SECOND YEAR MEDIA DESIGN

A GAMER’S GUIDE TO GETTING OVER A CREATIVE BLOCK

Will be doing final edits before hand-in

Start from scratch is not that bad. Return to your roots

. Look back to where you came from and how did your adventure all begin.  By starting from the beginning again, you get another chance to do things right.  Find the match the started the fire in the first place. When you feel like quitting, think about why you started.

Take a break, go AFK. Sometimes taking a breather is what you need to clear your mind from the chaos, relax and breath.

Grab a hold of new tools and weapons. If you’re used to a sword, why not have a taste of a bow and arrow. It may be daunting to stray away from your familiar home base, however, new weapons and areas will allow you to tackle new untouched areas.

Take care of your personal health. Don’t let your health reach zero before you’ve realised it too late. The answer won’t come by wearing yourself out.  Push the pause button and refuel yourself on food and sleep. Refresh yourself and learn more. There is no limit for those willing to accept more skill and knowledge in exchange for time

Level up. Push yourself to grow past the level you have already mastered. Challenge yourself, challenge everything. Take every opportunity that comes to you even if success seems out of your reach or the task seems unfamiliar.

After every to the head, get back onto your feet. Don’t be afraid to fail or make mistakes. Mistakes are proof that you are trying. Failure is success in progressThe only real failure in life is the failure to try. It may take 10 tries or even 1000 to defeat the final boss, but as long as you don’t give up, you will eventually succeed.

Take side quests and detours from your normal set mindset. Change your routine and try something different. The path of an adventure isn’t set in stone and neither is the outcome. Add steps, remove steps, adjust steps, replace steps.

Keep your eyes open. Inspiration can happen at any moment and at any time. It can be right in front of you, but if you’re eyes aren’t open you the opportunity might slip away from you.

Jump into the deep end and drown into unfamiliarity. Hunt for that inspiration even if you have to take a path you’ve never taken before. Don’t wait for inspiration to find you, go out and make the inspiration happen.

Believe in yourself. Never underestimate the power of willpower, don’t give in. If you believe in yourself any goal is reachable. Don’t let doubt stand in your way of achieving and crossing the finishing line. Sometimes it’s confidence you need to get you through the last obstacle.

 The main theme I chose revolving my manifesto was the idea of a creative artist/designer block as the difficulties that come with overcoming it. I chose this idea as I found how much it has strongly related to me over the last few years as an designer and artist (most notably while I was just about to start university) and  my own personal journey to overcoming it.

Draft:

Start from scratch is not that bad. By starting from the beginning again, you get another chance to do things right. 

Return to your roots. Find the match the started the fire in the first place. Look back to where you came from and how did it all begin. When you feel like quitting, think about why you started. It may be difficult, but it's easier than starting from scratch again. 

Take a break, leave your desk. Sometimes taking a break is what you need to clear your mind from the chaos, relax and breath. Taking a break doesn’t mean you are weak or useless. Things will fall in place can be the result of doing nothing.

Try other tools and mediums. It may be daunting to stray away from your familiar home base, however, new weapons and areas will allow you to tackle new untouched areas. 

Don’t be afraid to fail or make mistakes. Mistakes are proof that you are trying. Failure is success in progress.Sometimes you win, sometimes you learn. The only real failure in life is the failure to try. A  task only seems impossible until it’s done.

Don’t wait for inspiration to find you, go out and make the inspiration happen. Hunt for that inspiration even if you have to take a path you’ve never taken before. Jump into the deep end and drown into unfamiliarity.

Refresh yourself and learn more. There is no limit for those willing to accept more skill and knowledge in exchange for time. Whether you sign up for classes, search for online tutorials or self study through books, by following the given, you might find an answer.  

Take care of your personal health. The answer won’t come by wearing yourself out. Don’t lose sleep. In fact sleep on it. Dream it. 

Just do it! Do it now. Sometimes ‘later’ becomes ‘never’. Don’t let yourself say “if only I had one more day”.  If you start today, you’ll start seeing results tomorrow. 

Challenge yourself - pick up small challenges, draw every day etc. Set tight parameters to play in, push your boundaries. You’ll never know your limits unless you push them yourself. Push yourself to grow past the level you have already mastered. 

Change your routine and try something different. Take a detour from your normal set mindset. The path isn’t set in stone and neither is the outcome. Add steps, remove steps, adjust steps, replace steps.

Dive into material both old, new and with variety. Watch movies, play games, read a library of books - Inspiration is waiting to be found.

Take a break from the internet and all technology. You don’t always need to restrict yourself fancy or expensive applications to find the inspiration. Take a walk, a breather. 

Bring a sketchbook with you everywhere, keep track of every idea you’ve come up with. Expect the unexpected. Inspiration can hit you and be found when you least expect it. Write each idea down no matter how big, small, or unimportant you believe them to be. Sometimes the even the forgotten ideas count when you need them to.

Never underestimate the power of willpower, don’t give in. Believe in yourself. If you believe in yourself any goal is reachable. Don’t let doubt stand in your way of achieving and crossing the finishing line.

Work on other projects. Who says you need to stick to one project and get it done before moving on to the next. Don’t be a waterfall, be agile. If you get stuck on one project, work on another to clear your mind. Sometimes the answer will come when you least expect it instead of hitting it head on. 

Clean your workspace. A messy area leads to to a messy mind unable to think of the answers needed to pursue the given questions or ideas. Through cleaning your workspace, your mind and body becomes clean.

Daydream. No matter where you are, never stop daydreaming. Daydream with the purpose to create and imagine unique, new and innovative ideas. No matter how crazy those ideas are, they are just one daydream away.  

 References:

Company.Jankowicz, A. D. (1987). Construing Artistic Imagery: An Alternative Approach to Creative Block, Leonardo, 20(1), 39-45. DOI: 10.2307/1578210 Flaherty, A. W. (2004). The Midnight Disease: The Drive to Write, Writer's Block, and the Creative Brain. New York, New York: Houghton Mifflin Prince, S. D. (1985). How to overcome "creative block" at your workstation. Computer Pictures, 3. Retrieved from http://go.galegroup.com.helicon.vuw.ac.nz/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA3757789&v=2.1&u=vuw&it=r&p=ITOF&sw=w&asid=84c49b628712c49a231027efd2a0dd65

Current Plans for other parts of Manifesto:

THESIS STATEMENT

Craft + Technology If implemented correctly and in a way that it can be sustained, Virtual Reality (and/or Augmented Reality) can be beneficial for society in the future. I want to look into how Virtual Reality or Augmented Reality and how it can be beneficial for the industry and society. In MDDN343 (Advanced Game Design) in trimester 1, we had a large discussion on Virtual Reality and how at this point it is not so sustainable to have a definite future. 

My topic is currently still quite broad and I am looking down into shrinking the scale. There are lots of interesting topics surrounding both Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality and I will pick a select number of topics to write in my final essay.  

LITERARY REVIEWS 

Augmented Reality Art (2014)

written by a collection of authors discusses a variety of topics revolving the use of AR from an Emerging Technology to a Novel Creative Medium.

As an emerging technology, the authors discuss topics such as Augmented Reality Activism and how the growth of mobile technology and “growing accessibility” has become a strong tool in terms of Activism. This topic highlights quite interesting topics on how activists have been “pioneering the development of mobile AR” as part of a search for unique mediums that could be used for “further activists agendas”. Skwarek (2014) pushes many question forward involving the dangers of work with new technologies like AR in terms of Activisim and if AR has that ability to “empower the masses” and “create social change”.

The book also presents AR as a “Augmented Reality as a Novel Artistic Medium” and “Cultural, Social, Spatial and Cognitive Facets of Augmented Reality Art” and discusses a variety of topics such as AR Graffiti and Street Art, Painting and Sculpting, Immersive Art etc.

I chose to look at this as one of my sources as I was quite interested in how Augmented Reality could be used in a variety of ways and how it would affect people – both artistically and as a tool for activism.

Source: Geroimenko, V. (Ed.). (2014). Augmented Reality Art: From an Emerging Technology to a Novel Creative Medium. Switzerland:  Springer International Publishing.  Virtual Realities (2008) written by a collection of authors discusses a variety of topics revolving around Virtual Reality. An important topic that they discuss within the book is the idea of the future of Virtual Reality. Specifically on proposals for the future of Virtual Reality, it’s Future Virtual Environment Software Platforms and how Social gaming and learning applications are “A Driving Force for the Future of Virtual and Augmented Reality”

This is incredibly useful for my critical writing as I would like to look into what many people will believe to be the possible future outcome of Virtual/Augmented Realities and how would it be affecting our daily lives if it were to become successful and sustain itself.

Source: Seminar , D. (2008). Virtual Realities. Springer Vienna.

  Virtual Reality & Augmented Reality in Industry (2011) is written by a collection of authors surrounding the topics on how VR and AR are used within a variety of different industries.  This includes topics such as: Virtual Assembly Environment for Product Design Evaluation and Workplace Planning, VR Boosting Automotive Development, From Immersive Engineering to Selling and Teaching, Design and VR/AR-based Testing of Advanced Mechatronic Systems etc.

Many of these topics cover ideas of Virtual Prototyping and Project Innovation within their respective fields and areas.  I found these topics quite interesting in particular as I was interested in seeing how industries and Industry professionals and how their views were on using VR/AR in their specialised area. I plan to use these perspectives as examples within my creative writing as they give a variety of different views about the subject of AR/VR and how they would possibly be a benefit.

CCDN331 - Interim Submission 1

I originally wasn’t quite sure on what to place my focus on for my Critical Selfie to begin with which led me to have a casual stroll around town to find what really caught my eyes and interests.  The things that intrigued me most in my shots were the ones where architecture was framing space - architectural perspective on presence design.

What I really enjoyed within taking these pictures was the extra effort of adventuring to various hard-to-get locations to get these shots (e.g venturing into really thing gaps behind buildings that were a lot easier for smaller and tinier people such as myself).

 Literary review: Mediated Windows: The Use of Framing and Transparency in Designing for Presence written by Charlie Gullström (2010) highlights the “architectural perspective on presence design” and how through a combination of different features, it “draws the viewer into its special extensions”. The article highlights and questions how the “sense of presence” can be obtained from the various parts of architecture and how the combination of the various architectural design techniques creates this space.

Still kinda unfinished but will be done tomorrow.