July 21 2021 Session Plan

Started with describing what the goal was for the day…

Explained that this choice was the start of an 8 week process that this crew was going to undertake to make a giant sculpture for the Grumpus Exhibition. one of 8 sculptures made by similar crews, in other schools, groups of uni students and community groups, that will need to fill the huge SLQ gallery (4x the floor space of their class room and twice the Height)

the process into the future could look like:

next week building a miniature ( maquette) that creatively captures the essence of the key features, themes, atmosphere, feelings and or aesthetic of the idea we'll choose today

the week after work out how to practically build this at full scale making sure it is safe, scalable, module (for moving) and easy to install.

After this design the components

After this come and see some of the component parts being cut out at the Edge and start build the structure

After this build build build

Giant cardboard sculptures may be hard to imagine, so we've got a Pinterest of inspo for you, from past SLQ Programs and from other creatives!

https://www.pinterest.com.au/Thebadlament/grumpus/

these are great examples of the dynamic 3d forms that can be created out of cardboard

Seeing how the target audience for this exhibition is children young people and the young at heart, we need to think about how this audience likes to play with interactive art works. This audience is totally different to the ones that normally attend high art exhibition spaces.

One of the things that drives childrens engagement with interactive works is their cognitive development. Kids brains love new experiences and working out how things work. Also as you get older theres something inherently enjoyable for adults about interacting with things like this - especially in a gallery context.

If we have a bit of info about the types of interactions kids will enjoy we'll be able to work this into our design. This is what our homework will be about.

Without looking at any documentation, each of the five individual sub-groups was asked to illustrate and label (on some butchers paper) what the key features of their concept that they had developed 3 weeks ago before the holidays. On top of this they were asked to extrapolate on why these features were important.

Each of the groups presented this to the wider group and everyone in the room was encouraged to ask questions (answers to the questions documented too).

Part 2 above resulted in very concrete (literal) ideas about how the concept they had developed, and the original thing from the well, could be represented in cardboard being presented. These ideas jumped to the point of suggesting ways that the concepts could use cardboard and lights to represent an idea.

In this 3rd part of the session we asked each of the groups to set aside the concrete ideas and discuss/ document what the key themes, atmosphere, feelings in the scenarios they have developed.

After this the groups again shared this and people were encouraged to ask questions.

We then entered into a series of decision making activities. Before we explained how different collaborative decision making (truely collaborative descision making) to how most decisions are made. We discussed how in most cases, including the arts, decisions are generally made hierarchically. Ususally people choose a person (leader) and decide to support their vision. In the case of a collaborative decision we'll hopefully have opprtunities to contribute throughout the process. The key to making this work is to, at some point, set aside our ego's (or need to gain approval from our peers for how smart our ideas are) and advocate for concepts on the potential they can unlock for the whole group.

We went round the circle (time limited 30Sec) with each person saying why they thought their group's concept held potential - both concrete ideas in part 2 and the conceptual in part 3.

People then had an oppportunity to go around and have a quiet look at the other groups' ideas.

After this we again went around the room and individuals talked about the idea that resonated (made their brain vibrate) the most and why. They could not vote / advocate for the idea they were involved in developing.

A scribe captured the votes (i had intended for them to minute their reasons but probably didn't make this clear. maybe in a group this big you need 2 scribes)

as a last balance and check, reps from each group went outside to review the result of the vote. We explained that the voting was like direct democracy and this conference was like representative democracy.

And then we discussed the following:

1. Whether we were confident that result of the vote provide us with a decision that was consistent with our goal for the days activity - the most creative potential for creating a Dynamic and interactive sculpture that connects to the rest of the project and draws its influence from the well.
2. were we confident that we can take the concrete and thematic/atomoshere/feeling/aesthetics concepts within this idea into a giant sculpture over the next 8 weeks.
3. we also analysed what the key potentials were in the runner up ideas - the gamification inherent in the 'Floor is Lava' concept - the bright, colourful movement of “light tunnel” - the world building potential of the “Pirate ship tornado” concept.

after this discussion reps endorsed the chosen concept unanimously

Reps then reported what we discussed and the final endorsement of the concept.

homework for next week.

For homework, students were asked look at one or 2 of the links below and be prepaired to report back to the group next week about what you've learnt or any ideas its given you. Half a dozen students committed to doing this.

https://parenting.firstcry.com/articles/20-fun-and-interactive-learning-activities-for-toddlers/?ref=interlink

https://www.boredpanda.com/interactive-street-art/?utm_source=duckduckgo&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=organic

https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1018320.pdf

https://www.funderstanding.com/theory/child-development/early-childhood-development-and-kids-art-activities/

https://www.funderstanding.com/theory/constructivism/

https://www.funderstanding.com/educators/observational-learning/

https://teens.drugabuse.gov/blog/post/whats-connection-between-art-and-brain-development

http://ematusov.soe.udel.edu/final.paper.pub/_pwfsfp/0000004a.htm

https://raisingchildren.net.au/toddlers/play-learning/play-toddler-development/thinking-play-toddlers

https://penfieldbuildingblocks.org/play/promoting-cognitive-development-through-play/

https://www.canr.msu.edu/news/cognitive_development_and_sensory_play

https://theconversation.com/writing-and-reading-starts-with-childrens-hands-on-play-125182