Week 2: Challenge Activity

For week 2 of my GDO710 Development Practices module, the focus was on creativity. The brief for our challenge activity:

Brief

Now we have explored a variety of techniques for helping to foster creativity and generate new ideas, let’s experiment with some of these ideation techniques.

Begin this activity by selecting one or more of the ideation techniques discussed this week, then apply them to the following challenge:

Choose an existing artefact that is the output of someone’s creativity. This could be a poem, short story, illustration, song or anything else you think is interesting.

Modify the artefact in some way using the techniques you selected. The aim is to remediate it into another form of the artefact.

The term ‘remediation’ is used here in the same way that Grusin and Bolter intended in their book, Remediation: Understanding New Media (2000). The term denotes a framework for “considering how all media constantly borrow from and refashion other media”, and this is exactly what we want you to do in this task.

As with all attempts to channel inner creativity, there are no rules for this exercise. Instead, you are encouraged to dive straight in and not think too hard about it. Select your initial artefact, blast through the ideation techniques to find ways to modify it and let the output happen organically. You might devise something that could be deemed a ‘success’ or it might be nonsensical and random (in our eyes this is equally a success). The point is not to aim for perfection and instead generate many ideas that could be improved upon if they show potential.

I began by looking through the course literature and resources to get a handle on some of the creative techniques I was suggested to use. I was instantly drawn to the Cut-ups technique and found it a fascinating approach to idea generation. In its simplest form, you literally cut up and combine disparate content and reformulate it into something new. David Bowie best describes the technique in the video provided in the course resources:

If you put three or four disassociated ideas together and created awkward relationships with them, the unconscious intelligence that comes from those pairings is really quite startling.

(Bowie, 2016)

As I read more about Cut-ups, I started to draw some superficial similarities with the Information Architecture (IA) practice of Card Sorting, which I have used in the past, With card sorting, the goal is to make sense of a collection of concepts, where usually no taxonomy exists:

Each index card has a task written on it that people can perform on your site. Participants read each card one by one and then place them to create groups of similar tasks.

(Nodder, 2013)

However, looking at the two concepts more closely there appeared to be an important difference. Cut-ups appear to embrace the tension and juxtaposition that comes from the new composition, whereas Card Sorting looks to establish organisation, and categorisation. One is trying to find meaning in chaos to generate new ideas, the other is about establishing order. This little thought experiment was enough for me to decide to use Cut-ups as one of the techniques in this challenge. It was also out of my comfort zone, so I felt it was important to attempt it and stretch my boundaries. Other techniques such as Crazy 8's, Round Robins, and brainstorming, I had previously used professionally so I was less interested in retreading old ground.

I was also drawn to - and ultimately chose as my second technique - "Opposite Thinking" as described by boardofinnovation.com (Opposite thinking - Board of Innovation, 2020). Although I was unaware of the framework, it reminded me of the book Whatever you think, think the opposite (Arden, P., 2006) which a colleague once asked me to read, about subverting assumptions and expectations by thinking the opposite to conventional wisdom. I also felt this might generate some interesting themes and ideas.

Existing Artefact

The Art of Cuphead (Cymet et al., 2020)

For the initial artifact, I decided to use the intro song to the indie game Cuphead. I wanted to use this as a starting point as it was something simple I could play with and something that explained the basic premise of the plot. Cuphead is one of my favourite Indie games of recent years. With its deceptively charming "Rubberband" cartoon aesthetic it can be forgiven for appearing to be twee but it touches on themes of gambling addiction, sin, and vice. The song goes as follows:

Well, Cuphead and his pal Mugman, They like to roll the dice, By chance, they came 'pon Devil's Game, And Gosh, They paid the price PAID THE PRICE! And now they fighting for their lives On a mission fraught with dread And if they proceed but don't succeed Well... The Devil will take their heads

(Cuphead: "Don't Deal with the Devil", 2017)

Technique 1: The Cut-up

For Cut-ups, I decided I needed to add another resource into the mix as the song was so short. I decided after some deliberation to use "Nothing Compares to you" written by Prince and performed famously by Sinead O'Connor. I decided to cut this with the Cuphead song as I felt they were so disassociated that they could produce results that could be quite a departure from the source material. However, it was a lot harder to create something coherent than I first thought. Using the low-tech basic method of cutting up parts of the song and rearranging them I struggled to string a cohesive narrative or structure. Instead, I decided to use it as a starting point for generating a mood or tone. The more sorrowful song added plenty of angst and certain themes started to emerge:

1. Feelings of being taken advantage of

2. Of feeling foolish because of this first point

3. Conflicted feelings about the intended subject (the devil in this case, which could very easily be figurative)

4. Loneliness and Depression

5. Futility

Using the themes identified I produced the following verse, this was only after posting the Cut-up on the cohort forum and realising I still had an artifact to produce. I decided to create a new song, based on the structure of the original:

Well, Cuphead and his pal Mugman, Found gambling can be cruel, Were once on top and now they're not, They really felt the fool! FELT THE FOOL! He seemed so nice, But they’ve paid his price, Are destitute instead, And now they’re low, Got no place to go, “There’s no point to it all!” they said.

Going into this process I understood it was going to be challenging. However, it still came as some surprise how difficult I found it. The process did not feel organic but forced and awkward. This is clearly the intent, forcing ideas together in the hope they can generate something fresh. At times I felt frustrated and bemused with what I had produced. I had to alter my expectations on what I was able to glean from the resulting mess and adapt my approach, using it as a vague guide rather than a direct path. By using the themes identified I was able to see a way to push the process forward rather than taking lines verbatim. In the end, I was satisfied enough with the artifact I was able to produce. I was able to touch on all the themes identified and as an added bonus, it rhymed.

Technique 2: Opposite Thinking

For Opposite Thinking, I decided to only use the Cuphead intro song as the process would not benefit from a mashup, unlike Cut-ups. I made several assumptions about the characters based only on the verses from the song. I attempted to invert these assumptions and found that I could generate quite a few ideas. As I progressed I was able to formulate solutions to the 'opposite realities' I had generated (although they were more like opposite interpretations). My natural inclination was to approach this as a way to generate technical solutions to the problems, such as ideas for apps or services the characters could use. This can be seen in the third column shown above. However, after re-reading the brief and seeing some of my cohort's solutions, I realised this was a Remediation challenge with the aim "to remediate it into another form of the artefact". I decided to focus on some of the themes generated from the Opposites column rather than the specific solutions generated:

1. The Heroes have a Gambling problem

2. Greed is good.

3. Cuphead and Mugman aren't as righteous as first thought

4. The Devil has a business to run

Like before, I decided to rework the song to fit the newly identified themes. The result can be found below:

Well, Cuphead and his pal Mugman, They had a crippling vice, With gambling monkey’s on their backs, They didn’t once think twice! ONCE THINK TWICE! Well, greed is good, So did all they could, To fleece that no good beast, And when they were done, All that money won, The Devil’s casino ceased

Out of the two techniques I used, I found this the easiest to generate more realised and coherent ideas whereas with Cut-ups, I was only able to generate general themes out of the incoherent lines. As before I tried to keep the structure of the song from the original and try to make the verses rhyme. I enjoyed the free-flowing ideas that this process was able to produce, unlike the frustrating experiences I had with cut-ups. I found it easier to see solutions to the opposite problems produced.

As a process, I found this week’s challenge both fruitful and frustrating in equal measure. However, I do feel I have learned something from both techniques that I can take forward with me on my academic journey. I found merit in both the free-flowing nature of the idea generation for Opposite Thinking, as well as the potential for generating something really unique and different with Cut-ups; although I found this a much riskier strategy.

If I were to undertake this brief again, I would ensure I read the brief more clearly and possibly formulate an idea of what potential artifacts I may eventually produce. I decided to produce a song from a song, however, my cohorts had completely changed the medium of what they presented. Some even used techniques like Artificial Intelligence that I had not previously considered or even knew were readily available and easily accessible. Moving forward I will try to explore different ways to deliver an artifact rather than just generating the ideas and hoping the medium will take care of itself.

---

References.

Arden, P., 2006. Whatever you think, think the opposite. London: Penguin Group.

BBC News (2016) How David Bowie used 'cut ups' to create lyrics - BBC News [online video]. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nlW4EbxTD8 [Accessed 29 January 2022]

Cuphead: "Don't Deal with the Devil" (standard edition). 2017. Xbox [Game]. Studio MDHR: Ontario.

Cymet, E., Moldenhauer, T., Moldenhauer, C., Moldenhauer, J., Clarke, I., Moldenhauer, R., Miller, L. and Coleman, J., 2020. The Art of Cuphead. 1st ed. Dark Horse, p.Cover Art.

Nodder, C., 2013. Card sorting to determine information architecture - UX Foundations: Information Architecture Video Tutorial | LinkedIn Learning, formerly Lynda.com. [online] LinkedIn. Available at: <https://www.linkedin.com/learning/ux-foundations-information-architecture/card-sorting-to-determine-information-architecture?autoAdvance=true&autoSkip=false&autoplay=true&resume=false> [Accessed 3 February 2022].

Opposite Thinking (2020). Available at: https://www.boardofinnovation.com/tools/opposite-thinking/ (Links to an external site.) [Accessed 29 January 2022]