Creative Project (Prototype) #2

Essay Submitted!

I just finished formatting my final paper (who knew Chicago style was so similar to MLA?) and sent it in to Digital America, so now it's just a waiting game. As a teaser for my presentation on Saturday, I just wanted to post a couple of pictures for you to look at. And by a picture, I mean two pictures, one of which is real, and the other of which is a painting. One of the ideas I'll be talking about on Saturday is the almost indistinguishable line between reality and non-reality in the digital world. Anyway, that's all for now. Oh, and the answer after the jump break, just in case you were wondering.

Resolution: The World Makes Sense Again

This semester has been a really interesting one in terms of the progression of my research topic and my feelings toward it. I can honestly say that I've never had a semester that was so frustrating , but I've been able to push through and have come to a synthesis moment, to borrow the term from Hegel.

CC 2.0 Generic, Wikimedia Commons

I think one of my problems going into the paper for this class was that I came with so many topics that I wanted to address. Awe was and still is, in my mind, an interdisciplinary notion, and I think that biology, literary criticism, philosophy, psychology, and critical art theory all have important things to say about it. As I studied it more, though, I began to realize that I wasn't the only one having problems figuring out awe. The texts contradicted themselves, everyone used different words for the same things, and the works that seemed to be the most accurate in trying to define awe seemed to be the most abstract and vague and well. You might say that for about three months, I was pretty frustrated and had no idea what I was doing.

Final Draft: Awe Evolving

Well, after a long journey involving changing my entire premise no fewer than three times, my final paper is at last done. I'm not entirely sure that I understand awe a whole lot better than I did when I began, but I feel a lot more a peace with the place of awe in the digital world, and that's really valuable to me. I'll be posting the story of my paper tomorrow, so stay tuned, but until then, here's the final draft.

Awe Evolving: Transforming Notions of Awe in the Digital Age

Venue Researching for Evolution of Awe

Venue Research and Reading Report
In preparation for submitting to Digital America, I read the following two articles:

Murakami, Kenta. "The Demise of net.art: A Look at Artifacts Past." Digital America. 21 Oct 2013. Web. Accessed 8 April 2014.
Connor, Kayleigh. "The Male Domain: Exclusion of Women in Video Games." Digital America. 30 Jan 2014. Web. Accessed 8 April 2014. 

Venue Title and Sponsoring Organization
Digital America is an interdisciplinary journal open to everyone from undergraduate to PhD. It is funded by an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation through the University of Richmond

The Evolution of Awe

Well, I'm at just over 4,800 words so far for my paper. I've left some wiggle room, as my publication venues allow for submissions of a maximum of 5,000 words. In any case, I'm finally to a premise that I can get behind, and while it doesn't have the same direction or social implications as my previous topics, I think it's a good direction for my research. Here's my thesis, and the link to the paper itself is below that.

THESIS: We are experiencing a transformation of the way in which we experience awe, and while we necessarily move toward an understanding of awe that is not only more abstract in some ways but in other regards less real, our capacity to experience awe remains the same as we actively implement modern technologies in creating awe. As society evolves to be able to meditate upon increasingly complex social, artistic, and philosophical values and issues, so also must our modes of expression and conveyance necessarily take on abstraction as a way of accommodating the ever-complicating human narrative.

Rough draft of the paper

  

Social Proof for Reclaiming Awe

Over the past couple of days, I've been attempting to reach out to communities and specialists that might be able to offer some insight on awe in the world of digital art. 

I started with a few communities of digital artists on Google+, and I posted something akin to the following in each:

I'm currently researching the concept of awe in various forms of digital art. Do you as digital creators feel that digitally native works of art differ from more traditional forms in their ability to produce awe in the viewer? Certainly, the digital medium facilitates a broader range of awe-inspiring subject matter, but does it provide for the same quality of awe as would, for example, looking at a painting or watching a play over seeing an image online or watching a 3D reproduction of the same play?
I'm not sure that there is a right answer, but I'd love to hear your thoughts on the matter in any case! Thanks!

I haven't heard back from anyone on my posts as of yet, but I hope that I'll get some responses over the next few days. I think I'll also post something to the Thinkers community, as I've have good success getting responses from them in the past.

I also wrote to Jeffrey Davis, a writer for Psychology Today who maintains a blog called "Tracking Wonder." The letter I sent is included below:

The Digital Petri Dish: Permutation #3 in B♭ Minor

By Umberto Salvagnin, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0 

Well, I think the biggest problem that I've been having with my paper as of right now is that every time I sit down to write, I am writing a new paper, because my thinking on the matter has shi
fted in one direction or another. My original stance was one highly critical of digital media, and though I felt it was representative of what I had actually experienced myself and witnessed in the lives of others, I didn't feel like it was the whole story. My most recent shift in thinking, which came about thanks to some really savvy feedback from +Eileen and Dr. Burton, has helped me to look at the Internet in a much more balanced light, seeing the good and the bad and recognizing the Internet more so as a tool than an influence--as something that cultures whatever we put into it. The problem is, that has brought me to a new impasse, in that such a stance paints societal "progress" as the source of modernity's awe deficiencies.

Potential Audiences for "Reclaiming Awe"

Intermediate and Final Audiences

1. Jason Silva (Shots of Awe)

Silva has a vast following, and his works have apparently inspired awe within thousands of individuals worldwide. I am going to try contacting him to get his take on the idea of digital amplification--the notion that the digital realm essentially cultures whatever we put into it, both the awe inspiring and the mundane.

2. Google+ Communities

There are a number of digital art and new media art communities (a b c d) to which I'm going to post some of my intermediate work for social proof, and they may be interested in the final project as well. There's another community dedicated to "Digital Biology," and I feel like my discussion of awe and the digital through a psychological/biological approach would probably appeal to some people there.

 3. Jeffrey Davis

Writer and creativity consultant for "Tracking Wonder" (a sub-site of Psychology Today), which is dedicated to the connection between awe and creativity. This is right up my alley, and I bet Mr. David could be a huge help.

Reclaiming Awe: Take 2

We went over some brief drafts of our literature reviews in class Monday, and I wanted to post what I have so far for anyone who's interested in reading. This will hopefully provide a groundwork on which I can build the rest of my paper, though Monday's talks helped me to see that there are a lot of things that I could do to shore up my foundations.

Anyway, here's the link!

I'm Reclaiming Awe: It's Gonna Get Personal

I've been thinking about what I wanted to do to try to make my creative project more personal, because as Dr. Burton aptly noted, the personal has legitimate power and serves as a way of making something more relatable and interesting on a number of levels. In some sense, I really like the way that Jason Silva does his videos (see his newest one to the right, for example), where he intermixes the personal and the scholarly and all that, but at the same time, I think with my project, I want the two to be more subdivided. Silva's downfall is that he's creates a cult around himself without giving his ideas (which are remarkable, in many cases) the prominence that they deserve.

So, with that in mind, I'm going to be doing a short introductory section where I talk about my experiences with digital media and kind of the back story of why all this is important to me. Up until two years ago, I was one of the most ardent critics of digital media, and I had renounced video games almost entirely as time wasters. My paper for the first of my classes from Dr. Burton was one about individual creativity, and I think it fitting that my final project in my capstone class will be revisit both the disillusionment and the creative component as dual edges of the digital realm. Realistically, I'll probably just tell my story briefly and then talk about how the creative component of my project is, in itself, an attempt to bring into reality the kind of creation that I propose in the second half of my paper/project. Thus, it's kind of self-reflective and recursive and wonderful (or at least that's the hope).

Another benefit of that is that I can get out the analytical part of my creative project briefly and reserve time in the creative component just for the emotional and poetic. I've seen some instance where a combination works, but I think it helps to have some kind of subdivision to help the mind change modes. Anyway, what are your thoughts? Do you feel like that will be successful, or will the introductory portion not be relatable enough to keep people interested for the latter portion?

Annotated Bibliography for Reclaiming Awe

Working Thesis (which will surely undergo drastic revision): While the digital age affords us seemingly infinite opportunities, with those opportunities comes the danger of destroying mankind's most fundamental and universal quality, his capacity to experience and create awe.

Realistically, you should probably just skip to the end and read my end commentary, because I'm tweaking my emphasis a bit, and that's the part where I'd be most interested in hearing your feedback. Thanks!

ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Adorno, Theodor W and Max Horkheimer. "The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception." Dialectic of Enlightenment. Trans. John Cummings. New York: Herder & Herder, 1972. 120-167. Print.

Adorno and Horkheimer propose that modern media encourages passive consumption over true creativity and that in their aspirations toward popularity and industrial utility, they have fallen into a state of artistic or aesthetic impoverishment. This ties into my focus on digital creativity as a means of overcoming the impoverishment and rising from passive consumption to a state of "flourishing" productivity.

Arnold, Matthew. “The Study of Poetry.” 1880. Poetry Foundation. 13 Oct. 2009. Web. 19 Mar. 2014.

In this essay, Arnold proposes that the measure of a work’s poetic or artistic greatness (and I would argue, it’s potential to inspire awe) is based on a combination of personal and historical perspectives. Great works, then, partake of the same spirit as landmark works that have come before--touchstones, as he calls them. This in some sense helps to overcome the sense of subjectiveness that many of us have been struggling with in defining awe.

Reclaiming Awe: Project Prototype (Part I)

Well, after way too many hours of learning Lightworks, Part I of my project prototype for "Reclaiming Awe" is complete. The videos are CC Attribution-Sharealike, so I'll put links up in the final version. The piano music is a bit rough at this point, as I didn't have time to schedule a studio with a real piano. Anyway, I hope you like it! I'd love to hear your feedback!

Outline of Awesomeness...

I have to admit, as did Tara, that I still feel hopelessly lost in trying to define awe in any meaningful way. I feel like I have my own idea of what awe is, but I'm fairly certain at this point that it is entirely different from how others view awe, each of our own experiences having been shaped by our own experiences with awe. I think that is to say that I am experiencing an existentialist crisis rooted in German Romantic notions of subjectivity. There's a mouthful for you. So, in short, I feel less and less confident in my paper topic as I research more and more, and that's not the most comfortable position.

In any case, I think that my final paper will have a substantial portion attempting to address that which has been said before in terms of defining awe. I feel like just about every major literary critic has had something to say of awe, whether they called it the sublime, geist, the aura, or something else, and I want to focus on each of those notions in building a foundation for the notion of awe that I present in my paper.

Another complication is that my paper topic, at least in part, is very negative, and I'm looking for ways to expand it in a direction that is more positive without it coming off as an infantile call to create. That being said...

Outline of Awesomeness...

Please feel free to add information or insert questions or comments or whatever. GoogleDocs has a new "track changes" add-on, so I'd love to see how it works (and I have a back-up saved just in case someone goes crazy on my outline).

I'm excited about my project, but it's definitely taking a lot

of time, and I'm wondering if I should simplify it rather than

botching the wonder. I think a lot will depend on time.

In terms of publication venues, I feel like I am still on track for at least the latter four venues that I listed in this post. I'm still planning on using Buzzfeed as an outlet for the creative portion of my project as well.

And finally, in terms of what's next, I think the biggest part is just getting my paper and project nailed dow
n a bit more. I feel like I'm putting them both off a little bit, as I'm still not really sure about my overall premise or my definition of awe, but I think some of that will work itself out as I put together a more complete draft of my paper and finish up my project. I may need to simplify my project a bit, as it's taken a ton of time and still isn't really in a presentable form. Anyway, I'd love to hear your feedback!

With Wondering Awe: Project Prototype

I've been thinking a lot about what I'd like to do for the creative component of my final project, and I keep going back to that phrase, "create the wonder." I've been really impressed with a lot of videos that I've come across as I've been researching awe, and the more I think about it, the more I want to create a video to get my ideas across. One of my central ideas is that while the digital--when used purely as a mimetic tool--conveys only a diminished sense of awe,  its creative and synthetic potential supersedes that of traditional mediums. Though art or writing or music can draw us in and bring us to a state of wonder, film and other more modern media formats have the potential to combine the best of art, music, writing, etc. in a single, unified, immersive work. The wonder of the digital age, though, is that creation of such works is no longer limited to large production studios, especially with vast bases of open content through Creative Commons licenses. Building on this notion, the focus for my final project will be a video that combines original writing (narration), an original piano score, and Creative Commons video clips in an effort to awaken viewers to a new reverence for traditional sources of awe and instill within them a new determination to utilize modern modes of creation to inspire awe.

I've already begun writing out the script, and I've been recording tidbits of music, trying to figure out a general flow for the piece as a whole. I want it to reach a point of climax that is paralleled in the language, music, and video simultaneously, so I've been trying to figure out how to convey that in each medium. Also, I've been going through Creative Commons videos on Vimeo and downloading ones that have moments that I like.

Spreading the Wonder: Possible Publication Venues

1. Buzzfeed. I found this on just about every social network simply by existing. In that Buzzfeed is the subject of some of my more biting criticism, I see it only fitting to make a Buzzfeed Communities post to talk about how un-awe-inspiring Buzzfeed really is.

2. Tracking Wonder. I came across this site while doing some research earlier this semester. Davis is active in posting about wonder and awe (posted about a month ago), so he might be willing to do a collaborative post or let me guest blog if I were to contact him.

3. Communication, Culture, & Critique. I found this through a Google search for cultural critique, which I then refined to search for calls for papers. The journal itself is published by the international communication association, and the topic corresponds rather nicely to the overall emphasis of the journal (i.e. communication and cultural criticism).

4. Journal of Digital Culture and Electronic Scholarship. I found this through a Google search for "digital culture critique call for papers." The journal accepts submissions on a variety of topics related to the arts, humanities, or social sciences. Of especial interest in their list of potential topics were applied psychology and cyber-psychology, both of which relate to my study of the chemistry/physiology of awe.

5. Cyberpsychology. I found this one thanks to a keyword that I found in researching the last one: cyberpsychology. This journal publishes works dedicated to social science in cyberspace, so my study of awe in cyberspace should fit in nicely, especially in light of the more psychological components of my research.

6. International Journal of Humanities and Cultural Studies. I found this through the UPenn listings for calls for papers. The journal has an emphasis on interdisciplinary cultural studies, so I think it would be a good fit for my research.

Modern Modes of Expression and Conveyance

I've been thinking a little bit about accessible ways of conveying meaningful ideas, and I've come up with a few different techniques focused on digital media.

On the more technical side of things, we have things like MOOCs, or Massive Online Open Courses, and instructional sites like Codecademy. Admittedly, the “ideas” are meaningful in a more practical sense, but MOOCs and other similar resources nonetheless represent an important mode of digital conveyance.

The Codecademy Interface. Codecademy and other
educational sites allow users

MOOCs provide a way for educators and innovators to share information with broad audiences. They are pretty much like a regular course: there are schedules and assignments and a teacher or small group of instructors, but it's completely free, lower-stress, and catered to your interests. There are MOOCs for just about any topic you could think of. This list, for example, shows various MOOCs on fiction writing.

Instructional/educational sites like Codecademy and Khan Academy are similar to MOOCs, but rather than working on a set schedule, the student sets his own pace and works toward completing objectives based on specific micro-tasks (i.e. learn “if” statements in Javascript).

The End of Art and Awe: Hegel in the Digital Age

From the title, you are perhaps expecting this post to be a depressing, cynical attempt at tearing down our modern notions of art and wonder, and if that's the case, then I have to apologize: this will surely disappoint. To understand what I really mean in saying "the end of art" or "the end of awe," though, we have to have a foundation in German Romanticism and, more specifically, in the art
istic philosophies of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel.

Hegel is perhaps best known for the eponymous Hegelian dialectic, which suggests that through the recursive struggle and interplay of thesis and antithesis--of action and reaction--mankind has, at various times, been able to arrive a state of synthesis or resolution, wherein he is able to achieve real progress. In his Introduction to The Philosophy of Art, Hegel applies the dialectic to the progression of art, stating essentially that the highest form of art is that in which the sensuous form (the work of art itself) and the spiritual form (the ideas conveyed by the work of art) find harmony or resolution. "[T]he perfection and excellency of art," he writes, "must depend upon the grade of inner harmony and union with which the spiritual idea and the sensuous form interpenetrate" (376). Hegel suggests that in lower forms of art, such as sculpture or architecture, the thesis and antithesis of spiritual and sensuous forms have yet failed to reach an equilibrium. The highest form of art--the end or aim of art in Hegel's view--is in poetry, wherein the art itself is capable of conveying the full import and meaning of the spiritual or philosophical idea. This was not to imply, however, that art had or would come to an end or that poetry represented the final destination of human expression and artistic representation. Rather, poetry was the degree of synthesis to which mankind had climbed up until that point.

More Emotions from Video Games

+Paul Bills posted recently about video games' potential to evoke emotional response from players, and this was something that I wanted to touch upon a little bit. I've played video games almost all of my life; my family got a SuperNintendo when I was like three, but even before that, my dad had an old Commodore computer with such thrilling adventures as pixel Olympics or, later, Frogger. Now, we have stunning, million-dollar productions with complex themes and characters, stunning scenery, moving soundtracks, and design teams in the hundreds and thousands. The point I'm trying to get at, though, is that games have come a long way in the past twenty or so years. They still have "a lot of growing up to do," as Grant Tavinor puts it in The Art of Video Games, but they are coming into their maturity and are becoming a powerful tool for influencing the human psyche and emotional state.

Paul mentioned a number of emotions, and I wanted to build on his list in contributing what I feel to be paramount pieces in the history of video games.

1. Longing - Final Fantasy

First off, I'll admit that I've played only five or six of the games in the Final Fantasy series (there have been, as I recall, something like 15 *Final* Fantasies to date), but they have nonetheless had a profound impact on me and on my development as a gamer, a thinker, and a creator. In my mind, these games are the most emotionally complex and evocative games on the market, conveying a diversity of profound messages about humanity and the world. For me, though, the most powerful of emotions in the series is that of longing. I don't know that I can pinpoint exactly what it is that so draws the player into the Final Fantasy realm--a rich and immersive world, a profound sense of connection to the divine, a strong ideal of personal agency and potential to change the world, or just sheer awesomeness in fighting monsters and calling on arcane magics--but the longing for that world, for its vitality, is very real. The series has been the subject of an enormous volume of fan fiction, and deviantArt is plastered with thousands upon thousands of examples of art inspired by the fantastical and beautiful world of Final Fantasy. I honestly feel like Final Fantasy is responsible for the aesthetic and thematic qualities of the JRPG genre as a whole and has served as a model for most major modern story games.

Capturing Wonder: Biology and Robots

I've been thinking about the idea of wonder with regard to the life and, more particularly, the human body, so I wanted to take a minute to curate some resources that I've found on the topic. The twist, though, is that I want to look at biology through the lens of robots and other technology that have been created to mimic real life. So, without further ado, I give you a brief account of the caprices of Greg's internet browsing:

1. Robotic Ants

So, this first one blew my mind a little bit just because of how similar the behavior of the robots was to that of ants. It's maybe hard to get past the external appearance (which looks more like a die than an ant), but the movement and behavior seem so realistic. I think there is a lot more in common between computers and mankind than we maybe think (including mankind, though I hesitate somewhat in saying this).

2. Theo Jansen's Strandbeests

I think I'm still a little bit in shock over this, even though it's been years since I first saw it. I think the thing I love most about this artist is that his work, aside from being amazing and beautiful and mind blowing, also seeks a unity between life and the machine. His contraptions, though lifeless, really do take on lifelike qualities, and it's interesting to note the "evolution" that has taken place in his designs over the years. Evolution is one of the most awe-inspiring concepts I've encountered, especially as I've sought to find concord between my religious faith and my scientific background. I think we too often separate the two, though, and we miss out on the beauty and awe that we might experience in realizing that these are just pieces of a single truth.