CREATIVE THINKING: August 2016

Sunday, August 28, 2016

LATERAL THINKING

In this week lesson, we were introduced a new term called the Lateral thinking! To put it simply, Lateral thinking involves problem solving with an indirect and creative approach, using reasoning that is not directly obvious. To me, I am not a person that is able to think out of the box. Very often, I require people’s assistant to think creatively. This week’s lesson enables be to look at things in a different perspective.

The most memorable scenario asked was the if I was in a deserted house, which item will I light up first. To my surprise, only one person managed to get the correct answer. After this lesson, I’ve learnt that in many cases, we should always try to look for answer from a different perspective and not just look for the easiest and direct answer.

5 PUZZLES OF LATERAL THINKING

First puzzle will tell you the different between Lateral Thinking to Traditional Logic

PUZZLE 1

Use only ONE line to complete the maze!

ANSWER:

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PUZZLE 2

HOME ALONE

Which home below is incomplete?

ANSWER : A B O D E. The "O" in AB "C" DE is incomplete.

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PUZZLE 3

GIVE ME FIVE!

5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 25, 30, 35?

Can you find the number below, which comes next in the above series?

6, 15, 18, 20, 25

ANSWER : The answer is FORTY. Substitute the numbers 6, 15, 18, 20 and 25 for the corresponding letters in the alphabet.

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PUZZLE 4

THE SAUCY SORCERER

One day a saucy sorcerer winks at a witch. She immediately pays him back by turning him into a toad. Can you take away six of the seven shapes below to leave a sort of toad?

ANSWER : leave his right eye (his perspective). Take away 6 of the shapes to leave just a dot, which is a 'sort' of toad.

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PUZZLE 5

MONOLITH

This mysterious monolith was recently discovered on the planet mars. How tall is it?

ANSWER: 1,000 m. In Roman numerals cm, mm and m equal 900, 2,000 and 1,000 respectively.

S I X T H

This week, I visited the Gardens by the bay. Out of the many other different attractions, I feel that this is the most beautiful place in Singapore. Not only that this place contains many different species of flowers, the layout and lightings is simply amazing. No matter during the day or at night, this place definitely can bring me enjoyable experience. I was quite disappointed with the crowd as many of them are using their phone instead of enjoying the scenery. This occurs in many other attractions I visited too! In this digital era, many of us lives within the technological world and forgot to slow down and enjoy the scenery which is quite saddening. Lucky for me, I managed to enjoy every single bit of the view!

Edward de Bono

Born in 19 May 1933, Edward de Bono is the author of the book Six Thinking Hats and originated the term lateral thinking. After attaining his medical degree at University of Malta, de Bono then gotten the Master of arts in psychology and physiology at Christ Church, Oxford. He then earned a Ph.D degree in medicine from Trinity College, Cambridge, and LLD from the University of Dundee.

Known as the father of ‘lateral thinking, de Bono introduced the concept in 1967, where he published his first book ‘The use of Lateral Thinking’. Having dedicating his life to help people improve their thinking abilities and creativity skills, his courses such as Six Thinking Hats method and thinking tools have been employed by various institutions and organisations around the world. These skills and have been proven to help people to make smarter decision faster. ‘Six Thinking Hats’ is considered as one of de Bono’s greatest literary works where he provides detailed insight of parallel thinking and critical thinking. Other useful thinking techniques de Bono produced includes the power of perception, focus on facilitation, simplicity and six value medals

In 1992, de Bono became became the first recipient of the ‘Capire Prize’ in Europe, for his outstanding achievement. In 1994, he was presented the ‘Pioneer Prize in the field of Thinking’, at the International Conference on Thinking at MIT, Boston. In 1995, he was honored with the National Order of Merit by the President of Malta. Lastly, in 2005, he was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Economics.

Sunday, August 21, 2016

SINGAPORE NIGHT FESTIVAL 2016

It's another year of Singapore Night Festival! This is the 9th times that Singapore is holding this event at Bras Basah! I had been to this event last year and I really enjoyed a lot, especially with the awesome food and the interesting exhibit around. I'm quite surprised that it's the 9th year already as I only get to know of this event last year. In this post, I will be show the places I had went and will focus more on the exclusive exhibition that only happen in this year's Singapore Night Festival!

LET THE JOURNEY BEGINNNN...

(At the Festival Village)

So, the first place I had visited is the Festival village around SMU Campus! This area is like an Atas Version "Pasar Malam" where great food, music and artwork meets! They are selling a lot of different trendy items, yummy but overpriced food and they is also a photo booth! There are also various performances by the local musician at the Festival village stage.

(Shop @ Festival Village)

The atmosphere here is simply AMAZING, it give me a very cosy feeling! The performances and lighting really lighten up the atmosphere in this area. If only Singapore's weather is cooler it will be so much better. Nevertheless, it was an enjoyable experience!

(Eat @ Festival Village)

(Festival Village Stage)

After enjoying all the great food and performances, I went to the National Museum of Singapore. The weather was so warm that I can't wait to go indoor to catch the cold air first!

Before entering the National Museum, I was caught up by the amazing light show at the doorstep of the museum. It is the KEYFRAMES brought by Groupe LAPS. The display was so cool that I just can't bring myself to enter the Museum.

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(National Museum of Singapore)

(KEYFRAMES by Groupe LAPS)

If you take a closer look, you will realised that this exhibit is making use of simple lightings. However, it managed to caught the attention of the visitor and entertained many people including myself.

(KEYFRAMES by Groupe LAPS)

(Build Your Own Singapore Night Festival 2017)

This campaign is to encourage visitor to contribute to next year's night festival. Simply by purchasing the lego at $2, visitor will be able to fund the festival in a unique way. I'm actually surprise that they are many people who went up and donate. This show how much people supports the artwork in Singapore! That is very touching to know.

(Night Lights: Shifting Interations)

Here is a performances by LASALLE's students. The students use props with their dance move together with the music. It was an interesting performance as it make use of sound, light and dances to present a series of perfomanes.

(Night Lights: Shifting Interations)

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Next the Festival Village that is located at Armenian Street!

(Armenian Street)

There are many interesting programme at the Armenian Street which includes the Peranakan Museum Variety Show by Main Wayang. They were performing some interesting songs that made in Singapore, tourist can get to know more about Singapore just by the lyrics in the song and it actually give me a "Ge Tai" feel.

(Armenian Street)

Within the Armenian street, there are many different alleys. Out of all, I love this alley as the lighting, graffiti walls and the building is simply amazing!

(Armenian Street)

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(A Kaleidoscope of Spring by Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts)

This exhibit is from very own our NAFA's students! I love how the way they present it with the projector light with all the design, which really brings out the Peranakan Nyonya feel. Before taking a closer look, I didn't even realised that this exhibit made use of lightings from the projectors! This is another exhibit that make use of simple instruments but brings out a very unique experience in the night festival.

(A Kaleidoscope of Spring by Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts)

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(Journey by NOVAK)

Next up.. The Singapore Art Museum! The idea is so smart to use the building as the backdrop, I remember last year's National Museum also used this way to project a short animation. This exhibits caught a lot of visitors' attention as the show is very interacting.

(Journey by NOVAK)

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Next is at Queen Streets!

(The Very Wishing Story - The Waterfalls, The Cave and The Forest by Wei, Sum Qian Yu)

To me this looks like a wishing waterfall with all the lights on the floor means all the wishing that the people had wished for. People just stop using phone and form shapes and letters with the lights.

(The Very Wishing Story - The Waterfalls, The Cave and The Forest by Wei, Sum Qian Yu)

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(Light Force, Night Falls by GSM Project)

This is the last exhibit I had visited at National Design Centre! This exhibit combine Water, Light and Music which brings up the atmosphere around the area and the restaurant.

(Light Force, Night Falls by GSM Project)

It's a very tiring and long day but I really enjoyed this trip even after whole day of school. I would love to attend this every year!

F I V E

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I chanced upon this sculpture near Suntec City convention centre and I find it pretty amazing. It is not the first time I encountered this sculpture as I pass by this area pretty often. However, only until today I realised how amazing this piece of artwork is. At many different angle, this sculpture looks like a flat piece of paper. I’ve never notice this in the past as I was using my phone when passing by this area. I realised how technology had make me disregarded many beautiful things around me. We live in a digital era whereby even the kids in kindergarten are holding to a digital device. This caused us to be living in a virtual world and drifting away from the “real” world which is very saddening. From now on, I will try to bring myself back to this real world and start to enjoy this beautiful world that we live in.

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My Reviews of Videos

Amy Tan: Where does creativity hide?

https://www.ted.com/talks/amy_tan_on_creativity

Review :

"The Value of Nothing: Out of Nothing Comes Something".

Amy shared her ideas on how creativity is created by means of nature, nature and nightmares. She also shared her belief that there is no ultimate answer/truth in everything. In order to have a more complete answer/truth to something, it comes from herself by simply imagining. In conclusion, creativity can exist in various forms, they might be there all along but remained unnoticed. Thus, it is important to have an open-mind to be creative in order to create something out of nothing.

Seth Godin: How to get your idea to spread

https://www.ted.com/talks/seth_godin_on_sliced_bread

Review :

Seth began his sharing with the origin of slice bread and how the idea of slice bread came from a total failure to widely known by everyone. Traditionally, product was created and targeted at the majority, known as mass marketing. Seth suggested to go for the Innovators and early adopters, the "otaku", who are deeply obsessed with the product as they will eventually be the one spreading the idea to the rest of the world. Ultimately, in order to get the ideas to spread, it is important to identify the ones who care as they are the one who will listen.

MIND MAP

It’s a brand new week again! Time really flies and it’s the fifth lesson of creative thinking! This week lesson is on mind-mapping. I knew of this useful tool all along but I have never thought of utilising it whenever I have zero inspiration. Mind-mapping allows us to connect different ideas together and let us see a bigger picture of how things work.

In this week lesson, we were taught of a new method for creative thinking known as the 10 X 2 routine. This method allows us to constantly question ourselves to brainstorm of more ideas. By doing so, it allows us to go beyond what’s on the surface by keep thinking of new question to challenge ourselves. We were tasked to use the above mentioned method to examine the photo below.

As usual, my group members and I came out with various interesting description that I can never think of it alone. The descriptions and interesting questions that we have thought of are:

Japanese
Hair Style
Patterns
Shoes
Fat Foot
Ugly Face
Small Eyes
Night
Kimono
Make up
Reed
No Eyebrows
Cloudy
Windy
Red Lipstick
Painting
Huge earlobe
Comfortable
Women
Elegant
Conservative
Full Moon
White Face
Relationship
Expensive
Cultural
Shy
Floral
Geisha
Flow
Blue Sky
River
Transgender
Gentle Lady
Night
Chatting
Peri
Walking
Traditional
Urge to pee

1. Why does the lady in blue don't have eyebrows?

: She probably shaved off by accident.

2. Why both of them not wearing shoes?

: They probably feeling tired after a long walk so they rather walk in their bare foot.

3. Why do they pin up their hair?

: They want to look presentable.

4. Why do must they wear Kimono out?

: I guess they will be attending some event so they want to look good.

5. Why do they design Kimono in pattern but not in plain color?

: It might be a tradition looking look.

6. Why must they put so much make up?

: Probably they are meeting the king so want to look presentable.

7. Why did they came out during night time?

: I guess those day might not have any transport so the only method is to walk.

8. Why did they walk in bare foot?

: Their feet is too huge to fit any shoes.

9. Why are they holding a reed?

: They want to give it to the king as a gift.

10. Why did the lady cover her mouth?

: She probably gossiping with the lady behind her.

Sunday, August 14, 2016

F O U R T H

MY ROOM

The reason why I chose this angle of my room is because of this portrait of Big Ben in London. I chose this portrait as it photo allows me to broaden my imagination. I always wanted to travel to many different countries especially London as I always wanted to visit the Big Ben. Whenever I am feeling low or deprived of imagination, I will close my eyes and imagine that I am visiting there. This allows my imagination to go wild whenever I start to imagine about the food, buildings as well as the people around there. Whenever I need to do something that is totally foreign to me, I will let my imagination go wild to help aid me in getting more inspiration.

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My Reviews of Videos

Tony Fadell : The First Secret Of Design is ... Noticing
https://www.ted.com/talks/tony_fadell_the_first_secret_of_design_is_noticing?language=en

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Isaac Mizrahi : Fashion And Creativity

http://www.ted.com/talks/isaac_mizrahi_on_fashion_and_creativity?language=en

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Review :
Both presenters shared interesting point of view in which how their inspirations and ideas came about. While their definition of how ideas are formed may not be identical, both presenters used logical reasoning to support their stands which is fairly convincing. Mizrahi shared that his ideas often comes from mistake and even trick of the eyes and he don’t believe that inspirations comes from research. On the other hand, Fadell mentioned that ideas can be generated by looking broader; looking closer; and thinking younger within. In conclusion, both presenters’ argument towards how ideas are formed clearly shows that there isn’t a “fixed” way and it is important to have an open-mind to generate great ideas.

PRESENTATION WEEK

My group was given a task to identify 50 different ways of using a scissors. It was an interesting task and I was impressed by my group mates’ creativity. During the brainstorming, we managed to explore many different creative ideas such as using a scissors to barbeque and trimming eyelashes with the scissors. I was very impressed with Lynn’s drawing skills as she managed to illustrated exactly what we imagined into a perfect piece of drawing. I really enjoyed this session with them as we created a lot of laughter through this simple activity.

This activity also further broadens my imaginative skill as I’ve learnt that inspiration can be generated through all the simple stuff that is happening in our daily life like using a scissors. Before the presentation, I thought I will be comfortable with presenting to the class. However, I’m not comfortable at all. Instead, I was extremely nervous. I dislike this feeling and I hope that I will be able to overcome this fear one day. I was impressed with Emily and Lynn’s presentation as they articulated themselves very well. Vanessa was also very confident in her presentation. I hope that I will be able to present like them in the near future.