Module 4: What's the big idea?

Abstracting:

Sometime our eyes can present the biggest challenge to resolving a problem, or seeing alternative options. The principle of abstracting is about reducing what we see to the most basic elements. The process involves examining and reexamining what is essential.
After arriving at the least common denominator, you are forced to examine the essence of the problem, the art, the writing.


Analogizing:

There are scientific laws that govern everything we do. This tools allows us to examine the rules that govern one system, and apply it to another. In the case of Hellen Keller, it was used as a tool to gain insight into the things that she could not know about. Due to her blindness she could never perceive color the way that someone with sight would. However, she was familiar with the differences between the texture of surfaces, which served as a analogy for color. However, when you consider that color is bi-product of an object's ability to reflect light. One could argue that her analogy is more honest than our truth.

Module 4: Zoom-In

I feel like a slave to time as I go through my day. For this module I wanted to take some pictures that reflected the impact this little device has on my day.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/54046258@N07/sets/72157625220900806/

What's the big idea - Week 3

Recognizing patterns in art, language, and in everyday activities  requires multi-sensory observation. However, it is something that with practice becomes easier to apply in your life. I have always used patterns to assist in my learning comprehension. This has largely due to the amount of time that it requires for me to process information. Recognizing patterns helps me to fill-in the blanks. The reading for this week also expanded my view of patterns, for instance using patterns to interpret  and create music. I found this very interesting because as a music enthusiast I can often predict the direction of music that I never heard before. After reading the assigned reading I associated that ability to pickup on the musical pattern.

As an example of musical collaboration based on rhythmic patterns of music, the book used examples from the musical tradition of West Africa, and its influence on American Jazz. However, I would like to extend that influence to Hip-Hop music. As a lifelong fan of rap music, I think that it has received a bad rap (non pun intended). Largely, because outsiders don't understand that it's true beauty lies in the process of its creation and not the creation in and of itself. In its purest form it is rhythmic, spontaneous, witty, and creative, but that doesn't fully translate to a record or top 40 hit as well as it communicated in a circle on a street corner, in a bathroom of a skating rink, or subway tunnel. When people who don't know each other can come together, and weave together poetry, spontaneous anecdotes, and their own unique style of delivery it is something special, and at the root of it all is the ability to recognize, combine, and form patterns.

Zoom In: Real World Hidden Pictures

Here is my picture in its everyday context:

But wait, what is this I see:

See the resemblance?