Week Six Reflection –

I think that it is really important to take time out to reflect.  The questions I am using for that reflection are the ones from my first reflection.  These are as follows:

1. What have you done so far?
2. What have you discovered so far?
3. What will you change because of what you have discovered?
4. What will you do next?

Before I answer these questions, I think that it is important to look at the goals that I set myself last time and see how many I achieved.  There is a ✅ next to those I achieved.  The goals that I set myself were as follows:

• Continue my blog ✅
• Document my new found artist David Spriggs ✅
• Ensure my blog is adequately backed up – (a backup has been taken but still requires investigation)
• Film an unboxing of my CHLADNI kit ✅
• Film an unboxing of my sand pendulum ✅
• Document my idea links (masses of these) ✅
• Start the mind mapping process and film it’s development – (still to be done)
• Start formulating my ideas – (still to be done)
• Begin more formal research – (an ongoing process)
• Start experimenting and shooting with my CHLADNI kit and my sand pendulum once the unboxing videos are completed ✅
• Go to London to look at some galleries – (happening later this month)
• catch up on the Monday and Tuesday lectures – (still to be done)
• This week, try to grab some downtime ahead of returning to college – (fat chance!)

It appears that I managed six out of the thirteen goals that I set myself.  Therefore, I will add the outstanding items to question 4  ‘what will you do next?’  I intend to work on these outstanding items so that they are all cleared by my next reflective session.  In the meantime the answers to my reflective questions are as follows:

1). What have you done so far?

• Since the last time I answered this question, I have completed everything above with a green tick ✅
• I did a Claire Luxton themed photoshoot, keeping up my camera skills.
• I visited Newcastle and the Laing Art Gallery.  I documented my time there with photographs and videos and I drew inspiration from a ‘Robert Montgomery’ style (or possibly one of his own) installations.  I also drew inspiration from the amazing smoking cocktails being served at the Metro Centre’s Alchemist restaurant.
• I began experimenting and documenting the outcomes.
• I suffered a catastrophic failure of my smartphone but I compensated by completing a 30 minute Touch Designer tutorial.  I documented the time spent on this via a time-lapse video and I also produced a colourful waves video which I added to my blog and Instagram page.
• I ran the text prompt ‘Chladni Patterns’ though a text to image generator to see what Ai made of it and I documented the results.
• I ran some of my own Chladni patterns through an Ai image generator and I edited the results.
• I made two differently styled videos from the results to see if the Ai remixed images could be made to look menacing and also artistic.
• I spent six hours collaborating with my son to produce some digitally produced ‘Chladni’ style videos.  I also produced a time-lapse of the time spent working on this.
• I took the ‘Chladni’ style videos and edited them together and added them to my blog, YouTube and Instagram.
• I made the connection between the tentacle-like nature of the nodes in Blender and gave examples.
• I generated some tentacle-like patterns from the Blender nodes (to be added to the blog).
• I made another interesting pattern with the Chladni kit (to be added to the blog).
• I shot some experimental video of the Chladni kit (to be added to the blog).
• I edited the Sand Pendulum unboxing video (to be added to the blog).

2). What have you discovered so far?

• I’m very busy and I have lots and lots of ideas that I would like to explore.
• There’s so much that I would like to try.
• You can use Blender to generate ‘Chladni’ style patterns.
• The Chladni kit is getting easier to use with practice.
• I enjoy making time-lapse videos.
• I’m fascinated with text to image generation.
• Blender and Touch Designer both use nodes and wires that look very tentacle-like in nature.
• I’m frustrated at the current lack of depth to my thinking.
• I rediscovered my love of Sam Taylor-Wood’s work.
• I need to start pinning down my ideas.

3). What will I change because of what I have discovered?

• I will do more artist research into my areas of interest.
• I have done a lot of experimenting and now I will build in more time for researching.
• I may do more do longer time-lapses using my DSLR to improve quality.
• I will make time to watch Monday guest lectures and the Tuesday morning lectures.
• I will continue to find time for Touch Designer and Blender tutorials.

4). What will I do next?

• I will catch up on everything that I said I would do last time – see the outstanding items above without a green ✅ tick.
• I will add my tentacle-like patterns to my blog.
• I will read material on Ai for a presentation this coming Tuesday.
• I will add my early Chladni kit experimental DSLR videos.
• I will do another Touch Designer tutorial with time-lapse.
• I will do some experiments with the Sand Pendulum.
• I will attempt to explore the term ‘Elusive Taxonomies’ and read material from zoom meet 6.

Additional Questions to Help the Reflective Process

While browsing through Discord I found some more reflective questions.  I think that these will prove very useful and I will incorporate these into my next reflective blog.

1). What was the best thing I did? Why was this the best thing I did? How do I know that this was the best thing I did?

2). What worked least well for me? Why did this not work well for me? What have I learned about the topic concerned from this not having worked well for me? What have I learned about myself from this not having worked well for me? What do I plan to do differently in future as a result of my answers to the above questions?

3). With hindsight, how would I go about this activity differently if doing it again from scratch? To what extent will this activity influence the way I tackle anything similar in future?

4). What did I find the greatest challenge in doing this work? Why was this a challenge to me? To what extent do I feel I have met this challenge? What can I do to improve my performance when next meeting this particular sort of challenge?

5). What was the most boring or tedious part of doing this particular task for me? Can I see the point of doing these things? If not, how could the activity be changed to be more stimulating and interesting for me?