I originally saw this video on David Malki’s! Wondermark site. It is WONDERFUL.
It depicts an 8-bit video game invasion of New York. It is a clever, creative homage to the very first video game stars while simultaneously showing just how deadly those stars could be.
PIXELS by PATRICK JEAN.
Uploaded by onemoreprod. – Independent web videos.
Every now and then via a friend’s Facebook update or StumbleUpon, I see a remarkably creative product. In this case it was the Hello Kitty Chainsaw.
Admittedly, Hello Kitty isn’t particularly creative on its own and neither are chainsaws. However, there is something about the combination of the two that results in a creative product. Perhaps it is the incongruity and resultant surprise of seeing the two elements together. Hello Kitty products are girly, whimsical, and unabashedly cute. Chainsaws are manly, mechanical and unabashedly dangerous. The incongruity of seeing such disparate elements paired with each other occasions surprise. Some have said that surprise along with novelty is a reasonable definition of creativity.
I just finished reading Pride, Prejudice and Zombies and I know that surprise resulting from incongruity was one of the elements that made the book such an enjoyable read. As background, Pride and Prejudice is romance that takes place in the gentile society of Regency-era England. Pride, Prejudice and Zombies (PPZ) is an adaptation of Pride and Prejudice that holds very closely to the original in both plot and dialog. The main difference is that England in PPZ is beset by a plague that turns people into zombies and causes the afflicted dead to rise from their graves. The other difference is that the girls of the Bennett family are well trained in the martial arts by their father and such arts are well respected by society.
The funniest moments of the book are when the author resolves the contradictions inherent in having well-born women of that era who are also well-trained in the martial arts. For example, Read More
On Facebook, one of my former students posted this article about students submitting YouTube videos as part of their college application materials to Tufts (the videos were allowed as supplemental materials to the required essay).
I thought that the videos highlighted in the article were excellent portrayals of the student, their personality and the skills and interests they could bring to the university.
I know that if I were on the admissions board, these students would be rocketed to the top of the pile.
Also included in the article was a link to an article about a high school dub-off. The videos were put together by AV students in rival high schools. The quality of work was superb for this level. It would serve as a very nice addition to their portfolios when applying to colleges.
The article author brought up some very good points about the pros and cons of this potential trend. And I agreed with the points being made.
However, I think the benefits of allowing these types of products into the application portfolio easily outweigh the downsides of doing so.
The creativity exhibited in these videos is wonderful. Colleges should be encouraging this sort of thinking and the first step towards doing so is to let creative students attend their college. They should also be teaching creativity and designing the classroom environment and assignments in such a way as to facilitate and reward creativity. Not all classes, mind you, but enough that college graduates should have the ability and some practice at being more creative after attending college than they were when they entered college.
I support the idea of teaching and fostering creativity at all levels of the educational process. I support this idea in word and deed. I do this because I believe that creativity is good for the individual and good for society. I KNOW it is good for the economy.
This morning, I read a Psychology Today article written by Steven Kotler called “Why We Laugh.” that discussed humor and referred to Alistair Clarke’s article/book on “An Introduction to The Pattern Recognition Theory of Humor.” In it, Mr. Kotler provided a humorous anecdote and said it was
” … a perfect example of what British science writer Alastair Clarke has dubbed: “The Pattern Recognition Theory of Humor,” a new theory in a field in need of one.”
I understand the difference between primary and secondary sources of scientific information. I also am interested in both pattern recognition and humor. I am familiar with the incongruity theory of humor and wondered how Clarke’s pattern recognition theory differed from incongruity theory. Consequently, I looked in PsycInfo (the psychology journal article database) to find the research on which Alistair Clarke’s theory was based. There was none.
I thought maybe Alistair Clarke wasn’t publishing in psychology journals, so I used Google Scholar to try to locate the primary research on which his theory was based. This search was also unsuccessful at identifying such research. Read More
chimp looking at reflection in a mirror
This post doesn’t have anything to do with creativity or analogy. However, it does concern a question about something I have a deep interest in and that is the issue of consciousness – human or animal.
One of the students in my module of the Animal Assisted Therapy Certification program asked me the following question:
“Cynthia, I know you’re busy now, but whenever you have the time I’d love to hear a psychologist’s take on this: I’ve heard and seen a lot of anecdotal evidence that dogs prefer the company of their own breeds. For instance, a vet I knew had dachshunds that would only play a certain chase game with other dachshunds who were visiting. Doggy visitors of other breeds had to settle for other games. Cesar Millan said that when he is jogging with his dog pack and stops for a rest, the rottweilers all find a spot in the shade together, the pit bulls will all segregate in a different area and so on. At a breeder’s golden retriever reunion in a park, there was one odd-man-out amongst all the goldens, an Australian shepherd mix that the breeder’s mother had brought. I watched as the goldens formed into interchangeable, small packs as they romped across fields and swam in a pond. The Aussie mix was excluded from these packs and tended to mill about on the edges of the group, ignored.
Is this evidence that dogs have self-awareness since they know when a dog is, or is not, of the same breed as them? So, how do they know if another dog is of the same breed? Is it because the other dog resembles their mothers? Or is this something more primitive, like a school of fish swimming together in the ocean?”
Cool question right?
This was my response. Read More