Daily Photoshop Thing!

Ta-daaah. A development of that original space-shot; yes, I've reused the ship out of laziness. I will be working more on this, and you may see the completed version in a week or so. It needs alot more work before I'll be happy with it, but I don't have the time right now.

Hopenhagen

You may well have noticed the little button to the left regarding "Hopenhagen." With our support, Hopenhagen looks to encourage our world leaders to change our outlook on climate change, and turn Copenhagen into Hopenhagen. Click on over there and see what you can do to help; you don't have to be a long-haired hippy spending a week using no electricity and no fuel to make a difference.

Drama: Forced Entertainment

In my first few weeks at college, during 1 out of 3 of my drama lessons, we've been working on the first of two modern practitioners who we'll be performing in the style of for our final piece this year; Forced Entertainment (our other option is Kneehigh, who I'll cover like this in a few months once we've studied them a little). Some of you may know a little about Forced Ent.This post is for you people. Those who don't, I'm afraid this is not going to make a whole lot of sense, as it's my personal reaction.

That reaction can be summarised with a few words: Good God they frustrate me! That really gets across my feelings pretty well, but doesn't make much of a blog post, which is obviously what you're here for. What might make it a little more interesting would be my justification for my rage at this bloody theatre group. Here goes.

First of all, Forced Entertainment's intention to anger, perplex, annoy and enrage the audience - which admittedly has worked well on me - takes the concept of theatre and completely flips it on its head, for no clear reason other than sheer bloody-minded self-indulgence. Why do we produce theatre? We produce theatre so as to entertain an audience, be that through vulgar humour, thrilling action, moving emotion, or whatever floats your particular target audience's boat. Why is this? Because that sells tickets. Asking why beyond that is pretentious; purpose cannot necessarily be clearly defined in most cases, but this particular truth is self-evident. The purpose - nay, the very definition of a theatre performance is a show that amuses and entertains an audience, in such a way that they want to see more, and feel like the money that they have paid for tickets is well-spent.

It is not to make the actors feel like they have probed some new boundaries, or done something clever. That is just being selfish; nothing more or less. It is smart-arsey in the extreme. "Hey, look, theatre critics! We've got a woman in a gorilla suit who never talks except to tell the audience that she hopes they're thinking about fucking her!" Well bloody done; genius, I'm sure. No doubt you're sat thinking that a nymphomaniac gorilla could actually be quite amusing. It is, until she goes into detail about exactly how you might fuck her. At that point it's just uncomfortable and embarassing.

I think you probably get the gist of my complaints. It is all very well to say that Forced Entertainment produces challenging and exciting theatre that really pushes the boundaries. Hell, I won't deny it; I spent 5 or 6 weeks thinking that their shows sounded challenging and exciting. But after watching first 25 minutes of Speak Bitterness, and then an hour and a half of Bloody Mess (including the nymphorilla), and enjoying maybe 10 minutes out of the lot, I lost that excitement and it was replaced with a degree of contempt and of anger at mutilating the art that I love beyond recognition.

Daily Photoshop Thing

My second piece of photoshop art, produced again in around an hour. I might've spent a little longer on this one - there're around 8-9 layers to produce the final effect. It could use some touching up, but I'm just gonna move on to the next piece tomorrow.

Psychological Ponderings

Musing t’other day, as I often do, it occurred to me that thought, and the processing thereof, is entirely subjective. By this, I mean that in the day-to-day course of life, few, if any, human beings will stop to consider if others actually think in the same way. I’ll take an example, which, egotistically, will be me. I think in terms of spoken words; inside my head (here’s where I sound schizophrenic) I have a mental voice, with which I “speak” to myself on whatever I happen to think about. I can have several of these internal monologues going on at once – in fact, I’m thinking about writing this post and the wording I’m going to use (let’s say with my first inner voice) and at the same time considering (with my second inner voice) the way in which I’m thinking.

If it sounds like I’m insane, I’ve made my point well – my thought process is completely alien to other, perfectly sane human beings. Making the assumption that I’m sane myself (a pretty big assumption, in fairness), this demonstrates that humanity’s process of thought is inconsistent and subjective.

Now, let’s make a little jump and try to turn this worthless musing into something useful. Let’s assume that there are categories of thought; verbal, textual, visual, or abstract. At this point you may be thinking, “We already have this, it’s the bullsh*t they ask us about learner types.” I agree. Learner types are bullsh*t. But I am of the opinion that this is not because of the theory behind them, but because of the application. Again, for clarity, TO THE EXAMPLEMOBILE.

Given a generic quiz a few weeks ago upon my entry into Stratford-upon-Avon college to determine my “learner type,” I was asked such relevant and valuable questions as “When trying to memorise something, do you A: Write it down and read it over and over, B: Say it to yourself over and over, C: Try to associate it with movement or touching things.” Here’s the problem, of course (obvious to anyone taking psychology); by asking these questions, and suggesting answers, we alter the way people think about their own thoughts; the act of observation alters the results.

My suggestion is that we use the concept of thought types, but in a less categorical type of way. Rather than giving three multiple choice answers which all obviously pigeonhole the tested subject into one or another “learner type,” we ask more abstract questions intended to reveal the subject’s patterns of thought; or, alternatively, we put it plainly, and straight-up ask how you think. Christ, it’s got to be better than the condescending bollocks learner types shoves down our throats.