thinking multimodally
because i'm a multimodal learner--i like to map things out and draw pictures and create using kinesthetic modes--i've always imagined that i'm adept in various modes. but as i've been trying to pin down a presentation format for this class project, i've realized how tied i am to language--how easy it is for me to imagine communicating my ideas in a paper that flows linearly from beginning to end.
does anyone else have this conundrum? i want to avoid deciding the medium/mode before i get my ideas down. but i'm having a really hard time making sense of a project that is divorced from the essay format.
Comments
I have experienced similar
I have experienced similar feelings as well as I work on media projects...it is difficult to convert/remediate ideas that may generate themselves in verbal form. Part of me wonders if we need to start in a verbal form...During our first New Media class, Juliette and I came up with an idea for a iMovie project from a dream with orange images I had, her historical connection to orange, our ideas about what the orange was representing, and music that seemed to fit the feelings and ideas we wanted to convey. I felt like the images and sentiments guided our project to the rhetorical piece it became. What stated out as a color and a few ideas, becamethis. We will both admit that it is not the "greatest" thing in the world, but it was a start.
I say start with something that inspires you-even if it is just a little twinge-and start hashing it out with a medium. Frustration will come (especially at 4am in the morning before the project is due), but so will elation if you stick with it...I promise.
All that crap said, I also appreciate Morgan's, Tom's, and Jackie's approach to new media remediation. What advice would you gusy offer your students as they worked on converting/remediating their papers into another medium?
;p
remediation vs. translation
thanks for your comments, wendy...
i'm wondering about the art of translation/remediation. as i was learning spanish, my spanish professor insisted, "Kristen, you can't keep translating--you have to think in spanish to speak in spanish..." as i've been thinking about my own struggles, i've been wondering if this is the same for modes. can i learn to think in a different mode? to conceptualize in a different mode?
i like the idea of starting with something i find inspiring. but--what continues to happen is i get that one killer sentence in my brain that would develop in to a /lovely/ seminar paper. but i'm not dealing with words--or, rather, i don't want to.
remediation is different that translation. in a translation, we try to convey the same message in a different language. if the medium is the message, then remediating /changes/ the message. and deliberately so, right? so if i approach multimodal projects as if i'm simply translating my words into an idea, i'm wondering...can i be effective? will i eventually get to the point where i can think in visuals...i'd be interested to hear your thoughts on this, juliette, since you're an artist. kress argues that the visual mode has its own grammar--can i immerse myself so much in that grammar that i can use it without translation?