Today was our second day at SFPC. We created our own “code of conduct” and talked about documentation with Ida C. Benedetto.
First, Taeyoon’s homework assignment:
In class today, he asked us to create a blog post and share it to Medium, answering these three questions:
My poster:
My answers:
What Do I Want SFPC to Be?
I want SFPC to be a place where a lot of (positive) formative experiences are had. They don’t even have to be all mine. I want SFPC to be a place where it’s ok to go with your gut. I want everyone to be comfortable with each other and I want us to learn together and collaborate.
I realize that that is not always going to be easy, but that’s my ideal and I’m willing to work towards it. Empathy, patience, and sensitivity will need to be employed to the utmost. We all have different emotional, intellectual, and technical strengths.
There’s no doubt that things will get made, ideas will be generated, and everyone will learn different things, but I do hope that we all are able to be open, collaborative, and friendly to each other for the length of the 10 weeks.
What Do I Want to Make?
Mostly, friendships and connections. I am still working out what my artistic practice even is. I know that I can produce photographs, writing, and videos, for and about my time here at SFPC. I intend to do that, but I enjoy code and physical computing as well.
Honestly, if the majority of my function here is as a sort of documentarian, I’m fine with that. I still enjoy using a camera, sound, video editing software, and words to tell stories.
I wasn’t sure when I got here, but now I plan to stay in NYC for the long haul. And to stay here and survive for any length of time, friends are a crucial part of that.
What Do I Want to Learn?
Soft skills as applied to working in the arts and tech. How to collaborate, how to connect.
I plan to stay in New York for at least a few years, so I don’t feel any mad rush to create anything extreme. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to be lazy - far from it.
I enjoyed the heck out of Ida C. Benedetto’s bootcamp on documentation today(more on that below).
I can always learn to code. My approach to code is entirely project-based, but I’m glad I’m at SFPC because it gives me ample time and space to explore code-based projects.
I mean, just learning how to use git in the most basic of ways today has been incredibly rewarding. I look forward to the learning experiences to come here at SFPC. Which is an understatement but also the plain truth.
We spent the first part of the day creating a code of conduct for our class. Taeyoon says that every SFPC class does this - makes up their own code of conduct from scratch. Granted we had his input and experience to guide us but it was a very enjoyable experience, for myself and, it seemed, the class as well.
After that, Ida arrived at class and talked to us for an hour or so about documentation and shared her documentation process for journaling and creative projects.
Here’s a link to her slides:
Ida’s Slides on Documentation Methods for Creative Projects and Life
I also recorded most of her talk using my iPhone’s Voice Memos app:
Ida’s SFPC Bootcamp Talk on Documentation
If you journal or make creative projects, her slides are worth looking at, especially because the slides are essentially a how-to in efficient and thorough journaling, as well as a cheatsheet for creating reference-quality project notes, for whatever creative project you are working on.
Being a photographer, filmmaker, and writer, I was really engaged by Ida’s talk today. I plan to adopt her journaling and project notes process into my own practice. She said that she will be around SFPC over the course of our 10 weeks, so I hope to talk to her more about her process and background as a documentary photographer.
I took a lot of notes, by hand. I’ve been trying to keep my laptop closed because I feel like I listen better when I take notes with pen and paper.
For lunch: 3-day old Chicken Parm from Russo’s in Park Slope. Most of the class went out for Indian food.
For dinner: Peanut butter and honey sandwich scrounged from the SFPC kitchen(no image).
Looking forward to tomorrow, which is a “bootcamp” with Lauren Gardner.
Goodnight!