Somewhat Unrelated. Clearing my Head.

I am now officially one semester into the AUT Bachelor of Creative Technologies program. The course itself is completely different to what I had anticipated. I have toyed with ideas and methods which I never would have glanced at six months ago. Realistically though I wonder how much I am actually learning.




Self-sufficiency -yes. I have been pushing myself and pursuing projects on my own terms. i feel like the work I have achieved has not been pulled from me by the briefs, but has been a result of my own interpretation of the briefs given. Even when working as part of a group it is clear that collectively we are working at our own rate, our own pace, achieving things of our own desire and will.

I am learning about the value of exposure, and the importance of putting your work out there constantly. The work we produce will be serving little purpose if the only people who ever see it are within our faculty. As well as professional endeavours, personal achievements and bodies of work should be pushed out there into the open market. If we as creative individuals don't force everything creative we do under the noses of the world we are trying to impress we will make very little progress towards bigger goals. We may as well be making cocktail napkin origami and leaving it lying around for the oblivious eyes of the public to find and eventually crumple.

But I also feel like the lessons I am learning are from this research alone. I don't feel like I am being taught so to speak, more that I am being taught how to educate myself. My peer's have been a font of knowledge from which I have been feeding my own flame for the past semester, however this leaves a gap. Are my peers finding me as inspirational? Sometimes I wish there was more 'involuntary learning' involved in this course, some more formal training. I wish I could recieve the training to develop my own skill-set; to the level of "self-sufficiency" I feel is going to be necessary of me when the two and a half semester's I have left are over.

But there is also the underlying factor that I may be trying to avoid.  The idea that although I feel like I'm working to the best of my ability.  That to achieve these short term goals I should be going above and beyond not only whats expected of me, but of what I expect of myself.

I guess the Intro paper's "Meta-Reflective" principles really caught hold.

i think I'll add some individually inspiring content to this blog.  It's important that I do not neglect my own personal musings as well as project based research.  It all contributes towards what I'm becoming as a creative individual, and I think it would be beneficial to document and demonstrate that here.