Lecture Two: The Flipped Classroom

The Flipped Classroom is a model of teaching that focuses on allowing the student to take charge of their own learning. The student is the centre of the model rather than the teacher, and this allows the students to explore and form their own answers to their own questions. This flipped model allows for students to explore topics in greater depth, as the flow of conversation and debate is not being controlled by the Teacher which can create more meaningful learning opportunities. The Teacher will be there to deliver content that the students can use how so they please (perhaps in the form of activities or video lessons).

Lecture Notes

But is this enough? Jacques Ranciere (b. 1940), a French philosopher born into the french revolution in May 1968, argued the role of the teacher and challenged their role in the classroom, stating that they need the students more than what they needed the teacher. In his book "The Ignorant Schoolmaster: Five Lessons in Intellectual Emancipation" he tells the story of how Joseph Jacotot was sent to the netherlands to teach french to the students, not knowing a word of Flemish. They were unable to communicate to one another as the students didn't speak any french, so he had given the students two copies of Fenelon's "Télémaque", one in Flemish and one that had been recently translated into French. The students were able to learn fluent french by working together and finding the relationship between the two languages/texts, with no input from the teacher other than the fact he had given them the text.
From this, Ranciere challenged the readers to consider the role of the teacher, and that we should consider the premise that we are all of equal intelligence and that this should be a starting point rather than a destination. The educator isn't neccesary if the group of students have a central focus.

The Flipped Classroom model definitely relates to my current practice. As a group we are given a brief to work with and our tutors are there for help if needed, but on the whole our projects and study are very self-driven. In Animation we are expected to solve our own problems and create work that fits the brief/our clients proposal. Jacques Ranciere's points are very interesting, and to some degree I agree with what he says. I think we have the intellectual capability to become educated without the role of an educator, but personally I think this role is necessary for my line of practice. I have a lot of creative freedom even with the role of a tutor, but they are there to guide me on what it is I need to do in order to succeed, just as it would be like if I was working on a commision piece.

Seminar One: Animation and Authorship

The premise of today's seminar was Authorship. We developed a basic understanding of the term Auteur and how Auteurs are not simply just film makers for example, but they have their own signature style (whether this be their technique or the content) they focus upon can allow them to be considered an artist. From here we moved on to looking at Roland Barthes' Death of an Author, and it was generally a very interesting seminar despite making my brain hurt ever so slightly.

My general understanging of this text is that Barthes argues that the "reader" is free to make their own interpretations of the "author's" text and should examine this on it's own merits; remove the author from the work and draw their own conclusions from the text as a stand alone piece.
The Death of the Author starts by drawing from Balzac's words of him describing a person and Barthes questions who is speaking those words, whether it was the author or someone in the story and just who it was who gave those words meaning. He then moves on to explaining how the author is given too much credit for the language, but it is infact the language that has drawn the author. The author is simply recycling pre-existing language/ideas rather than inventing. This point is taken further, and Barthes outlines that these ideas and texts that the "author" is putting forward shouldn't have a fixed meaning, and that they can be open to interpretation depending on who the text is received by. We should understand that we don't have to take other people's interpretations of the world as true, but look towards our own.

"Text" and "Author" doesn't have to be taken literally, infact I feel that Barthes is talking about creative practices in general, meaning I can relate what he is saying to Animation. When Barthes says "For him, for us too, it is the language which speaks, not the author" (Barthes, 1968), we can apply this to animation and say that it is not the animator that is 'speaking' but it is the technology. It is the technology and the process of animation that has inspired the animator's creativity and it is not their soul invention, but instead is a combination of different tools and techniques that are pre-existing.

"There is no other time than that of the enunciation and every text is eternally written here and now" (Barthes, 1968). I feel this quote refers to how the text is going to precieved differently between different individuals and cultures, and what the society is like at the time (here and now). This relates strongly to animation in that different characters, personalities and themes are going to be perceived differently across many cultures, especially if we look back at animation in the early ages. An example of what I mean by this is Snow White. At the time of it's production this may have been an accurate representation of how women were, as in they were more domesticated and it was generally their job to cook and clean. However now-a-days this is not the case, and some can view this as sexist. The nature of the animation is being perceived differently as society and culture is changing.
 
"The author is a modern figure, a product of our society" (Barthes, 1968). I believe that this could mean a number of things. The first being that the author is going to have a different interpretation of the world, just like everyone else in his/her society, or that he/she has been produced by a capatalist soceity meaning that the "text" produced may be more about the money and less about the creation. Especially with brand production or sequels. For instance, when a sequel to an animated film comes into production or into thearters we may already have judged it or have expectations of that film based on the previous one, instead of judging the film as a stand alone piece. Similarly, we may already form an opinion of an animation based on it's reviews from critics or online forums for example. However, we need to go back to the point that we are all intitled to our own opinions when it comes to creative practice, as we are all going to interpret something differently due to our own culture and beliefs. A passage from "Reconfiguring the Author" backs up this point very well; "To characterize text as artificially and imperfectly autonomous is not to eliminate the role of the author but to deny the reader's or critic's submission to any instance of authority. This perspective leaves room neither for authorial mastery of a communicative object nor for the authority of a textual coherence so complete that the reader's (infinite) task would be merely to receive its rich and multilayered meaning." (Landow, 1992). Even though the author may have authority, in this case this could refer to the film critic, does not mean that we have to take this fact. We are still able to form our own opinions and invent the truth of the world.


Barthes, R. (1977[1968]) 'Image, Music, Text', London, Fontana Press.
Landow, G.P. (1992) 'Reconfiguring the Author' in Hypertext: The Convergence of Contemporary Critical Theory and Technology Baltimore, The Johns Hopkins University Press.

Lecture One: Research and Epistemology

The goal of today's lecture was to gain a common understanding of what is meant by the term 'research', and how we could then refer to this term in our future CoP lectures, seminars and studio sessions.

Lecture Notes

It's often thought that research is the process of finding out new facts and knowledge, which it is, but it isn't just limited to this. In a creative practice sense it can also refer to learning new processes, experimentation to find out what things work and what doesn't and problem solving. So research doesn't always have to be right and it is okay to embrace failure, as this will strengthen our knowledge for what will work in the future. It will promote success.

There are many different ways in which you can research, whether this be reading books at the library or conducting experiments/surveys, but all methods are going to produce different types of data. The main for types of data being; Primary, Secondary, Quantitative and Qualitative.

Primary and Secondary data refers to the source in which the data was received. If it is Primary this means that the data was developed or collected/generated and does not yet exist, where as if it is secondary the data has already been collected. For example you could take statitisics from an online source, or read up on past experiments.
Quantitative and Qualitative refers to the type of data that is being collected/used. Quantitative refers to data that can be measured, whether this be numbers, facts, figures or statistics, where as Qualitative is more subjective and can involve a person's beliefs or opinions. Qualitative isn't always measured.

This data will mean nothing to us if we don't process it. By processing data we can take information from the results to add to our existing knowledge of the person receiving it. This can involve simply taking in information we have researched in a way that we can understand, or it can be taking it that step further by investigating for solutions to questions that may have been generated. It could also involve applying this knowledge to our practice to see HOW this will work, or even WHERE this information can apply. This is what we mean by the term Epistemology. Epistemology distinguishes between HOW we can KNOW something, and whether it is knowing that, how or where.

Research is always going to be subjective to the individual, as when we research we set out to find out things we don't know making us the centre of our own research. The most important thing to remember is to START ANYWHERE and to make it relevant to our own practice in a way that we are going to understand it, and gain experience/knowledge.

"Research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing" 

- Wernher von Braun.

Another Year, Another Year of Lectures...

"I can smell gas"... "Well that's bad"
...That was a good start to my CoP year.

There wasn't much to last week's lecture. We pretty much just went through the requirements for passing our modules and the changes that had been made to estudio. We were also shown a list of our upcoming lectures, and despite not having the greatest understanding of them in the past, I'm oddly really looking forward to them. I'm going to make sure to put it more of an effort to blog about my lectures straight away to prevent forgetting about the content and struggling to write them up at a later date. I'm also going to do more research this year if I don't understand anything I'm delivered with instead of just rambling about how I don't understand which will benefit me greatly, especially if I can make the content relative to my field of practice.

Let's do this!