Watching me, watching me – Synecdoche New York movie poster

Jim Groom’s digital storytelling course - DS106, is fun, clever and inventive. It has also got me asking good questions and has even unsettled me a little and as any readers of this post or this older one will know – I consider a bit of confusion to be an essential part of any good project or learning experience. This time the unhinging is all around digital identity, a topic I hope to come back to as the course continues.

Thinking about identity led me to select Charlie Kaufman’s ‘Synecdoche New York’ as a film to create an alternate poster for. A movie obscure, inventive and original enough to perhaps have ended his Hollywood career but hopefully not his creative output. His previous films Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind, Adaptation and Being John Malkovich had all focused on characters struggling with their place in the world. His protagonists can barely cope with themselves, never mind the single minded, self-assured women they all seem to fall for. For my poster I had a go at representing the central project that Philip Seymour Hoffman’s theatre director Caden Cotard gets lost in as the film progresses.

Synechdoche NY film poster by Colin McCampbell

I wonder what Cotard might have done for his photo for the daily shoot on the topic of ‘deadlines’. Perhaps just himself alone on a huge empty stage. I captured where all good deadline days start and tend to return to fairly regularly.

'Deadline' by ColinMCampbell

If I could have taken a point of view shot of me making an uncessarily complicated sandwich that would have been even better but I think this makes the point.

Filed under: Uncategorized, assessment, creativity, ds106, learning, SynecdocheNewYork

What distractions help us ship? A mooc perhaps?

Seth Godin talks a lot about shipping. “Be a person that ships”, he says. I like that, but I have not always been very good at it. I can be way too ponderous and need to know when just to hit send or publish.

Lizard by TuckerH586 from flickr

However, as Merlin Mann points out in one of his videos or blog posts (not this one but they are all good), it is not as simple as that. If we are in the knowledge game then we need to research, we need to read, we need to open ourselves up to the ideas that are out there. I couldn’t agree more, my google reader and twitter feeds have been invaluable in pushing my thinking to new places over these past couple of years. However what Mann says and I think I’m getting a bit better at is to be conscious in what you are spending your time on and why? His advice on email inbox checking is a must view for those who have not read or seen it. I also thoroughly recommend his interview with Seth Godin on the lizard brain where they discuss motivation, Bob Dylan and what stops us shipping.

So what distractions help us ship? Well for me MOOCs (massive open online courses) are an interesting case in point and after reading George Siemens blog post on the very subject I have decided to follow another one about digital storytelling. I follow with these questions in mind that I hope will come back to when I finish the course?

(a) Can participation in a mooc help you ship a project and if so how?

(b) Did participation in the Digital storytelling course change my approach to my digital identity?

Lets see.

Filed under: Uncategorized, digitalstorytelling, ds106, lizardbrain, merlinmann, sethgodin, shipping

The wonderous giant, hammock, art play sculpture in Hakone art museum

Art play masterpiece in Hakone photo by C Campbell

Clearly I’m not alone in still loving playgrounds and was triggered to write about the one in the pictures after reading this post from a blog all about play spaces. We lived in Japan for a few years and discovered some beautifully designed spaces for both children and adults to play in. Indeed the whole notion of play as an activity that continues unapologetically through our lives is very much a feature of Japanese culture generally. Play-centres in Japan are often set up for adults to play with their children in rather than a place just for kids.

Inside the net maze Hakone art museum photo by C Campbell

This piece is in a large outdoor art museum in a place called Hakone about an hour from Tokyo near Mount Fuji. We visited it with our son and another family and completely lost track of time playing in it. Like the Schulberg playground in Germany this works for kids of multiple ages, my son was under three when he played on this. The clever use of knitted tunnels being both challenging and supportive at the same time. None of the kids could stay still long enough to get a photo with them in focus.

The top of the wonderous hammock thing by C Campbell

And when you clambered your way to the top there was, just like lying in a real hammock, a place of peace and tranquility. Until of course two children emerged from a tunnel to shout and giggle and then disappear down another one.

Hakone outdoor art museum hammock thing outside by C Campbell

And this is the outside, the supporting construction being assembled from wooden blocks that reminded me of the sort of constructions you can make with kapla wooden blocks. Thanks to the designers of this incredible object and to playscapes whose blog reminded me of our afternoon at the Hakone Outdoor Art museum.

Filed under: Uncategorized