There came a day in the land where the Fandom Princess reigned that her parents, the King and Queen, wrote her a letter while she was studying at her scholarly castle. Because they were a whole three hour horseback ride away, they could not visit her as frequently as they would have liked, but they did write plenty of letters. This particular letter told her that they had heard of a new instructor who specialized in studying the value of art in all it’s different forms.
To be completely honest, the Fandom Princess did not find this interesting in the slightest.
But, because her parents distributed and monitored her bi-weekly coin allowance, she did as they asked and went to speak with this so called “magnificent” instructor of the arts. After spending an afternoon with the instructor, who turned out to be a tall wizard with a long silver beard to his knees (he smelled of lavender which she wasn’t a fan of, although he was quite charming), she surprisingly began to consider art, and this new form of a thing he called “media.” When he asked for her opinions on what he had lectured her on, she gave the following responses:
Firstly, Robert Hughes, a noted art critic, introduced an interesting idea in his video about what art is. He said towards the middle that the purpose of art is to ‘make the world whole.’ Art has a kind of learning principle in the sense that it tries to connect people through emotion and feeling, as Hughes says in his video. It’s really a great idea to think about, especially if one were to think about all the different perspectives that others can have about one piece of art. No matter how different someone’s view of a painting is from five other people’s views, the painting is still doing the job of allowing the group to gather together and consider the painting, thus creating a mix of feelings and a sense of community.
Secondly, this idea of a community of people brainstorming thoughts about art applies to Stephen Johnson in his piece “Where Ideas Come From.” He describes the process of someone thinking up an idea and branches off to discuss how that one idea can be linked to another idea and together they can form a great idea, something much bigger than the original idea. Once again, we see multiple brains collaborating in order to brainstorm ideas or form opinions based on an array of topics, from art to food. I think this is a wonderful concept to think about, because it seems to be another way to bring people together, and even if you don’t all agree on one thing, you are still relishing in the process of trading ideas, opinions, feelings, and emotions all because of one topic (or piece of art.)
Thirdly, I found the “Rules for Students and Teachers” by John Cage to be quite engaging as well. As a creator, a lot of the concepts that he outlined were not only truthful, but they were points that I could see being very helpful in the near future, especially while taking this course. I was a big fan of Rule #8 on the list, which warned against not creating and analyzing at the same time. In my own personal daily writing, I have a tendency to write my ideas down and then immediately go and pick them to shreds without giving it enough time to generate. While the revising phase of creating is important, I would imagine giving your work time to process would be just as important.
Well, the wizard was quite impressed with the princess’s vast knowledge and ability to pick up on key points from the short amount of time that she had spent listening to his lectures of art. So impressed, that he wished to know more about her. So, he sent for a tea tray and crumpets, and asked the Princess to give him her life story, and ways that he would be able to interact and contact her once she returned to her castle. And with a smile, and a crumpet in hand, the Fandom Princess happily agreed.Â
She wrote out her life story.
She made a recording of a treasured item:Â
And gave him directions to reach her after she left for her castle:
And even told her how happy she was to get to know him and the rest of his wizard friends:
@cogdog Officially introducing myself to my #ds106 class! Woot woot!
— Tiffany Sharpe (@tsharpie07) January 18, 2013
And at last, after an hour of chit chat (in which she discussed fandoms of course) the wizard asked for a reflection of their time together. She snatched up the last crumpet, scarfed it down, took a sip of milk, and then cleared her throat to reply:
I was very excited from the beginning to be taking this class and cannot wait to get rolling even more! So far, I think I’m handling it okay. This week was definitely a challenge, but nothing too strenuous It just made me think about how much time I’ll need to set aside to be successful in the class! =]
Add a comment