This week was focused on researching techniques without a focus on games, keeping our focus on general research rather than the limited version we are used to.
Breakdowns
The breakdown technique is a systematic method for approaching research. It goes as follows…
- Write down your four themes
- Break down the different systems related to the topics chosen. The system includes all of the processes and related tasks associated with the idea/concept.
- Example system done by Xane on Moustaches:
- grooming
- trimming
- shaping
- history (how they came to be)
- culture (hipsters, etc)
- bacteria
- Apply this system to one of your themes
I paired up with Camilla, and we enacted this technique on our potential focuses for our first presentation.
Moustache (Ex. Xane)
- Grooming
- Trimming
- Bacteria (if you don’t wash it)
- History
- culture
Sharks (Camilla)
- Poaching – shark meat trade – asian medicinal use of fins, teeth for souvenirs; consumerism pushing species to extinction.
- False Danger – people perceive sharks as dangerous, but minimal deaths per year
- Evolution – 450mil years old (twice the age of dinosaurs), specialisation of each individual species due to survival of the fittest.
True Crime (Me)
- Parasocial Relationships
- Sensationalism – Speculation
- Emotional Desensitisation
- Obsession – Murderino
- Hybristophillia – Bonnie and Clyde Syndrome
- Romanisation of crime
We then had to enact a theme dive on our previous breakdown topics to further push our research. This helped to really get into the finer nitty-gritty details of our potential presentation idea and gave us a lot of subjects to potentially cover during them.
The theme dive prompt on board goes into various subjects that you could relate to your chosen word. Here is an image with the theme dive subjects. We have to fill these out in comparison to our chosen subject to develop it further.
This is my theme dive. I continued with True Crime, and I am very pleased with how it came out. I covered a lot of sections to do with True Crime, even though it was a very broad topic, I feel like it hit all the right spots for my presentation.
Blackout Poetry
Blackout poetry is a type of poetry where you create a new poem from existing words by ‘blacking out’ or crossing out words. This should, in turn, make a poem.
Adam gave out UN statement sheets (UN SDGS) to choose from. I wasn’t in, so I found one after the session.
Booming - A Poem
A successful transition
efficiency, consideration
active engagement
mental agreements
what needs to change?
consumption
simple changes
big impact
satisfy the material needs of people
water faster than nature
its in the business
innovation and design
exploit
This technique is quite abstract, but I could benefit from taking this perspective of just picking and choosing randomly to gain new, fresh ideas for my project.