There is a lot of pressure in this world to be happy. But what is it about human nature that evolves around past learning?

It is indeed a biological approach to psychology that takes us individuals through an educational psychology to deeply understand how people change and grow through the entire lifespan (very well, 2017). My argument is valid in the statement given because according to the research, having an approximate dynamic in the learning that was provided at a young age becomes more powerful as the human brain develops and has a strong focus if the act of documentation is executed. By this, I mean ‘personal learning’ which grows into a form of argumentation within us individuals. This act is performed at a regular basis and is very unclear to some in the process of their performance because it is a natural move. The more the skill is improved in this area, the better we will be at critically thinking, reasoning, making choices and weighing evidence (The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2017).

Therefore, I strongly believe it is important for us students to mentally encourage ourselves towards making everything accountable for what we learn. I believe this helps understand and defend our position the way we look at the work in general. 

Culinary Interpretation... Scrambled Eggs

I can’t believe I am posting about scrambled eggs on Tumblr but here I am. Sticking with the theme of interpretation I wanted to show what I meant by interpretation shown through cooking as I expressed in my break down of    The Great New Zealand Cook Book. While I don’t believe scrambled eggs is actually in the book, I thought I best stick within my comfort zone to show what I mean.

 Before you are two dishes both variations of scrambled eggs. Your more traditional version being scrambled eggs on toast made by my girlfriend and then my Mexican take on scrambled eggs. As you can see the outcome is vastly different yet the main component (the eggs) remains the same.

 This is where the whole thing links back to religion and the Bible. The scripture never changing yet what is taken from it by different people can be vastly different in outcome. While these two variations of scrambled eggs are far from the heavy messages in the bible the same principle of interpretation applies. Both of us having our own likes and dislikes when it comes to food, we were both able to create something that we individually would like to eat. This is what I found reading through the cook book, many of the dishes were variations of simple traditional dishes but with an own individual twist to them.

 As I have said before I am guilty of being a MasterChef fan, in particular MasterChef Australia [2] (don’t ask me why) … You can almost take any episode and you can see this concept of interpretation come to life. Each chef using their own individual flare to bring their own interpretation to what they have been asked to create. And you often see when it comes down to judging, it is the dishes that bring the most wacky and weird interpretations of what has been asked to the table that have the greatest impact.

 It becomes more about the individuality of the dish and the story behind it that sells the dish. A profound theme within marketing. As the quote says “Both religion and marketing sell stories”.[3] While a large part is about the food the taste the techniques used in creating a dish, it is also the story behind the interpretation that makes it what it is.

references:

[1] Thom, M. Harper, T. (2014) The Great New Zealand Cookbook: The Food We Love from 80 of Our Finest Cooks, Chefs and Bakers. PQ Blackwell Limited.

[2]Didnt know what one to reference but here is a link to MasterChef Australia season 9 episodes: https://www.tvnz.co.nz/shows/masterchef-australia

so far...

I feel in our group review we managed to cover general thoughts as well as reflect on the integrative practice paper in great depth. However, I would like to also take some time to answer some questions inspired by one of last year’s students Jolie lam, who I thought brought everything together in a really nice general reflection of the year. It is hard for me to compare semesters considering we are still quite a long way off finishing this semester but I will try my best.

 WHAT DID YOU LEARN BETWEEN FEBRUARY AND NOVEMBER?

 1) This course is not all about technical skills. It is more about learning a way of thinking and problem solving, a mindset really. Coming into the course I had no real clue as to what I was getting myself into. Starting off the year I thought everything would be more based around learning about new media. While this is of course part of it, the real learning is the way of thinking behind how you can use various medias in the ways that you want.

 2) How to really self-learn. It was hard to get out of the high school way of learning, being shown how to do something then trying to replicate it. While I did self-learn in some areas throughout high school. The teaching style has really made me realize how much I can do when I put my mind to it, and that there are no limitations of we don’t know much about something.

 3) Take risks! Taking a risk will always be better than playing it safe. A beautiful failure is better than a safe solution.

 4) Fail hard and fail fast. I think in the first semester I didn’t really appreciate or possibly fully understand the process of iteration. Now with the more recent projects we have been working on I have come to understand how useful simply prototyping ideas quickly as well as simply can benefit a project.

 5)Reflection, looking back is a key part of taking a step forward.

 WHAT WILL YOU DO/APPLY/EXTEND IN BCT YEAR 2?

 1) I feel over the year I have developed a strong reflective practice. It now has become a normal part of my daily routine. For me blogging each day makes life easier as well as makes my reflections more true to what was thinking at that point in time. Taking this forward I fell will be really important and valuable in the coming years.

2) Finding a balance between thinking conceptually and being hands on is key. Its all good and well to talk about concepts, but if you don’t prototype test them out those thoughts are meaningless.

3) I would like to take more risks, While I fell I have taken several risks with projects this year there is always room to extend myself out of my comfort zone.

4) Be more open to feedback and criticism.

WHAT WILL YOU NOT DO IN BCT YEAR 2?

1) Bite of more than I can chew. Its hard to balance uni work with actual paid work. While I have done this a few times this year and it has been beneficial in that I makes me realise what I can do in the time I have for the sake of my sanity let’s just avoid it.

2) Put off prototyping. I feel sometimes I like to think through an idea to much in that in my head I iterate on idea but have nothing to show for it. I want to be more hands on with testing.

 HOW COULD YOU HAVE DONE BETTER THIS YEAR?

 I think this is a question that is near impossible to answer. There will always be room for me to improve on everything I have done this year. I think the way to go about answering this is building off any though about anything where I wished I had done something more than I did. Using those thoughts and applying them to what I do next. Telling myself that I should not stop here or I should do this because last time I regretted or missed out on doing so.

reference:

Integrative Practice group review (Podcast)

 The six of us decided it would be a good idea to get together to do a bit of a review on the Integrative Practice paper. This first podcast contains our thoughts and opinions around the first two assignments as well as the things we have learn along the way as well as in reflection. The intention of this exercise was for us to see what other people have taken away from this paper, as well as try give some constructive feedback and raise awareness of what it was like from a student’s perspective. We have split this podcast into two sections the reason being that the second is more of a general over view of the paper as well as the last assignment and the first as I have said a reflection on the first two assignments.

As discussed in the previous post, we split the ideas behind chronoception (time perception) into three different categories; External factors, Internal factors, and the specious present. By external factors we mean things that are picked up on by our other senses that we associated with the passing of time (i.e shadows, ticking sounds). And the specious present is what is classified as “the now” or what we experience as a moment. Both of these ideas I will come to in future posts, however for now I would like to focus on Internal factors. By this I mean internal processes of our body which affect how we perceive time passing. 

The easiest way to explain how internal processes can affect one’s own perception of time is with the example of the slow motion effect. The slow motion effect is usually experienced by people in life threatening situations. If you have ever talked to someone who has been in a car accident they will tend to describe it as having happened in slow motion or that it took a really long time, even though the whole impact takes less than a second. Research done by David Eagleman on this idea indicates that time passes at the same rate for these people (obviously), however it appears to pass slower as in a life threatening situation your brain is taking in a lot more information of its surroundings and working harder and faster to store all that information into your memories. So the result is having a lot more information densely packed into the same “space” that a normal memory that took place over the same interval would take. So when it is played back in your head it appears to have taken longer as there is more information for a short time period [1]. A good analogy for this would be if you filmed something at 60fps (frames per second) and the same thing at 30fps. Then when you played them back at 30fps the first one you shot (60fps) would playback in slow motion (half the speed) as you are only being fed 30 of the 60 frames every second. In this case the information your brain takes in during the ordeal can be attributed to each frame being filmed. This is also strongly related to the idea of the specious present and I will touch on that in a future post.

So what causes your brain to work overtime and take in all this information? The answer is by releasing adrenaline to the body. Adrenaline (also known as epinephrine) improves cognitive function [2], which means it increases the “power” of the brain and lets it work harder to take in all the information during the life threatening experience. There have also been various studies that have shown that adrenaline also affects Heart Rate Variability (HRV) [3]. Essentially, by increasing your adrenaline levels your cognitive function increases as well as your hear rate [4], and with the release of norepinephrine (non adrenaline, the opposite basically) the reverse happens. From this we can make the basic conclusion that there is a correlation between HRV and chronoception. An example being an increased heart rate results in a feeling of time passing slower. I guess this can be shown by exercise, half an hour on youtube appears to go a lot faster than a half hour run (that I can say from personal experience). 

With this link established we can look into different experiences that use heart rate as a measure of the apparent rate of time passing and generate some basic prototypes of things that could relate to this in the coming week.

[1]: Stetson, C., Fiesta, M. P., & Eagleman, D. M. (2007). Does time really slow down during a frightening event?. PloS one, 2(12), e1295. Chicago [2]: James, J. (2012). Animal Instincts of the Human Body: A Psychological and Skeletal Muscular Analysis of Adrenaline on the Human Body. PIT Journal, [online] (Cycle 3). Available at: http://pitjournal.unc.edu/article/animal-instincts-human-body-psychological-and-skeletal-muscular-analysis-adrenaline-human. [3]: Malik, M. (1996). Heart rate variability. Annals of Noninvasive Electrocardiology, 1(2), 151-181. [4]: Thayer, J. F., Hansen, A. L., Saus-Rose, E., & Johnsen, B. H. (2009). Heart rate variability, prefrontal neural function, and cognitive performance: the neurovisceral integration perspective on self-regulation, adaptation, and health. Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 37(2), 141-153.

Final Presentation - The Feeling of Skateboarding

Today signifies the end of the object interrogation project. I am more than pleased with how the presentation has turned out. I feel I have successfully captured the essence of skateboarding through my presentation. Using the features of the board to help tell the story of the feeling of skateboarding. 

the presentation is clean concise and to the point. having the board as part of the exhibit not only incorporates itself as an object but as an extension of me as  its owner. this board is a representation of who I am as a person. 

This interrogation process has lead me on a path that has spurred reflection on who I am as a person and where I fit in, in society. Along the way I have learnt many things about the skateboard  as well as a new media to me which is film. However, none of what I’ve learnt has been as valuable as what I have found in my own journey of self discovery. 

Now you have tested Cultural Probes, suggest another scenario where they could be used (be specific, who and where)

I think Cultural Probes would be a great method for young children and elderly, who have a hard time communicating what they feel/need etc. For example elderly in rest homes who have a hard time understanding what is happening around them

What might be some failings of this method, how might the probes fail to work?