itap Lecture 07/12/2010

Integrated Theory & Practice - How adding text to an image can change the meaning and context & how adding text to an image can influence people emotions

During this itap lecture we were discussing what influence text can have on people’s perception of an image. We were given 2 principles to talk about, however as I believe they are very closely linked I will talk about both principles together.

When we all see a single image on it’s own, the way in which we perceive it will be determined by our own past experiences and life. Out of its original context it could mean anything and without any text to guide us, our emotions related to the image are controlled by these past experiences and life. The house below for example, it could remind us of anything in the world. It may remind you of your family home as a child, depending on how you were raised, it may fill you with happiness and jollity, or it could remind you of sadness and bad experiences. You may start to imagine another little girl or boy living their and wonder what their upbringing is like. It may remind you of the house you rented at university and prompt you to get back in touch in with your friends, it may fill you with joy and perhaps relief, knowing all those exams and assessments are in the past! The image may even remind of the first house you raided when you first joined the police force. This may conjure up those feelings of nerves mixed with excitement you felt in the pit of your stomach.

Take this image below, what does it mean to you? We could add many different types of text to change the context and meaning of this.  ‘Summer 96’’ would change this picture to mean somewhere someone spent their summer of 1996, filling you with joy and the thought of sunshine. ‘For Sale’ implys that now it’s a piece of land up for sale, perhaps making you inquisitive and imagining what could be. However this image is actually from a collection of photographs of crime scenes. Putting the name of the deceased and a date will change this into a murder scene, different emotions will fill you.

 Once you know what the image is from and you know the context, you can look at the image and know what it is about.  You can use this to your advantage or disadvantage, some images are only powerful once you know what the context is.

Bibliogprahy of photgraphs (top-bottom)

Image 1: Paul O'Donnel presentation

Image 2: http://historicbuildingsct.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/ebenezer-avery-house.jpg  

itap Lecture 23/11/2010

Integrated theory and practice - Ideation Fluency & Managing a Creative Environment

The first idea I am going to talk about is that of Ideation Fluency. This basically refers to the way in which ideas are created. More specifically easily produced ideas that fulfil the requirements asked. To get ideational fluency, we need to work with the right tools and practices. The three main of which are:

Classification:

Organising the ideas. You organise them by recognising both obvious and hidden common denominators, breaching your usual boundaries and generating diverse connections and letting these influence your work.

Brain storming:

This where you have a set subject to base your idea around and gives you an opportunity for spontaneous, impulsive thinking allowing you to create ideas fast and plentiful.

Mind Mapping:

I have to admit, before this lecture I associated brain storming and mind mapping as the same thing, as this later explains, I incorporated links and channels on my brainstorms.  Mind mapping (as I was told) is a way to create ideas the allow you to organise the thought processes as a network, by encouraging association between different thoughts. Below are some examples of mind mapping and I can see how effective it cold possibly be. During any forthcoming projects I will be sure to use this technique as I really do believe it will help.

 

 

A new potential way that I always find useful (if it is applicable/realistic to what the subject is,) is to put yourself in the context, the surroundings of your subject. So you’re doing a project that you want to be influenced by the beach, you’re not going to get the best results just sitting in your work space looking through your holiday snaps. The best way would be to visit a beach and encapsulate yourself, sketch, collect, take pictures, note smells, sounds and conversations that you come across. Take everything you have back to work space and work with it, as soon as you can, whilst everything is fresh in your mind! (If you’ve not thought of anything whilst there!)

The second principle I am going to talk about is Managing a Creative Environment. Yes, a creative needs to have a, well, creative and inspirational mind, however you can be heavily influenced by your immediate surroundings. Your work space. For me, if I’m doing a stint of work, and I did it before typing this up, I have to have a clean desk. If I’ve not got a tidy desk and room I can’t think straight, it’s all cluttered. A tidy desk is a tidy mind! A good workplace can assist the production of creative ideas, their development and their implementation. Some people may like it messy, some tidy, mines normally some form of organised mess if not tidy!

For example take this workspace, my Mother would probably say this is still messy. However you can see that everything has its place and it organised into papers, inks, crayons etc. I think as long as you know where everything is and can find what you need in an instant, that is a workplace which can assist.

 

 Broadening from your immediate environment, make use of resources, their there for you to use! Most of us on this course are living in Birmingham or the surrounding areas. Birmingham is England’s second city, explore! The galleries, museums, cultural events and resources in this city are immense, too many to mention, if you’re having a creative block. Don’t just sit at your computer looking at blogs, go out and see some work for real, look at it from different angles, touch it, hold it (only if you’re allowed!) and get a real feel for the work. This will clear your block and allow those creative juices to flow, in your appropriate workspace of course.

Bibliography of images - (top-bottom)

Image 1: http://www.mindtools.com/media/Diagrams/mindmap.jpg

Image 2: http://live-the-solution.com/wp-content/uploads/globalwarmingrecent.jpg

Image 3: http://arcticboy.arcticboy.com/view2.php?q=Pictures%20Of%20Mind%20Maps&url=http://pkab.files.wordpress.com/2007/12/retriement.jpg

Image 4: http://farm1.static.flickr.com/163/410457969_165885c25f.jpg