Monday 22 November 2010

Squarepusher, scott mcCloud and educational innovation/creativity

Scott mccloud is an american comic book writer. I only know his books on the history and culture of comics, which are innovatively written as comic books. In the second of these, using only a few frames he describes the journey a someone makes when developing within a field. I'm making a very short summary here. We become skilled enough to become part of the group, this takes several steps,then we become highly skilled, equivalent to a master crafts man, but are only really copying what has come before. Then we become aware of the practice we are in and see areas for innovation, then we become aware of ourselves in the group. Finally we become aware of the group as if standing outside looking in. this is the final level, which many do not reach. This simplified version does do the comic panels justice, however, scott captures the journey from newbie to accomplish artist, from student to phd, from new academic to high level research, and from student lecturer to innovative lecturer.
It has all the levels of Biggs' SOLO taxonomy and the practice community of wenger. in an interview with bbc culture show the highly innovative bassplyer Squarepusher, talks about the way he approaches the instrument. to sum t is up it somewhere between knowing everything about the instrument and how it is played now, and rejecting all these in order to play it as if you have never hear or see it before 'like a monkey' as he puts it. This sessms a very obscure reference, but in particular approach to innovation we need space to play, a high level of skill and knowledge of the field, but also the confidence to reject established practice. I present these as interesting ways of thinki about innovation. They have connection and links with academic research in this areabut also jump out at me as a different way of thinking about it.

Posted via email from abstractrabbit's posterous

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