1. A policeman attacks a man in a wheelchair, only to discover too late that the wheelchair is full of weapons.
2. Unbeknownst to Amanda, the neighborhood kids weren't going on a camping
trip, but to a government base to be brainwashed.
3. Alan decided to travel to the land of the lollipops, which was under attack from the gumdrop people.
4. After Peter put on a tuxedo, he helped Harry use hammers to
destroy the army of Nailers headed their way.
5. Luckily, Sam's neighbor, Paul, knew how to teleport, and he helped Sam move the body to the roof.
Color Code
Emma-Red
Steven-Blue
Sariah- Orange!
Max-I’ll do green
Hailey- purple
Hey guys! I'm still trying to get everyone's stories sorted out, so if you haven't emailed me all of the pictures you've drawn/received, please do so and I’ll try and get everyone’s stories back to them in the right order. Also, please include captions. Thanks! (My email is emma@tinypineapple.com)
Artist Statement
****(Hey, I don’t know if I’m doing this right, but feel free to edit or omit or change whatever you feel necessary)**** *that looks great!
When mixing a creative process with collaboration, it’s hard to keep everyone on the same page. People exercise their own idea of creativity and that often creates an infinite amount of directions for a story to expound. However, maybe the best ideas and creations come from such chaos. Some of the most inspired and meaningful work can spring out of a tangent or a divergence from the original thought. When a perfectly planned out story breaks away from its path, one must act and think in a different way. It forces the creator to be flexible; to come at it from a new perspective. There is a certain freedom taken away, but at the same time, it opens up a new door. Then one must take into consideration the effect a sudden change has on the overall tone and meaning of the story. Some of the round robin stories took a drastic turn of events; even to the point where the plot and characters are unrecognizable. This forces the reader and the creator to evolve along with the story and to seek out the new ideas and to find the connection to the previous chapter. For example, in my round robin story, the second and third parts are completely different. The former, about a bunch of kids headed off to a brainwash facility, and the latter, about a corpse staring deep into the eyes of a new character. This new twist in the story was a surprise, and changes the outcome of the entire plot. It went down a completely different road. But who is to say which is better? Neither are above the other. What another person offers to the table must be and is a valid part of my, no, our story. And going even further than that, the communication between people as collaboration continues is the way our society has run since the beginning of time. People take a story, they change it, they make it their own, and then it happens over and over again. It is a continuous, never-ceasing process that makes our world what it is, and even defines our history and our culture. As DJ Spooky puts it, “Evolving different behavioral models to respond to changing environments becomes a site where complexity meets empathy, a locus where we learnt that giving information and receiving it is just part of what it means to live on this or probably any planet in the universe.” This round robin activity mimics the way we interact with one another. It is a way we pass along folktales and family history and even just childhood fantasies. It is a way of living on and leaving behind a legacy on Earth, but allowing it to change and evolve as things always do.
DJ Spooky’s essay about the Exquisite Corpse can easily be incorporated in our experience in the Round Robin activity. DJ Spooky compares the Exquisite Corpse to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Collaboration, which includes using old ideas, mixing them, changing them, and adding to them, can make something as inanimate as a twenty word story come to life. Seeing the way five different minds can bring a story to life is really interesting to see. The short story Twitter account also reflected, and even inspired the Red Robin exercise. At first, we all had a hard time conveying meaning through limited words. However, by browsing the the Twitter account, we all had the realization that a lot can be said in limited words. Words are powerful, and sometimes limiting them causes us to use creative ways to use them in a more meaningful, powerful way. Limitations on creativity demand creativity in order to overcome those limitations. By limiting what we could say in the Red Robin exercise, we learned the importance of being careful with our word choices.
To me, this whole process reminded me of the novel Little Women, where the main characters play a very similar game. They start telling a story, and after a while, someone interrupts the story and takes it in a new direction. This story starts out with a man swimming into a castle, meeting a tall, white apparition, being offered a snuff box, and dancing a jig, while also including mermaids and geese girls. The story gets progressively more ridiculous and hilarious. In fact, coming up with ridiculous story elements is what makes the game entertaining. This project was very similar in that regard. Each person contributed their own beginning and the next person followed up with whatever inspiration they happened to draw upon. Not only is it fun, as it was for the characters in Little Women, but it forces you to be creative and expand upon the work of those who came before. In this case, limitation allowed for more creativity. When you are limited by word count, you have to tell your story in a concise manner. Also, the moment that a story is sent out, the writer no longer had control over it, and all they could do was watch and see what others did with their work. It was interesting to see what people drew and where the story would end up. It showed the power of collaboration in a silly, yet strong way. Creativity is much more useful when ideas are able to bounce of the minds of others because it shows the potential a story.
Each story adaptation or progression was inspired by different elements of the previous work. Each time I was faced with a different story I looked for different aspects of the piece to draw from in order to create my new piece of the story. Sometimes I chose to continue the story by being inspired by the character or the situation and imagining what would come next in this fictional world. Othertimes I was inspired by the form and the style of the illustration and I based the next section of the story on that alone. For example, I was given a story and the illustration depicted cars on a road moving up and to the right of the page. I drew inspiration from those lines and transformed them into a tractor beam from an alien spaceship. The cars I changed into two brothers who were being sucked into the ship, then my story followed that illustration. I also thought about the choice of medium to do the illustrations. Sometimes I used ink on paper, other times I used digital media, or mixed media. These were helpful find different ways to continue the story and provide a different mood in the narrative. While continuing the story of individuals in a lollipop land I chose to use a computer to illustrate the story. The bright colors and the solid edges harmonized with the environment and the feeling that existed in the plot. In the end, the thread of story lines shows how each contributor was inspired by the previous chapter, and what effect that has on a collaborative story.
No comments:
Post a Comment