Reflection Paper - Kristen K

Coming into Interactive Media that first Tuesday night, I knew that we were going to be working parallel with a professional photographer, but I had no idea it would have been so soon. After talking about the syllabus, we were given the task of creating a gallery show, and that honestly was a lot to take in on the first night of class. But with the time frame we had, I believe Collective Perception was the best it could have been for that short amount of time we had. It was the definitely the definition of ‘hit the ground running.’ I believe it’s better to start the semester tough as it builds character and pushes everyone to his or her limits. I know I had a to push past my limits sometimes, especially with pushing out of my comfort zone.

The worst part for me during this experience was pushing out of my comfort zone to talk to strangers when we were gathering our photos and audio. I had the job of writing down the time of each audio, and asking for the participants name just in case we wanted to use names. I don’t have that great of hearing, especially if I’m nervous, so I felt a touch embarrassed if I asked if they could say their name again. But as time went on I felt more confident.

Splitting up into groups we each had to think up an elaborate idea and create a gallery show about connecting people. It was a bit intimidating to say the least, because I don’t have any experience with Dream Weaver, editing audio, or making an app. But luckily, my group was in the same boat and we were able to grow and idea out of our four brains.

The next class we were presenting our ideas, since we did only have about four weeks from the start of school to complete a whole show! I believe the best thing we could have done and did was combine everyone’s ideas. Collaborating as a team was what I felt made this all happen. It was a bit rocky at first, with not everyone using the blog, but I feel we all stepped up and got done what had to be done.  The artist talk was fantastic, and it was really cool to have Simon there through Skype speaking to us. It’s really inspiring to hear from a professional like Simon.

Overall, the weeks went by pretty fast, and it’ll be sad to have to take everything down. But it’s what you learn and the memories you have that count.