Week 9, Courtney Tran

James Gimzewski’s lecture was really affective. It was unlike any other lecture I am used to, because he appeared not to have any direction initially, but that very fact brought his point across (ironically). He kept saying “What does that mean? Nothing.” Being the slow person that I am, I got the gist of it a little further on into the lecture. Scientific discoveries mean nothing in general without the creativity of the mind to decide how to apply it, or manipulate that knowledge to produce useful, and pratical products. Okay, and now to the final. I really enjoyed working on my final, actually. It was fun. It took an absolutely unexpected turn as I was working on it and I ended up realizing I knew more than I thought about dualism, the mind-body complex, and the digital, data, and corporate body. That was some seven lectures ago! My element was air and I was using it in regards to space and time, but also in its physical sense at the same time. I would not have ever expected everything to tie together the way it did. In fact, I was not apprehensive about the project itself, but moreso, the idea of linking it affectively and sensibly to an element. I am happy to say that James Gimzeswki’s lecture inspired me. Not because of what he said, actually, but because he was walking past the overhead projector’s images and it gave me an idea for an art piece. Eureka! happens at the weirdest moments. I did not actually need to take this GE class but I am so glad that I was curious about it. It definitely opened my eyes to such a wide range of things I had no clue about. To list a few: nanotechnology, GFP bunny, SETI, Stelarc, Mandala, the different levels of consciousness, the theory of synchronicity, the meaning of “coalesce”, paradigm shifts, transhumanism, Gordon Matta Clark, C.P. Snow, etc. etc. It never ends actually. Ten weeks of pure insanity at its best. I can’t wait to see what kind of creative thoughts come from my fellow colleagues tomorrow.