Introduction
This exercise was incredibly frustrating. It was like kryptonite to my ADHD brain. At first, it seems simple and derivative (having done mind maps in Key Steps in Illustration) and then quickly takes a very lateral turn, but with such ambiguity that for someone like me who needs structure to play, it was far too daunting.
The first time I sat down to do this exercise I got so overwhelmed that I ended up sobbing at my desk for hours. It was just too much. However, I was pleased that I listened to my intuiting and didn't get stuck in my head. I asked for help and set up a conversation with my tutor.
I also had a session with my DSA Study Skills tutor right before. The combination of these sessions was very useful indeed. My study skills tutor was able to help me walk through some more lateral options, but most importantly he helped tease out of me the anger and resentment that was being the big emotions I was feeling. More than once now, my study skills tutor has as me "if you were one of your clients, what would you do?" These probing questions have been excellent. They remind me that I have 15 years of experience to draw upon. I realised that I was angry because I was being told to use a single tool to address a problem, and my experience knew that:
Telling me what to do without any context as to why (a learning objective) or what (information about the teaching principle or technique) doesn't work for me (and many other people in my experience).
There are many other tools in order to associate, iterate and link ideas together. Mind maps / rhizomatic thinking are only one tool. I get really cross when people use the wrong tool for a job. After all, you wouldn't brush your hallway with a toothbrush, would you?
So when I talked through my feelings with my tutor, it was gratifying to hear his compassion and understanding for where I was at and the difficulties I was experiencing. I also knew the question I needed to ask him: "Can I break the rules?"
In my heart, I probably knew that the answer (artistically) is yes, but at the same time, I had a need for permission because of the academic nature of the work. After explicit agreement and further conversation, my tutor gave me the challenge to re-write the exercise in a way that worked for me and also drew on my professional experience.
Suggested research task 2.4a
The current exercise drops the student straight in with mind-maps and spider diagrams after only a brief re-introduction to the concepts, and at a very shallow level. It doesn't actually explain the teaching concept of rhizomatic learning, which I think is essential as there are multiple ways of implementing that format.
My suggestion would be to give the students a small research task to investigate certain key ideas and techniques on top of simply dendritic mind-maps, and then reflect on the strengths and weaknesses of the techniques they discover, and then think about which of these tools they have an affinity with, and in what contexts might they be useful.
For example, the end result of the exercise seems to be to build a schema to show connections and divergent relationships relating to a topic. It also encourages aspects of dual coding to introduce visual elements with the verbal ones. Often referred to in education as "Graphic Organisers" these tools can be used divergently for exploration, iteration and innovation, but also convergently as ways to understand, filter and segment. They are also an amazing tool to increase memory retention, as they combine verbal, visual and kinesthetic activity. Here are just a few examples of different techniques in graphic organiser format, they are often useful in the contexts they are given, but they can also be blended together to get the best benefits:
I have included a bibliography of useful books that could help students explore verbal-visual techniques more.
Revised Exercise 2.4
I think this format would need 'playtesting' more in order to refine its efficacy. As I was not in the best of mental health, my focus was more on addressing the exercise's barriers so that I could complete the work.
In this exercise, you have the chance to practically employ graphic organisers. The outcome is to not only explore aspects of your own practice but also discover which tools are useful for your artistic explorations. This is useful and important to avoid getting sucked into your early concepts and ideas, allowing you to develop a process that moves your thinking through the obvious, to find more subtle, subjective, specific, or unusual motifs.
Part One
1. Look at the word list below, and select three from the list. It's not recommended to choose too many options when using this technique for exploration, it can get cluttered. You will find that you will still end up with many paths and connections using a limited starting selection.
Designer's note: I changed this to three from one to give students more opportunity to start seeing the connections between aspects of their practice, not just divergence from a single idea.
If there is a particular word that you associate with your own practice that is not covered below, feel free to substitute it.
CUTTING | OUTCOME | LUCK | DISSECT |
MIX | TEXTURE | GRIND | GROW |
INTAKE | MARK | EXPLORE | HIDE |
WOBBLE | FEEL | SHADOW | TRUTH |
LAYERED | REDUCE | POINT | SCULPT |
Place the three words onto an A2 piece of paper, thinking about what kind of graphic organiser you want to use to inform your layout choice. If you are not sure, then place them evenly apart.
Designer's note: The original list gave me reservations, it was too short to prompt me (and the freedom to choose my own was daunting). In addition, the vertical nature of the list, and the placement of grow and seed next to each other led to obvious word association biases which I believe reduces the learning impact of the activity. Having more options gives students more opportunity to see their own practice in the list, and having the list as a grid hopefully reduced the chance of unintended bias.
2. Start to make word associations from your chosen words. Look out for ways to connect ideas or relationships, or see how concepts you discover relate and interact with each other. Use any organisation technique that makes sense to you, and refer to the previous research task if you need to remind yourself. The important thing is to start seeing a network of ideas evolve.
Part Two
3. Once you have a loose network of ideas, it's time to introduce visual elements to your explorations. Here are three options, pick one or more to get you going:
Designer's note: This feels more in keeping with other exercises in this module and allows for responses from students from the many different disciplines that are eligible for this unit.
Option 1: Sketches and Doodles
Introduce drawings, doodles or icons. These could go alongside your words, or could even substitute them. If you enjoy the drawn aspect then explore how you can use different connectors and borders to link and provide visual hierarchy to your graphic organiser. These don't have to be finished images, and sometimes the simplest of rough icons can be just as powerful as more rendered images:
If any of your images speak to you, consider developing the ideas more in your sketchbook.
Option 2: Photographs
Using your current graphic organiser as a reference, discover photographs that exemplify or metaphorically represent the ideas and concepts on your map. You can discover photographs from books or the internet, but also consider using your own images. Take from your existing catalogue of images, or go and take photos to support your thought process. This doesn't have to be an intensive process, and candid smartphone images are just as useful for exploring your ideas.
Print your photos onto paper and add them to the A2 sheet. Start to see new connections and associations. Are there photos that you intended for one word/idea that can be used for another? Be playful and don't be afraid to crop, cut and layer your images. The result should make you feel like you are looking at an interactive mood board.
Option 3: Found Objects
Think about the actions and concepts of your graphic organiser. Explore and discover found objects that relate to or represent the ideas. Explore things that you might normally throw away like recycling, receipts, packaging or tickets. Take a break outside and look at the natural and man-made world around you.
For example, a used rail ticket from your jacket pocket might represent 'distance', or a desiccated autumnal leaf may be the perfect metaphor for 'crumbling'. A piece of fallen tree bark could represent 'rough' or 'paper' depending on the tree it comes from!
Add the items to your graphic organiser, considering the placement and relationships with other items and words.
4. Use your visual additions to help broaden your associations, for example, thinking about the sound, smell, touch, or movement of your concept/ideas as much as their image. Think about how you can now make new prompts and associations on your organiser.
5. Notice the ideas/concepts on your organiser that you feel are the furthest or most divergent from your starting points. Find the strongest connections between these divergent ideas and your original starting words.
As you identify these networks and relationships, think about how you might be able to summarise or categorise those pathways. For example:
HISTORIC
MUNDANE
OVERLOOKED
EXTRAORDINARY
Scan or photograph your finished graphic organiser. Add it to your learning log and reflect on the process and the exercise as a whole. If you have identified any strong concepts or connections that you feel are rich with possibility, think about how you might start developing a visual piece of work in response.
Doing my revised exercise
Once I had written out a rough draft of the revamped exercise (I have firmed it up a lot above from my written notes), I had to actually run through it myself. Now I had a clear idea of the learning outcome, structure to work through and choice in how to explore I felt a lot more empowered to complete the exercise.
At the time, I had not written the list of 20 words above, so was still faced with the original concise list that drew me down obvious word associations. So decided to try and think about aspects of my practice.
One of the biggest problems I had with the original exercise is its assumption that every artist is happy/comfortable with 'play', that they can start their process with no value attached to the end result. This is supported by the quote on page 54 of the sourcebook:
“Process is more important than outcome. When the outcome drives the process we will only ever go to where we’ve already been. If process drives outcome we may not know where we’re going, but we will know we want to be there.”
Bruce Mau, An Incomplete Manifesto For Growth (2010-14).
I think that quote may be true for some, especially those in fine art. However, for those in graphic design or illustration, an outcome is paramount. They create images with purpose. The imagery has a job to do. This most often manifests in the briefs that design and illustration professionals are given.
I can't simply walk into my studio and aimlessly amble into my work. I need to go in with a concrete idea of the problem I want to solve. I need a sense of direction, and only then can I then think divergently and creatively to explore different ways of getting to my destination.
Sometimes, you find a new direction along the way, new opportunities emerge and other paths close. I still consider that play, and the process is still key to finding your way. But there is still a reason to be on the journey and there is still a destination. It's good to not get constrained by your first ideas, but I think it's wrong to dismiss those who are outcome-driven.
So, "outcome" was the first word I chose for my diagram. Next, I thought about my work and tried to instinctively connect with a facet of my process. I thought about how I liked to work in digital and physical formats, and I saw a common aspect to my work - layers. Whether they are digital images or watercolour illustrations, I love layers. I love to stack things on top of each other for colour, light, shadow and texture. It also worked metaphorically as I really enjoy subtext in my work. So word number two was "layered".
The third word proved more difficult. My wife reminded me that I like to break things down in order to understand them, to understand how they work. It reminded me of my time at medical school, where during our first years we would observe and participate in dissection to better understand the anatomy and variation of the human body. It was a perfect idea, so I wrote down "dissect".
From there, I followed the exercise's brief and began my exploration. I employed a combination of dendritic association (like mind-mapping) as well as relationship mapping where I saw associations and causality.
I did this by hand on an A3 piece of paper (the biggest my scanner can take) so that I could work quickly with a pen. I didn't worry about structure too much and used basic borders and lines to organise my ideas.
Next, I needed to add visual elements. The easy option for me would have been to choose option one and add drawn images and icons. So I decided to choose option two instead. Scanning in the organiser, I then searched for digital images from the internet and my own photo collections using the concepts on my organiser as starting prompts.
I placed my existing relationship map at the centre of an A2 image, and then gradually added in images as I discovered them. Moving them about and layering them constantly as images were added and removed. I ended up with this result:
I enjoyed the act of curation. Some selections were fairly literal, but I also enjoyed selecting images that had more metaphorical attributes. From this place, I then continued with my drawn connection, using a digital pen this time and a separate colour to visually create a sense of hierarchy and separation on a page that was getting quite busy. I even added in a few drawn elements from the 'doodle' option as a way of capturing some themes I saw emerging. This was my final result:
My outermost layer seems very detached from my original word choices, and I was able to use imagery to get me to those unintended places, so I believe that the exercise was successful from a learning outcome perspective. I also employed a combination of mind maps and relationship maps to achieve my goal. I would be really interested to see what other students would do with the same prompts, let alone prompts of their choosing.
There are some interesting themes coming out of this work, and I am thinking about work I might make in response to this. Given I am pressed for time now, I don't think I can divert myself to do anything right now, but I want to come back to this graphic organiser when I tackle part four and see how I can incorporate some of these concepts into the work I make for that project.
Bibliography
Brand, W., 2019. Visual doing. 2nd ed. Amsterdam: BIS Publishers.
Brand, W., Koene, P., Ars, M. and Verheijen, P., 2017. Visual thinking. 2nd ed. Amsterdam: BIS Publishers.
Brown, S., 2014. Doodle revolution. 1st ed. New York: Portfolio / Penguin, p.155.
Caviglioli, O., 2019. Dual Coding with Teachers. 1st ed. Woodbridge: John Catt Educational Ltd., pp.50-51.
Rohde, M., 2013. The sketchnote handbook. 4th ed. Peachpit Press.