Why You Should Take STEPS Classes
So, I finished my 2nd STEPS class today. So, after 6 hours of illustrator training you can make something like this: Pretty good, I know. I will sign autographs after class.
xkcd: A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language.
http://xkcd.com/ “Warning: this comic occasionally contains strong language (which may be unsuitable for children), unusual humor (which may be unsuitable for adults), and advanced mathematics (which may be unsuitable for liberal-arts majors).”
Macro & Micro
I know in class we sort of focused on how macro and micro were different. We used the example for macro that an author doesn’t really write a novel, but that the novel is essentially produced by the author’s position in society and outside factors like economics. And micro is focusing on the individual versus…
Through the Looking Glass
I like the example Jeff has given about the coke bottle that got dropped on the primitive culture. I was told a couple years ago about a book about an anthropologist who is researching a society. That society had a lot of very strange objects and methodology. As it turns out, the anthropologist is actually…
Lecture Liveblog: 10-2-07
Theory Axis of Time [Bardzell’s Scientific Visualization Series] “Dumb as Rocks” -> Stress Level Increases -> Apex Point -> Stress Level Decreases -> Ability to Use Theory Increases Macrotheories Ex.: Marxism Massive phenomena (economy, ideology, classes, etc) that are collectively associated with culture. “top down” view or explanation Microtheories Ex.: Goffman Look at individual people.…
Story as process
http://www.ku6.com/show/U5S7Zu6RfbjoNFMd.html It is a famous heroes and swordman novel named Tian Long Ba Bu. It is rooted from a true history in China , and it is a period of time when invaded by other races and there are wars years after years. By recording several part of the game, The game movie simply told us a story-a…
Video Game Culture
I guess the machinima and virtual fashion are both parts of the Video Game Culture—I don’t actually know if this term exists or not… I just want to share some own experiences related to the cultural phase of video game. 7 years ago, my friends and I started to play the famous Star Craft. After…
What makes a primitive a primitive?
There are two ways that undertanding and working with things becomes more challenging: it’s too fundamental or it’s too complex. This idea is captured in Jeff’s 3 paradigms of art creation in multimedia tools: from scratch, primitives, and components. From scratch is so fundamental it’s hard. From components is so complex it’s hard. But primitives…
Structural Analysis (Sort Of and Not Really)
Spending a week in a place where I do not know a word of the language (even if it it doesn’t really matter from a tourist perspective) and many hours in flight with bad (Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer bad) movies as entertainment gave me some motivation and time to think about phenomenology…
devil’s advocate
It seems to me that Jeff’s presentation really caused people to questions some ideas… It was a great presentation and had many great insights into a subset of our culture. I don’t know nearly as much about these subjects as Jeff and most of you. I am constantly humbled by the theories and multidisciplinary concepts…
Interaction Culture 