Conclusion

I really could have written a lot more, and i regret not taking the chance to have done so, although admittedly HTI has been a somewhat ambiguous journey for me this past year.

The importance it has is still somewhat unknown to me, perhaps something that would be of higher priority for future generations.

Understanding that this year was more "freestyle", and with the phrase "HTI the game" in mind, it has been a very confusing process. I suppose it's due to Singaporean students being all too used to being spoonfed everything by the educators, literally having knowledge stamped onto their minds rather than seeking it out and cultivating a love for the learning process.

Aspiring to be in an industry that requires a thirst for information, this is definitely not what I want to lose out on, as being a creative vegetable isnt very creative at all.

In my opinion, the sudden surge of free will was all too abrupt, leaving most of us lost and without vision. I know that the intention of HTI is to ween people off the habit of following instructions to a tee without thought, but the process would have to be a more delicate transition.

All in all though, despite me being a terrible HTI student, I can feel a change of heart at a personal level, and can safely say that the seed of the love of learning has sprouted within. (sounds gross i know but i like my metaphors)

I look forward to facing the world beyond the education system, and going out on my own to feet to carry on the journey to know more.

Aliens and singularities

For the sake of not having to split up the school of thought in my head, I'll be writing about Andys and TJs topic together, as I felt there was something to all of it.

I don't know if it counts, but I find that these two topics are somewhat related to my topic in their own way, and it stuck more so than the others. For example, Andys exercise on how we interpret foreign looking beings added to my theory of how aliens may just be daemons with a bad case of mistaken identity.

TJs topic of Singularities didn't directly link to Aliens at first, until I thought about Aliens possibly being the same as daemons, and how they affected our way of thinking, which affected the actions of man throughout the course of history, which has ultimately affected the outcome of modern society.

Which leads me back to my previous older point, regardless of whether they truly existed back then, daemons found a spot in the conscience of every living man, thus shaping the way men behaved in an age of superstition, which led to the age of science that we live in now.

And even now, we still have "mysterious" observers of a somewhat omniscient position creeping in the minds of modern man.

If that isnt a singularity, I don't know what is.

Semester 2: Daemons, or Demons, or Aliens?(overdue)

So this is a late reflection on my part, I did have this all one of many notepad files which i had typed without posting(sorry Mr.Lau!), but it was rather incomplete anyway, so here it is.

Daemonic Realities

So this was my seminar topic, and having seen every other topic, it's enlightening to realize that my topic pretty much relates to everything one way or another, albeit in a very "what if" manner, making it hard to not sound like you're some paranoid git mumbling on about conspiracies.

But thats exactly a point I'm making; everything in my readings, although based on accounts from old days, and mythology, as well as history, links up to a gigantic possibility.

What am I talking about? Well, specifically, daemons. What are Daemons? If you don't know then you obviously didn't pay attention. Too bad.

....Just joking, i'll briefly go over it again. Well, I addressed the realities in which daemons exist, and how they manifested themselves to eventually impact our mindset and mentality for generations to come. With that being said, precisely because they created the basis for our mono-theistic tendencies( basically it led to Christian logic of black and white truths which outcast daemons), it paved the road which led to scientific thinking, which is what we all use today!

So whether they did, or do exist, there is something to be said about how we approach nature. Whether we believe in them or not, the details of how daemons exist either within their own communities or in harmony with people hold in it a metaphorical wisdom which is not too different from those mentioned in the Bible(they just weren't as straight forward as the bible).

And the "urban myths and legends" of the modern world are no less mysterious than the fables of daemons. So like I said, Aliens could very well be daemons presenting themselves in a form more suited to our times. Or perhaps we are merely observing what we wish to believe. The very notion of extra terrestrial lifeforms came from strange sightings, which originally lacked any specific details of the stereotyped aliens that we have engraved in our minds.

So call it ignorance, or call it misinformed, or even simply being brainwashed by television. My point is that there has always been the presence of "other" beings throughout the history of mankind, who in some way or another inspire or influence the way humans develop our way of living. Imagine what would happen in the future, who knows? Perhaps 2012 may have something to do with it!

A Game That Creates.(part 2)

So. Improvements or should i say slight addition of rules to Round Robin that spoke of earlier. We decided that to bring us all together in a more engaging fashion, we would attempt to link each others stories to our own story in an attempt to make them appear to be from the same imaginary world or universe.

Be warned, mildly adult language is used. (Just to say I warned you, but we were a little insane.)

Quality is not the best so i will attempt to summarise the universe we created.

There is a girl called Flower, probably the most recurring character so far. She has a brother, called Tower (yes folks, it rhymes). As it would seem, Flower chanced upon their long lost father who is a drunk homeless naked man, and in her joy...... she slept next to him..... naked...... in the underground pass...........

OKAY MOVING ON.

A gigantic midget happens to produce twice the mass of food he ate whenever he clears his bowels. His mother is angry because the house became full of his faeces. Along comes our heroine Flower who comes to this house full of faeces, and says "I'm Hungry!", before collapsing on the ground.

Two unlinked stories follow (we had no idea how to link these im afraid).

1.A sword by the name of excalibur that was so heavy that nobody could seem to lift it. one day an old lady discovers it and tried to take it. She howls a loud warcry, and her muscles bulge into the size of a giant, but she fails to lift excalibur. And so the legend continues.....

2.An obese lady goes shopping with two big baskets, who fell down badly. She hurt her head so badly she went for plastic surgery.

After Surgery she is too skinny to lift her two big baskets. So she gets the nurse to help her carry them, who in turn falls down badly too, and also goes for plastic surgery........

Stay tuned for an ending to this tragic tale......

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So like I mentioned earlier, we happened to lose ourselves in the process and ended up with completely senseless yet fun stories. The process is actually mor challenging now, and the stories dont need to make sense at all.

Conclusively the modification allowed us to relate to each story somewhat better since they were from a cohesive universe.

Operation Round Robin Universe is a success!

DGDD 01

Jason Hwang

Ka Sing

Yu Xuan

Yen Hsien

And Daryl

A Game That Creates.(part 1)

So For the HTI module we were made to play a game in groups of 5. Each person with a piece of paper and pencil were to write a single sentence that would be the start of the story, followed by passing it to the next person, and that person would add a sentence to that introduction, and the process repeats itself, eventually ending on a decided limit of turns.

The formula for this process is also known as Round Robin, which could be applied to anything that involves a group of people that take turns.

So upon arriving late to the class (I knocked the batteries out of my alarm in my sleep), within moments i found myself having to write up something interesting on other peoples pieces of paper.

Least to say it yielded extremely strange results due to the varied personalities that were present. It was refreshingly fun despite the slight awkwardness now and then from facing a different plot twist during each new turn.

The game can range from a quick and fast way to churn out ideas or a long process that can allow unfamiliar acquaintances to get to know each other through the game.

The positive outcomes could be multiple stories for a project, creating or improving friendships, and most obviously an alternative to killing time (just kidding...).

So a quickly and badly drawn example of what the process of round robin is like.....

So moving on, I actually see this simple game as a ruleset that has limitless applications where creativity and social improvements apply.

I will be posting pictures of the outcomes from this exercise soon

Eternal spitshine of the insane mind

I shifted this over from my older blog, and put it here for convenience sake.

VS

So we did this exercise in class today, kinda felt similar to meditation to me. So with each breath, i exhaled the bad and inhaled the good.

Then came the part where we try to visualise a figure of inspiration. People i knew in real life started coming to mind, then came fictatious characters and mascots of inspiration.

Lo and behold, before me stood two figures, or things i should say.

Mickey Mouse, and the viewcube from maya.

So the cube started off with hinting that i urgently needed to do the assignment due today. Mickey told him to back off, and that i could easily finish it on time, and proceeded to ask me how my day was going so far.

I didnt answer, cause I thought to myself,

"I'm in a classroom meditating, and mickey mouse is talking to me."

"Am I insane?"

Before i could get into anything, the exercise was over. Oh well.

Its a mad, mad world.

HTI: Semiotics and Symbolism Part 1

These are just some examples that I felt represented the

ambiguity of Structuralism and Semiotics.

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1.They got exactly what they wished for, but only in the literal sense of the words.

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2.What do birthdays truly signify?

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3.How do symbols mean different things to different people?
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1. Structuralism

A form of systematic and 'structured' thinking, structuralism is a certain frame of mind that people use to approach a subject or topic with.

From my understanding, Structuralism is exactly as the word of origin represents; Structured thinking, the study of each systems structure in both literary and scientific theory.

It started from a movement originating in the study of linguistics by Ferdinand De Saussure. Eventually finding itself being applied to more than literature. Anthropology, Sociology, Literary theory and criticism, and a few other areas of studies.

From these studies, Structuralists formed a few common beliefs with regards to 'intellectual trends'. Firstly, the structure determines the position of each element that form a whole. Secondly, every system has a structure. Thirdly, structuralists mostly study the 'structural' laws of the elements coexistence with one another. Lastly, the structures are the essence and truth of what lies behind the meaning of a system.

Currently, the extent to which Structuralism can go is not so significant for me, but rather its essence of mindset is almost tailor-made for how games are made.

Firstly Games nowadays have different genres and sub-categories, each which can be said to be a system of a game. By structuralist thinking, each game genre has a certain structure. Which is exactly right, because game genres are defined by the structure of gameplay.

Next, each and every factor or 'element' plays a role that coexists with every other 'element' in order to form a whole system of a game, which we would refer to as game mechanics.

Lastly, although within each genre the games will differ completely in style and taste, it is the genre of gameplay that determines the true intent of the games appearance.

Puzzle games such as Portal or Tetris are completely different in style, but both are structured to make one think logically.

The same can be applied to all games, and this much taken from structuralism helps me to systematically understand games as a whole.

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The rest is continued in the next post...