Days 7–10 — It’s a Ride, Baby!
9 pm. I am watching my neighbor through my window practicing his orchestral conducting skills. Working on his craft. Step by step. I’m exhausted and yet deeply content. And I’m aware there’s a crash coming after the high of a process such as the one we’ve all just gone through. Yet, watching this young man’s hands moving to a score I cannot hear brought a stillness to my mind and heart. All is well. I’m practicing a craft. Step by step.
But first, here’s a breakdown of the past 4 days:
Day 7 — It works! We rock!
Our Augmented Reality (AR) Magazine concept is coming together nicely. I remembered how much I love print. The idea is to have a print magazine that “conceals” a subversive AR layer. It’s a man’s world on print, but AR corrects the perspective. Shifting from the male gaze to the inclusive gender gaze, because we are ALL victims of the patriarchy.
The first tests are exhilarating. Seeing code transform an idea into a (somewhat) working prototype, seeing an idea come to life, is the bliss burst I love the most. Ain’t nothing like the joy of experiencing the magic of creativity. Needless to say, I went home feeling pretty awesome about myself. I can do this. I’m good at this. Our team rocks!
Day 8 — It doesn’t work! I suck!
Jimena burst the warm bubble.
We consulted her on the project and I was sure we would get a “that’s so cool, what a great idea!” kind of reaction. Instead, she corrected our perspective and pointed out clearly where we were mixing up the different tones. Also, it turned out, our approach was rather journalistic. Our ideas were not witty or humorous. We were telling not showing.
I resisted (more or less) the urge to argue with her because she was right. But as her words slowly sank in, I felt myself shrink inside. This is merde. This is a failure. I suck!
Day 9 — I am not the product or the process.
Going back to the drawing board, however, the ideas came quickly. The concept and course correction, in fact, made it easier to develop new witty ways of showing the message. And with the loving guidance of Lea, we managed to put these two magazines together.
Plus the presentation. Maren gave us a cool presentation training in the afternoon to support our prep for the big day.
As the day progressed, I learned to abandon the urge for making a perfect product (though I can see my teammates Pascha and Zubair smirking at this one). I felt myself gain a healthy distance from the product we were trying to produce. I am neither the product nor the process. And this realisation happened all by itself. It turns out, I was trusting the process.
Day 10 — Exposure!
It was awesome. I only have pictures for you, so here you go:
A Word on Vulnerability
The experiences of the past two weeks would not have been possible had we not had a safe place in our class to express ourselves. I am truly in awe of our group, including Maren and Lea of Invisible Room, and Jimena our Head of Program. I feel blessed to have these rich creatives to play and experiment with in this playground called MA Digital Narratives. I have quite some experience teaching. I know this is not the norm. I have seen hair-raising situations of people being despicable and nasty to each other. And the work results in these groups are always poor.
I don’t know why or how we all commited to fostering this safe place to be open and vulnerable with each other and about our processes. But I do know that vulnerability and expressing yourself is key to fueling the creative process. In the words of Rick Rubin,
“Understanding how you feel in the face of other voices without second guessing yourself is probably the single most important thing to practice as an artist, or skill set to develop as an artist. To know how you feel and own your feelings. And the key to that is not “I know, so I know what’s right for you.” It doesn’t work that way. It’s just “I know for me, and the reason I chose to be an artist is to demonstrate this is how I see it.”
The creative process is a great zen master. It teaches us to surrender fully, to detach from our egos, and to trust in the mystery that is life. And vulnerabity is the gateway to the creative act.
Thank you everyone!
Another Word on Digital Narrative
Another valuable learning in this production exercise is gaining a deeper understanding of what a digital narrative is. There’s a point in the learning process where, after months of input and practice, the penny finally drops. This was it. My Aha! moment. The “I get it now”.
I think what triggered it was returning to work in a medium I know and love so well. I love print. I love the smell and feel of paper. I love making books. I used to make them as child, with drawings to explain my subject matter that were basically infographics. And playing with print and AR, experimenting at the intersection of the analog and digital, was a perfect example of how a digital tool such as AR can be used to create a narrative. Without AR, we would have been restricted to the two-dimensionality of print. Sure, you can add a QR code and take them to a website. And we did, but we kept them in the analog world, holding a physical artefact that they needed to get the full experience. Both layers relied on each other to show the entire story. And learning to swim where these two oceans meet is the craft I want to hone.
Which brings me back to the art of practicing a craft. As Rick Rubin puts it (yes, again, I’m reading his awesome book The Creative Act and so should you),
Step by step.
