once they've found the smell they're searching for, OR someone finds THEM, then they become connected. Once they're connected then they can't let go of that person, but they still need to find their other match, possibly having to walk around connected. The string of people should get longer and longer and eventually all the players should be able to connect in a ring and sit down (on each others' knees). At the point the game is complete. The group that can complete the puzzle in the shortest time are the winners. OR the group who can make the longest ring (by encouraging random passers by to take part and be squirted) are the winners?
having slept on the first two chapters, I decided to revert to Wikipedia thinking that perhaps a simplified explanation of the overall text might clarify things. The particular strand of embodied cognition that is explored by the authors is actually called Enactivism, however I haven't quite established how that differs from other strands of Embodied Cognition, however what I have established, thanks to Wikipedia is that the authors believe there is no "core self", but rather a set of inter dependent, context dependent associations that collectively provide a point of view. My idea of two mirrors facing one another was probably more correct than I appreciated yesterday.
what I do like like is their idea that the world is neither purely metaphorical, nor purely representational, it is probably a to and fro between the two: that our experience of the world is some kind of middle ground between the concrete offered by science and the entirely subjective experience that we receive from our bodies; our consciousness somehow manages, through reflection to combine the two into what becomes each individual's experience of the world. .
Is there a game here? Funnily enough I've been thinking about circularity in games - about games where people play two roles and are responsible for one another - where winning might mean helping someone else to win, where you can only ever win by helping or with the help of someone else, but where you have the opportunity to be in both shoes at the same time. But could I use it to explore human experience more - where two different people's perceptions can be combined to make a new reality? On a simple level it might be a game where you act based on the life rules given to you by someone else. Hmm, this doesn't really make sense but that's OK for the moment. It also sounds a bit dry for a game, academic and overly sophisticated...but I've noticed that once you stick it in the real world, and provide a few silly props, and as long as you keep the rules simple enough that players feel they have some kind of grasp, then play comes naturally, regardless!
ps something that really interests me, not directly related to the book but quoted from Wikipedia's Embodied Cognition page "The degree of thought abstraction has been found to be associated with physical distance which then affects associated ideas and perception of risk." (Rohrer?)
This is my first attempt at a review of The Embodied Mind..I'm writing this not so much because there are a number of points I want to capture and more because I have found it incredibly dense and hard to get my head around but I'm hoping that by tracking my increasing understanding I will be able to motivate myself to make it to the end! I wonder whether books like these are hard for me to read because the language used really is difficult or whether it is so outside my common experience that common words start to lose their meaning.
Anyway here is my first get the first chapter: a fundamental circularity: in the mind of the reflective scientist.
it seems that the important point to grasp here that is that Cognitive Science is essentally circular.....are they saying it is very hard to look at one's own behaviour and understand it without it being blurred, or perhaps dependent on the activity of looking at oneself? That is simplifying it ridiculously and I think probably also incorreclty but I have to start somewhere. actually I think it's more about the fact that the structure of the brain produces behaviour and experiences but at the same time our behaviour and experiences affect the structure of our brain. and then the issue is that any scientific description of our brain structure and behaviour and experiences are products of the structure of our brain (or what they call a cognitive system), and then after that we can say that the reflection on the diagram is also part of this system and then the diagram can go on and on ad infinitum in every increasing circles, like a mirror facing another mirror. (they don't use this description or draw this but I think this is a much better image, perhaps that's why I find it so hard to read...because the writers don't use much visual info...diagrams OK yes but very dry ones with arrows and for me these just don't get the message across).
now I'm not saying that what I've written above is any good but what I do feel is that I'm less self-conscious about talking to my blog now and it means that the ideas are coming out a bit more easily, I'm losing the self-consciousness that varela would say is that circularity. whilst I feel I've been very little so far from the embodied mind, I feel I've gained quite a bit more just by talking about it.goodnight
I think what this brings home to me more than anything is that adults need playspaces too.
James Bond themed sandpit #11 at the BFI.....
Much fewer people for the whole event but it meant we got to try the game with fewer players which was valuable. Fewer players and you can reduce the space in which the game is played dramatically. We encouraged really spreading out but with 12 players instead of 40 it meant players were too far and few between.
I think in general less time for each round is better - perhaps 15-20 minutes max, even though players could collect extra stickers if they could find me.
Based on feedback from the last session, I increased the visibility of the body language (e.g. every 5 steps, peer through binoculars). I think maybe this made the whole thing TOO obvious...or maybe whatever happens players aren't really wanting to just sit down for a bit and observe - they really just LOVE running around even though the rules say only walk. There is a real thrill in the chase for all the players - unexpected aspect of the game. Some players who are really good at sticking to the rules get quite frustrated in fact when other players get excited and end up running and trying to avoid being stickered.
Great to watch players develop strategies - a couple of players who recognised themselves as being on the same team worked together to avoid being stickered by standing back to back and even walking along that way! A player also stuck 5 stickers on her fingers in order to improve her ability to attach multiple stickers to someone's back in as short a time as possible.
I still need to work on the game instructions. It takes a while for them to sink in. There must be a clearer way. And I should remember not to announce the scores as I work them out but instead announce them all in one go at the end to increase the suspense.
I was also very happy because a maths teacher who played the game told me she was planning on the playing the game at her school. I wish so much now that I had asked her more about how and why.
Another guy who played the game had also designed a sticker Valentine's game. I hope he doesn't mind my describing it here - it was a game for a party where having spoken to other party goers you stuck a coloured sticker (which represented the colour of the chakra you believed that person to have) oin a little badge on their front (with a flap so the sticker was hidden from few from that person until the end). At the end all the stickers are revealed - and you get to see what colour chakra different people though you had, although the twist at the end is that in fact the stickers you use actually represent your own chakra colour rather than that of the person that you sticker. nice.
Now I am ready to design a new game. Ideas are starting to waft....I found the night before the game I had some kind of food poisoning and felt very sorry for myself. But cutting, and stuffing envelopes with stickers for the game made me happy - I think it was just the idea that I would be running a game that would make people laugh and want to play. It feels nice to know you're going to be able to make other people happy. Very direct, pleasurable feedback.
There's this TV programme that Chili really loves called In The Night Garden which takes place in a real garden, with lots of real trees, and odd colourful flowers and actors dressed up as odd little, slightly child-like people. I've been watching it too a lot as a result. There's a bit at the end when everyone goes to bed and the narrator reads a bed-time story which is a summary of what has happened throughout the day (that episode), illustrated by a very simple 2D cartoon. It made me realise how very very important stories are for helping us make sense of our lives. Sounds so cliche when I say it but I really had not realised how important this activity is. If something happens, if I make a story from it, I come to understand it. And probably also to remember it. I seem to forget so much - especially when it comes to work and study - and in particular the papers I read, even my reflections on the papers. I just read large number of summaries that i wrote only about 18 months ago - so useful and I had TOTALLY forgotten them...and I think it's because I hadn't woven them into a story, or into my bigger life story. Does that make sense?
I'm finding it's surprisingly difficult to write with my voice. I wonder whether rather than improving my writing skills what it may actually be doing is improving my verbal skills, as I'm becoming very aware of how inefficient I am when I am describing things in particular the book summaries that I'm doing. I find myself retyping several parts of them fairly often. Perhaps this practice will have a benefit beyond my writing. What I'm finding is that when I speak I don't have a good sense of the whole thing that I'm about to say, I'm just talking off the top of my head....with no vision of what's to come, perhaps it's because I'm feeling self-conscious, partly concentrating on speaking clearl, partly concentrating on the microphone in front of me. I'm trying to say deep strong sentences rather than focusing on the whole of the thing I want to say. I am finding that my writing is probably more thoughtful when I type than when I speak it at the moment. I'm formulating ideas in my head before I say them when I type. When I speak to myself perhaps I'm doing this too but it's a problem of mine that when I public speak my mind goes blank and at the moment it's doing the same when I speak/type. II suppose this may change in time and I really hope it does because it's very very quick to type using my voice!
this is a short summary of the chapter "Intimate Experiences of Place", pages 136-148 from Yu Fu-Tuan's Book "On Space and Place", the perspective of experience. It's a summary that I I have written using voice.
essentially what the author says in this chapter is that intimate places and in particular places that we consider to be a home depend on people rather than objects or design. So an intimate place for a child is anywhere that is close to the parent. Places that seem intimate when we experience them with friends can suddenly seem like awful places when that friend is no longer around to share it. we can attempt to create intimate spaces by doing things like planting trees, and this can encourage intimacy but human beings often appropriate spaces and create intimacy for themselves regardless of what the planner or a designer hopes for a place/space. The author also describes how an intimate place is not something that you can objectify or necessarily describe....as soon as you point out something that is intimate, it just becomes an object. Intimacy is something that must be glanced at through the corner of your eye. In other words intimate spaces are elusive. As such he suggests that words cannot always capture what it is that makes a place intimate but that art, whether poetry, writing, painting or music can be far more successful at capturing the beauty of intimate space. "Art makes images of feelings so that feeling is accessible to contemplation and thought....By the light of their art we are privilieged to savor experience that would otherwise have faded beyond recall.He is a seeming paradox: thought creates distance and destroys the iimediacy of direct experience, yet it is by throughtful reflection that the elusive momements of the past draw near to us in preset reality and gain a measure of performance".
I have to say that this book is so beautifully written that I could probably quote any sentence and they would all seem deeply insightful.
the most important thing I took from the paper was the importance of using learning spaces to create enchantment. Described as the experience of being both caught up and carried away. When enchated by what we are experiencing we are held spellbound, our senses seem heightened and we are caught in a moment of pure presence that we try to maintain. It also discusses how new technologies are distracting our students and ways to get around that as well as looking at how Virtual learning environments are expanding learning spaces, however it is the four cognitive determinants of environmental preference which are most useful to me and in particular the last: coherence (the ease with which this setting can be organised cognitively), complexity (or the perceived capacity of the setting to occupy interest and stimulate activity), legibility (or perceived ease of use), mystery (or the perception that entering the setting would lead to increased learning interaction or interest) and finally enchantment.
This is a very short article that looks at the way a single scent called pirazine affects chicks. It finds that whilst birds can learn to associate colour with an unpleasant taste, scent is a far more quickly learnt association.
It's handy in the car when you're talking on the phone but I've just discovered talking to write is also handy when you're reading (for example an academic paper) and you need to create a quick summary. Rather than have to spread your attention between the document you're reading and the one you're writing, you can use both hands to flick through the original paper, and simply speak your summary. Very VERY efficient, and I imagine a summary that is produced whilst physically handling a paper is probably going to be better.
I've started experimenting with Dragon. As a working mother planning on studying I need tools that allow me to collect my thoughts on the move. But also, I'd like to explore new ways to capture my thoughts. It may be that typing is my best mode of thinking, but I like talking...and discussing - maybe my ideas will come out better if I use my voice more often. So I've started. Here's what I've found out so far:
1. I still feel slightly self-conscious when I speak my ideas out loud. Let's see if I can get over that
2. I seem to get a lot of content and ideas out very quickly - I wrote about half a word doc page in a couple of minutes. That felt good!
3. I had some blocks to my ideas - some fears and frustrations. Once I'd voiced them through speech (I'd avoided writing them, that felt too 'serious', it felt as if I was making them too important, or maybe it felt like someone would read them, I don't know but anyway I said them out loud to myself and it felt like they were less worrisome. And in some ways once they were out I saw they weren't that important and I could move on. I think that was really helpful.
Next time I blog on the subject it'll be using Dragon - then we can compare the quality! the range of ideas! The freedom of the ideas!
We visited the Chihuly exhibiton at the phoenix botanical gardens whilst in Phoenix. Having become slightly disillusioned and bored by a lot of the exhibitions I've visited recently I was suddenly incredibly excited by the experience. I'm trying to work out what made it so wonderful. It was something about being outside in the sun of course! surrounded by the exotic dessert landscape. But also the amazing contrast between the soft, bristly, dry, dusty organic cacti and the hard, bright, colourful, liquid-like rather agressive forms of Chihuly's sculptures that really got my heart beating and feeling utterly inspired and back in love with life! It was very playful, it was part of the landscape it didn't demand my full attention at every moment, it could be chanced upon, it could be seen from many many angles from different parts of the garden, it encouraged me to set up my own compositions in a way, it me feel very creative but without any creative struggle. And although it sounds very romantic I felt surrounded by beauty, which was invigorating.there's also something else, it made me feel human and happy to be human in a way that very often I don't perhaps because I look at a lot of the things we do at the moment and feel bad about them, but this exhibition seemed to make a nature more wonderful, made the cacti more wonderful, enhanced the world, and was in harmony with it. It made me feel hopeful. I think that the fact that I was with family, that I felt this was something lovely Chili could take part in made it more enjoyable: I sometimes find that at art exhibitions with art on the wall is an isolated experience whereas in this garden outside it felt like I could appreciate everything that we were viewing as a group, so it brought together lots of elements that I love all in one place in a single go: sun, nature, family, feeling of being part of a public body all enjoying the same thing, colour, beauty, physical activity and GLASS - transparent, liquid, glowing glass.
Is there anything I can take away from this experience that can contribute to my own work?
A reminder that the best experiences are the ones where the audience can bring something of themselves to the work.
That for me art is a very social thing. If it's not I just don't enjoy it as much.
That art should not force itself, that it should be discovered.
That i would like the natural environment to play more of a role in my work.
And a question for myself: would the digital have enhanced this experience in any way (except of course enabling me to take about 1000 pictures with my camera)? and would a game have been helpful? When it comes to the game, the answer has to be no. Regarding the digital...hmm, well I'm left wanting more of the Chihuly. I sit looking at my photos, I'd like to know more about this guy and others with similar works. I want to go and see more, NOW! Digital on the day - maybe not but some way to extend the experience now - yes, that would make a big difference - and to continue to be involved in some way - more involved. I've been a spectator and now I want to make glass, or interact with the exhibits in some other way maybe?
there are some good pictures available here:
http://www.chihuly.com/installations/DesertBotanicalGarden/DesertBotanicalGarden011.html
A measured an insightful article into the value of gps ranger devices for locative tours in America's national parks.
http://www.nationalparkstraveler.com/2008/08/another-look-those-gps-rangers-national-parks
A very accessible Futurelab report which introduces the potential and importance of outdoor spaces for children's learning.
http://www.futurelab.org.uk/resources/documents/handbooks/outdoor_learning_spaces2.pdf
And a wonderful sounding (free!) book on learning spaces - indoor and outdoor
http://www.educause.edu/LearningSpaces/10569
Additional photos:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ron777/sets/72157615084115082/
Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_HlUED4780
I think for the most part the game was a success. I had a briliant time but then I had drunk a glass or two or wine....My organisation of the players left a lot to be desired (we had a full house of at least 40), but would have been much worse if Kevan hadn't saved the day and if Alex, Ron and Katerina didn't do such a good job of Chili duty.
The post-game summary gives a better idea of how it went....and I'll be adding a couple of my own thoughts and some of the feedback from players. I have yet to send prizes!
Hoping to run it at the BFI in May, with the changes.
