In order to fully understand what we did as a collective group I’m going to explain the process that McKenzie and I took when coming up with our plan.
At first we both thought that the Makey Makey was quite difficult to work with and we had absolutely no idea what to do with it. But, finally after some time we got it to work and it was all uphill from there. We knew we wanted to integrate our “invention” with something musical and visual because when it comes to writing, visual tools are often the best tools to get you on your way to inventing, and audio is one of the best ways to learn.
We integrated visual and musical to create our very own Makey Makey piano. Although we were limited in capabilities, we were unlimited in the fact that we were able to invent and create- two things which are essential to writing in this class.
As a token of what we were able to accomplish I uploaded the video of me playing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star on our makeshift piano. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEmMMGDiaXc
In regards to inventing and NYC I thought it would be appropriate to connect a story from the subway. On my way home from school on tuesday I heard some music turn on and a few kids just started making some noise. My first reaction was to turn away and avoid staring at them for fear they might do something to me, but it turns out that they were doing something very similar to what we just did today in class. They were inventing an art, or a dance style which I have never seen done before. The break dancing is something I am familiar with, but it is usually only done with ample space and a hard nonmoving floor. But, this, this was something special. These boys were dancing with the movements of the subway, dancing up and over the poles where people would normally hold on for dear life so they don’t fly back from the jerking of the stop and go style of the subway. That video is here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8egTGSnsLI
Just like we were creating our visual art, these boys were doing the same thing- creating their visual art- by just doing something that is out of the blue and extraordinary. We all learned something today, and that is that being in NYC, your possibilities for invention are endless, and there is no limit on what you can create.
Thank you for the incredible experience Professor!
