Themes in contemporary
In the Week1,
Day 1 10:00-12:30 Wednesday 21st September
Before class, we watch a video on James Clegg’s provocation of The Weird and Phil Ford’s study, Birth of the Weird. Today’s first part is the introduction to the course. Themes in contemporary consist of four Themes or “learning sprints” and each theme is approached from the perspective of ‘Problem Based Learning. Secondly, We learned methods and concepts about weirdness including a useful part —an introduction to various forms of weird studies across different disciplines by reviewing the Resource List for this Theme. Finally, the assignment after class is to work on the Weird-o-Verse that’s been created in Miro.
Description of My sprint: I am interested in the biotribal composition forms in the Weird-o-Verse, based on the connection, and combine with the word, I created a world about “Memories”, humans’(or none human) memories constructed one’s living space. Bausinger describes “Heimat” as a spatial and social unit of medium range, wherein the individual is able to experience safety and the reliability of its existence, as well as a place of a deeper trust: Our memories are our living space. For example, a person’s memory ranges over ten years, and the space he or she lives in is the corresponding size. So the logic here is that the more you remember, the bigger space you live in. The inspiration came from the research I did. There are three types of sources that result in my world construction.
Firstly, about The Mandela Effect: A situation in which a large mass of people believes that an event occurred when it did not (Fiona Broome, 2019, New York Times ). Broome has said that they distinctly recall different events or details, and could be proof that we are existing in alternate realities. In the film Coco 2017, To be forgotten from memory is the ultimate death. From this evidence, I argue that different people may live in different spaces and that these spaces consist of the person’s memories. The memories represent everything that happened in the past which shape the person’s values, and worldview.
Secondly, according to the study, The Weird, the Ontological, and the Normal by Andrew Strombeck (2019) mentioned public use some fundamental ways to resist the demands of capitalism’s logic of time, discipline, and subject formation. With similar expressions, the simulation hypothesis film The Mandela Effect proposes that all of our existence is a simulated reality, such as a computer simulation. They all demonstrate the quest for human rights and fairness, which has been a constant theme for centuries. And true fairness is difficult to achieve, so I assume that in the context of people living within the space of memory, each person is the center of his or her own memory. As Andrew (2019) said by positing a vast with less human manipulation, the unknowable material realm obscures historical hierarchies relating to race, poverty, and gender. This is equality that can only be achieved in a situation detached from reality. But memories are not absolutely equal, for example, through growth some people gain a view of the world that already has class divisions, so it’s unequal even in their personal space.
Thirdly, a film called Everything Everywhere All at Once raised an interesting concept that
when you want to travel to other universes, you need to go through the UNIVERSE JUMP, and normal people cannot achieve a UNIVERSE JUMP. In my perspective, if you are limited to the idea of the present 3D world, you will be confined to the real universe. Because we live in a 3D world, we cannot overcome our inherent logical thinking and behavior patterns, so it is difficult to achieve the anomaly and enter other universes. As a result, I designed the memory space as a flat surface, and it is difficult to create an exchange between different memory planes.
Day2 10:00-12:30 Monday 26th September
Today’s topic is about Weird-o-verses, Weird Machines, Weird Scenes. At the beginning of the class, we do a mini Present in our group to present our boards to each other.
Description of My sprint: Psychenight (uncountable noun) is kind of staying up late at night and mood or spiritual getting into psychedelic. The word is born from the phenomenon “The Inordinate stay up late at night”, which is a new definition that comes from people’s life nowadays. Our daytime is loaded with work, and we can only use the nighttime to compensate for our dissatisfaction and anxiety. We struggle to get away from reality. It’s a merge of reality and fact. The aim of the word is an attempt to alleviate the anxieties of the current society.
There are two references for creating the word. Firstly, Psychedelics (also known as hallucinogens) are a class of psychoactive substances that produce changes in perception, mood, and cognitive processes. Psychedelics affect all the senses, altering a person’s thinking, sense of time, and emotions. Secondly, Psychedelic art (also known as psychedelia) is art, graphics, or visual displays related to or inspired by psychedelic experiences and hallucinations known to follow the ingestion of psychedelic drugs such as LSD, psilocybin, and DMT. The word “psychedelic” (coined by British psychologist Humphry Osmond) means “mind manifesting”. By that definition, all artistic efforts to depict the inner world of the psyche may be considered “psychedelic”.
In conclusion, I did not get the specific aim of our assessment. Next time, I will be more critical about the topic, and do this in two ways. Firstly, knowing that my supervisor can always step in and help me, I need to figure out what is exactly we need to learn and explore. Secondly, before starting the work I will take as much research as I need to gain information.
Reflection
To sum up, it’s not a work meet satisfaction. Partly because this is my first time writing a reflection because the entire blog is just a description of what we did in groups, but I should concentrate on the problem scenario.
Reference:
https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/entertainment/g28438966/mandela-effect-examples/
Coco, Lee Unkrich, America, Pixar Animation Studios, 2017
The Weird, the Ontological, and the Normal, Andrew Strombeck, 2019, American Literary History, Volume 31, Number 2, Summer 2019, pp.347-355
“Heimat”, Accessed at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heimat
14th October 2022 at 10:52 am
Well done on completing the first portfolio assignment for this Themes module. Your post describes what you did during this first sprint but it’s really important that these blog posts move beyond description to include critical reflection and analysis.
In your first paragraph, you note that you looked at the provocations from James Clegg and Phil Ford. Here, you should really include some details of the ideas put forward in these and your own analysis and critical reflection on these ideas.
There are some interesting ideas developing around memory and it’s good to see you looking at how these ideas manifest in cultural works – in the films Coco and Everything Everywhere All at Once. This section of your blog would be strengthened by further engagement with the research around some of the key concepts you have looked at. For example, the Mandela Effect is a relevant phenomenon but your engagement with this idea is primarily through an article in Good Housekeeping which is not a suitable source at this level of study.
There’s also a need to more clearly communicate how you are supporting the arguments you are making. In your discussion of 3D and flat worlds you state that “Because we live in a 3D world, we cannot overcome our inherent logical thinking and behaviour patterns”. Can you expand this so your reasoning for this position is clearer?
I appreciate your reflection that you weren’t clear on the aims of this assignment and it’s good to see you identifying some ways in which you might do things differently for subsequent sprints. You are right in saying that you can always ask your supervisor to clarify the assessment.
For this assignment there were also some questions which you could respond to in the description of the task you were required to complete. Although these were suggested questions – eg. you did not need to respond to them all – I think addressing some of these directly may have supported you to engage with a greater degree of criticality in your reflection.
Remember that the sprint is also framed around a problem scenario. Relating the material you look at back to the problem scenario and considering how this might allow you to critically respond to some of the issues the scenario raises may be a useful way to frame your blog post.
There are some inconsistencies with your referencing. In places you are including in-text citation but in other places these are missing – for example, you draw on Bausinger’s definition of Heimat and this should be referenced. Later, you include a citation to the New York Times but this is not then included in your reference list. The university has a subscription to Cite Them Right. This has useful guides on good citation practice as well as helping you correctly format references.
23rd October 2022 at 6:00 pm
I have read your text carefully and your choice of Weird-o-Verse theme is the biotribal composition forms. through your writing I learned about The Mandela Effect, which is interesting, I remember this happening in a very famous Chinese TV series and many viewers remember a Many viewers remembered an episode, but the producer of the TV series responded that there had never really been a clip of it. So this is The Mandela Effect, thank you for sharing, I have learnt a lot.
23rd October 2022 at 11:15 pm
At the beginning of the article, the author invokes the Mandela effect to bring us into a time and space of memory disruption, which I think is a very good background for creation and is closely related to the creation of new words. From “staying up late”, a daily topic for our young people, to the change of emotional and mental state, the visual connection of illusion. A multi-layered progression from the psychological to the visual level can be perceived. I think the author is a person with great ability to think and learn, and it seems that the author is a beautiful woman who is interested in psychology.
23rd October 2022 at 11:19 pm
I really like your views and introduction in your blog. The films and articles you listed in your blog are all relatively unfamiliar to me, and they are researches that I have neglected. After reading your blog, I will probably watch these films again and read the relevant articles carefully