Week 5b - An extra 30 minutes in Bed
It was going to happen at some point this module... egg on my face... given that I was calling out all my previous peers in my first blog post for not turning up on time for previous projects.
Now whilst I'm fully aware of the concequences for being late in a group collaboration, it was a very useful 30 minutes sleep for me. Within that time I was reseting my brain - maximising its potential to learn, enhancing cognitive performance and improving my reaction time, Paturel (2014). I certainly had excellent reaction time when a certain ping from Peer A came from my phone - clearly backing up the scientific research.
I had to come up with some elaborate way of showing my peers (and Tom) that I was aware of the concequences and actions that could be taken as a group to minimise the impact of my tardiness. So instead of apologizing straight away (as I didn't realise at the time that there was some actual benefit for me not being there at the start) I quoted my favourite memorised statement from Klickstein's The Musician's Way to provide some solid blog content for everyone. (16:20-17:40) - It's worth watching as it's probably the slickest late entry into a meeting I've ever made.
In a leader-run group, such tardiness would result in dismissal. However, in eglatarian groups, more diplomatic actions would be required. Instead of any members hurtling accusations at him, thus escalating tension, and potentially corrupt a positive relationship the group members may have with him - taking it in good humour or discussing methods to rectify future tardiness would be most effective. Klickstein (2009)
One concern that I did have for the group before this meeting was that I have a tendency to lead the direction for where meetings were going. This isn't necessarily a bad thing as having a direction/flow to a meeting can be positive but I wanted to take a step-back in providing the ideas or the connections. Being late for the session was actually a blessing in disguise as it gave the other two members of the group a chance to collaborate without my input, which in itself can lead to some ideas that might not have been formed had I been present. It was certainly taking a leaf from Sansom of 'valuing everything, especially things that are least acceptable'.
Unfortunately those quality ideas and roastings of my tardiness were not recorded because they forgot to press the record button. So we were all on a level playing ground of muppetry at this point and we took the tardiness in good humour instead of hurtling accusations (which to me had reminiscent feelings to how I felt with the relaxed collaborative atmosphere with my Pathways A group - a positive sign!)
Online Meeting 3 - 12th March 12:00pm-1:00pm
Here is a summary of the main points covered with some after-thoughts:
- It seemed before my arrival that my other peers were summarising what was covered in the last meeting. And one thing that kept coming back into conversation was the marble/golf ball run. It seemed to have stuck into everyone's mind - perhaps persuing this further would be a good motivator for all as it was something we all backed? After a quick Google search, I remembered there was child's toy that I used to love playing with and creating (perhaps my love of mathematics and engineering shown here) - The SpaceRail.
- There were 9 levels of SpaceRail, effectively the higher the level, the more complex the structure and the longer it would take to build. With my BHAG in mind, I straight away suggested Level 9 (See Video) due to the visual aspect of the performance. My other peers, not as keen, quite rightly pointed out that this was not an engineering project, although it was clear that we were all interested in the concept as I felt the pace of discussion was much more energised. It was interesting to see that this slight disagreement was naturally left to one side instead of being dealt with at the time. Although this might have been us trying to deliberately avoid any conflict in a still rosy-eyed section of our collaboration (John-Steiner,2000), we still had plenty of time in the project to mull over the conflict and come up with a resolution in the future.
- With the cyclical nature of the marble-run, Peer A raised the point about the length of this installation. Would it run for a few seconds, a few minutes... years? There was a fine balance to be had between providing enough interaction for the audience but not simply just being an exhibitive work that the three of us dismissed quite early on. There wasn't really much of a conclusive agreement here but that was OK at this stage... even if it was a very important factor to consider.
- Myself and Peer A were still concious of our contribution towards the final project. We only so far seemed to have spoken about the technological aspect of the project with the sole focus being some sort of marble run which was very much in Peer B's comfort zone. An important epiphanic moment occured here when we all realised that having multiple instruments/experiments/stations surrounding this central marble run could lead to an exciting installation that all three of us could get involved with and lead - similar to a complementary collaboration where three individual projects could coherse into one installation. This does have some advantages and disadvantages though (mentioned here) so something to be cautious about if we were to take this approach.
- Towards the end, we threw around some words to try and arrange them into a catchy theme. With the marble run having perptual motion and it being a music project the words 'Music in Motion' was said. Catchy and straight to the point - there was now a sense of focus in the group that we hadn't quite achieved in previous sessions, which was certainly reassuring. Our brief was to create a live installation that sonified physical motions into music.
- Although we had no musical notation we felt as a group we had strong concepts and we were ready for our biggest challenge yet... Meeting with Dr T.
References
Klickstein, G., 2009. The Musician's Way - A guide to Practice, Performance and Wellness. pp.116-117.
John-Steiner, Vera, 2000: Creative Collaboration. Oxford: Oxford University Press Ch.3 Page 83.