Digital Technology and Creativity - Potential Question 1a

Example Question from OCR

"Digital technology turns media consumers into media producers.” In your own experience, how has your creativity developed through using digital technology to complete your coursework productions? (25 Marks - 30 minutes)

Ideas and theories to help you.

"A process needed for problem solving...not a special gift enjoyed by a few but a common ability possessed by most people" (Jones 1993)

"The making of the new and the re arranging of the old" (Bentley 1997)

"Creativity results from the interaction of a system composed of three elements: a culture that contains symbolic rules, a person who brings novelty into the symbolic domain, and a field of experts who recognise and validate the innovation." (Csikszentmihalyi 1996)

"There is no absolute judgement [on creativity] All judgements are comparisons of one thing with another." (Donald Larning)

Themes and Questions

1. Is creativity an internal cognitive function, or is it an external social or cultural phenomenon?

2. Is creativity a pervasive, ubiquitous feature of human activity, or a special faculty, either reserved for particular groups, individuals, or particular domains of activity, in particularly artistic activity?

3. Is creativity an inevitable social good, invariably progressive, harmonious and collaborative; or is it capable of disruption, political critique and dissent, and even anti-social outcomes?

4. What does the notion of creative teaching and learning imply?

Benaji, Burn and Buckingham (2006)

Questions 1a and 1b (2010-2013)

In question 1a you need to write about your work in the Foundation Portfolio and Advanced Portfolio units and you may refer to other media production work you have undertaken.

In question 1b you must write about one of your media productions.

January 2010

1a. Describe how you developed research and planning skills for media production and evaluate how these skills contributed to the creative decision making. Refer to a range of examples in your answer to show how your skills developed over time.

1b. Analyse media representation in one of your coursework productions.

June 2010

1a. Describe the ways in which your production work was informed by research into real media texts and how your ability to use such research for production developed over time.

1b. Analyse one of your coursework productions in relation to genre.

January 2011

1a. Describe how you developed your skills in the use of digital technology for media production and evaluate how these skills have contributed to your creative decision making. Refer to a range of examples in your answer to show how your skills developed over time.

1b. Apply theories of narrative to one of your coursework productions.

June 2011

1a. Explain how far your understanding of the conventions of existing media influenced the way you created your own media products. Refer to a range of examples in your answer to show how your skills developed over time.

1b. Analyse one of your coursework productions in relation to the concept of audience.

January 2012

1a. Describe how your analysis of the conventions of real media texts informed your own creative media practice. Refer to a range of examples in your answer to show how your skills developed over time.

1b. Analyse media representation in one of your coursework productions.

June 2012

1a. Descibe a range of creative decisions that you made in post-production and how these decisions made a difference to the final outcomes. Refer to a range of examples in your answer to show how your skills developed over time.

1b. Explain how meaning is constructed by the use of media language in one of your coursework productions.

January 2013

1a. Explain how your research and planning skills developed over time and contributed to your media production outcomes. Refer to a range of examples in your answer.

1b. Analyse one of your coursework productions in relation to the concept of narrative.

June 2013

1a. explain how your skills in the creative use of digital technology developed over time. Refer to a range of examples in your answer.

1b. Apply the concept of representation to one of your coursework productions.

1a Topics

1. Creativity
2. Digital technology
3. Researching and planning
4. Post production
5. Real media conventions

Postmodern Music Task

Postmodern Music Task

Tyler the Creator

Tyler Gregory Okonma, aka Tyler the Creator is a 24 year old American rapper, songwriter, record producer, musician, graphic designer, music video director and an actor. Tyler rose to his prominence as the leader and co-founder of the alternative hip hop collective Odd Future and has rapped on and produced songs for nearly every Odd Future release. It has also been stated that Tyler creates all of the artwork for the group's releases and also designs all of the groups clothing and other merchandise. After the release of his debut album Goblin in April 2011, he signed a joint venture deal for him and his label Odd Future Records, with RED Distribution and Sony Music Entertainment. His second album Wolf was met with generally positive reviews and debuted at number 3 on the US Billboard 200 selling 90,000 copies in its first week.

Homage:

Tyler the Creator has often been idolised for the creativity and individualism that he brings to the hip hop world. However, in his latest album Cherry Bomb, it is refreshing to see Tyler paying homage to his biggest influence N.E.R.D in his track Deathcamp. With Tyler singing the pitched vocals it is like something we have never seen from him before. In addition, you could also claim that Tyler pays homage to the like of Eminem. The 24 year old has often admitted his admiration to Eminem, claiming that he is his favourite rapper. In Tyler's earlier work, he raps about many controversial subjects such as rape and murder - very similar to his boyhood hero Eminem. Finally Tyler arguably plays homage to the timeless classic 'You Are so Beautiful' by Joe Cocker with his track 'Wolf'. The intro of wolf starts off with the familiar lyrics 'you are' being repeated.

Parody:
With the never-ending controversy surrounding Tyler the Creator, it is inevitable that in some stage within his early career he would be heard mocking other forms of music and the artists that produce it. For example in his early track Yonkers, he raps about wanting to stab Bruno Mars in his 'goddamn esophagus' - as well as saying 'i'll crash that fuckin' airplane that faggot nigga B.o.B is in' as well as 'pick up Stevie Wonder to be a wide receiver'.

Bricolage:
The hip-hop/rap genre has been a huge part of the American culture since the 1970's and still continues to expand today. Tyler has taken certain conventions from this huge genre; as well as as some of his own individual ideas to create the music which he does today.


Simulacron: 
It's undoubtable that Tyler creates this angry, suicidal and hateful adolescent image which has been carefully crafted through the persona that he puts on in his music and interviews. This persona allows him to come up with the controversial things that he says and allows him to remain at the centre of the public eye without being ridiculed; as people know what he's like.


Performance:
The expansion of Tyler's popularity has had a slight knock recently with him being banned from Australia and more recently being denied access to the UK because of his controversial lyrics. As a result of this, the number of live gigs that Tyler had planned has had to be reduced. In addition, Tyler has often be renowned for his extensive connection with his fans, and has recently been arrested in Dallas after encouraging his fans to cause a riot and 'break down the fences' to get into gig. However Tyler has still continued to keep up a consistent level of interesting music videos and has also citied fellow hip-hop artist Childish Gambino as one of the only hip-hop artists who actually cares about making good music videos. Furthermore, the majority of Tyler's music videos involve a performative type of music video. This type of music video allows Tyler to portray his energetic and eccentric character to the audience.  

My Uncool Playlist

Drake - 6 Man (Hip Hop/Rap)

John Lennon - Imagine (Pop)

DJ Zinc - Creeper (Electronic) 

Kanye West - Big Brother (Hip Hop/Rap)

Fetty Wap - Rewind (Hip Hop/Rap)

Circa Waves - Best Years (Alternative)

The Feeling - Sewn (Rock)

Childish Gambino - Ii. Worldstar (Hip Hop/Rap)

The Libertines - Barbarians (Rock)

Section Boyz - Bobby (Hip Hop/Rap)

Outkast - Humble Mumble (Hip Hop/Rap)

Action Bronson - Triple Backflip (Hip Hop/Rap)

Eminem - Mockingbird (Hip Hop/Rap)

J.Cole - Lost Ones (Hip Hop/Rap)

Jay-Z - Who Gon Stop me (Hip Hop/Rap)

Kid Cudi - Pursuit of Happiness (Hip Hop/Rap)

Jamie xx - Girl (Electronic)

Bob Marley - Punky Reggae Party (Reggae)

Tyler the Creator - Radicals (Hip Hop/Rap)

Puff Daddy - I'll be Missing You

How can Django Unchained be viewed as a postmodern film?

Django Essay.word

Django Essay

Django Essay.word

Django Essay

Django Essay.word

Modernism Definition

Modernism refers to the broad movement in Western art, architecture and design which self-consciously rejected the past as a model for the art of the present, and placed an emphasis on formal qualities within artworks and processes and materials

Modernism, which gathered pace from about 1850, proposes new forms of art on the grounds that these are more appropriate to the present time. It is therefore characterised by constant innovation and a rejection of conservative values such as the realistic depiction of the world. This has led to experiments with form and to an emphasis on processes and materials.

Modern art has also been driven by various social and political agendas. These were often utopian, and modernism was in general associated with ideal visions of human life and society and a belief in progress.

Postmodernism Theories and Texts

Postmodernism theories and texts from raybloggs

Criticism of Postmodernism (James Rosenau)

Rosenau (1993) Rosenau identifies seven contradictions in Postmodernism:

 

1. Its anti-theoretical position is essentially a theoretical stand.

 

2. While Postmodernism stresses the irrational, instruments of reason are freely employed to advance its perspective.

3. The Postmodern prescription to focus on the marginal is itself an evaluative emphasis of precisely the sort that it otherwise attacks.

4. Postmodernism stress intertextuality but often treats text in isolation.

5. By adamantly rejecting modern criteria for assessing theory, Postmodernists cannot argue that there are no valid criteria for judgment.

6. Postmodernism criticizes the inconsistency of modernism, but refuses to be held to norms of consistency itself.

7. Postmodernists contradict themselves by relinquishing truth claims in their own writings.

Postmodernism at the V&A

Everything is a Remix Episodes 1-4

Bricolage Definition

Bricolage is a term used in several disciplines, among them the visual arts, to refer to the construction or creation of a work from a diverse range of things that happen to be available, or a work created by such a process. The term is borrowed from the French word bricolage, from the verb bricoler, the core meaning in French being, "fiddle, tinker" and, by extension, "to make creative and resourceful use of whatever materials are at hand (regardless of their original purpose)". In contemporary French the word is the equivalent of the English do it yourself, and is seen on large shed retail outlets throughout France. A person who engages in bricolage is a bricoleur.

Postmodernism Definition 3

"Postmodernism is cultural movement that came after modernism, also it follows our shift from being a industrial society to that of an information society, through globalization of capital. Markers of the postmodern culture include opposing hierarchy, diversifying and recycling culture, questioning scientific reasoning, and embracing paradox. Postmodernism is a term applied to a wide-ranging set of developments in critical theory, philosophy, architecture, art, literature, and culture, which are generally characterized as either emerging from, in reaction to, or superseding modernism"


"Postmodern style is often characterized by eclecticism, digression, collage, pastiche, and irony. Postmodern theorists see postmodern art as a conflation or reversal of well-established modernist systems, such as the roles of artist versus audience, seriousness versus play, or high culture versus kitsch."

Postmodernism Definition 2

Label given to Cultural forms since the 1960s that display the following qualities:


Self reflexivity: this involves the seemingly paradoxical combination of self-consciousness and some sort of historical grounding

Irony: Post modernism uses irony as a primary mode of expression, but it also abuses, installs, and subverts conventions and usually negotiates contradictions through irony

Boundaries: Post modernism challenges the boundaries between genres, art forms, theory and art, high art and the mass media

Constructs: Post modernism is actively involved in examining the constructs society creates including, but not exclusively, the following:

• Nation: Post modernism examines the construction of nations/nationality and questions such constructions
• Gender: Post modernism reassesses gender, the construction of gender, and the role of gender in cultural formations
• Race: Post modernism questions and reassesses constructs of race
• Sexuality: Post modernism questions and reassesses constructs of sexuality

Postmodernism Definition

Postmodern texts deliberately play with meaning. They are designed to be read by a literate (i.e experienced in other texts) audience and will exhibit many traits of intertextuality. Many texts openly acknowledge that, given the diversity in today's audiences, they can have no preferred reading (check out your Reception Theory) and present a whole range of oppositional readings simultaneously. 
Many of the sophisticated visual puns used by advertising can be described as postmodern. 
Postmodern texts will employ a range of referential techniques such as bricolage, and will use images and ideas in a way that is entirely alien to their original function (e.g. using footage of Nazi war crimes in a pop video).

Moe Explains Post-Modemism

Postmodemism

John Fiske (1987) - believes that a representation of a car chase only makes sense in relation to all the others we have seen. For example, people will often say “its something like off a film”. Therefore we make sense of the world around us through the experiences that we have. 

Levi-Strauss developed the concept of bricolage. He saw any text as constructed out of socially recognisable ‘debris’ from other texts. He saw that writers construct texts from other texts by a process of:

• Addition 
• Deletion
• Substitution 
• Transposition 

Example: Inglorious Bastards

• A film based in Nazi Germany, where a bunch of Jews go around killing Nazi’s. 

Quentin Tarantino (director) deleted the battles within the film and added in different concepts. He substituted battlefields for cinema/bar interiors. 

Gerard Genette developed the term transsexuality and developed five sub-groups, but only 4 apply to film.

• Intertextuality - quotation, plagiarism, allusion
• Architextuality - designation of the text as part of a genre by the writer or the audience
• Metatextuality - explicit or implicit critical commentary of one text on another
• Hypotextuality - the relation between a text and a preceding hypertext - a text or genre on which it is based but which it transforms, modifies, elaborates or extends (including parody, spoof, sequel, translation)

Postmodernist Theory

Baudrillard developed the idea of simulation and simulacra 

Simulation: the process in which representations of things come to replace the things being represented… the representations become more important than the “real thing”. 

4 orders of simulation:

• Sings thought of as reflecting reality: representing @objective truth;
• Sings mask reality: reinforces notion of reality;
• Sings mask the absence of reality; e.g. DisneyWorld, Watergate, LA life; jogging, psychotherapy, organic food
• Signs become… 

Simulacra - they have no relation to reality; they simulate a spinal tap, Cheers bars, new urbanism, Starbucks, the Gulf War, was a video game, 9/11 has become the coverage, not the event. 

Hyperreality - a condition in which “reality” has been replaced by simulacraargues that today we only experience prepared realities - edition war footage, meaningless acts of terrorism, the Jeremy Kyle Show.

The very definition of the real has become: that of which it is possible to give an equivalent reproduction: that is the hyperreal… which is entirely in simulation. Illusion is no longer possible, because the real is no longer possible.