So this is my first post documenting some of the activities we do in the “Creative Research Methods” class I have to attend. While my other unit is all about contextualising and looking at things other people have written in the hope that we get new ideas, this unit is purely about focusing on us, and giving us something to talk about with our supervisors.
Exercise 1:
Imagine 6-12 months in the future, about to submit your Thesis. Describe what you are handing in:
A short game which challenges the current genre expectations by referring to conventions observed in Theatre. The underlying purposes attributed to these conventions have been utilised in order to create new ways to experience the same emotional processes created in games, without relying on the current industry trends.
This exercise helped me think in terms of squashing what I saw as two or three widely-spaced research ideas into one concept. It helped me to solidify my passion and drive in doing Honours in this area. Many of my classmates lamented that when they wrote their “completed project” down, they felt that they were doing something that appeared to lose its originality and innovation, due to the generalised terms they chose to represent it.
Exercise 2:
This involved thinking about a number of questions aimed at helping us nail down the context of our research.
Exercise 3:
From question to context and significance.
The aim is to explain:
- What the topic is about. “I am studying…”
- What you don’t know about; your question. “…because I want to find out about…”
- What you want your reader/viewer to know about it; your rationale. “…in order to help others in the field understand better…”
I am studying literary and performance conventions because I want to find out about what made them important so that I can help others in the field understand better the manifestations of the underlying reasons behind the conventions so often seen in current games.
This response is really awkward: for one, it places me as a student of Performance Studies (which I am), researching Performance Studies, to explain to others in the field of Performance Studies something about… Games? Hmm. This was hard.
Ellen Jurik 