As written in my last blog post, unfortunately I feel kind of lost and stuck about my master’s thesis at the moment. However, this week I had three different talks about my master thesis, which helped me a bit to gather my thoughts.
My struggles right now
The main topic of my thesis is the impact of productivity and perfection pressure on creative work nowadays. The reasons why I am unsure about the topic are that [a] creativity is a very broad and sometimes hard-to-grasp topic, [b] there are already quite a lot of theses about creativity, and it might be hard to create a strong and unique selling point and [c] I am worried about whether there is a scientific way to really measure creativity. Especially in my case where I want people to interact with the creative webspace and then reflect on their emotional response afterwards and this feels rather vague right now. To prove or disapprove a thesis it is of course important to be able to measure something.
In addition, there is also the realization that I don’t want to create something only digital.
Final Crit with Horst Hörtner
Horst Hörtner is expert in human computer interaction and managing director of the Ars Electronica Futurelab which is known as one of the most important institutions in interaction design on the edges of digital media, design, art, science, industry, society.
The talk was not just about the master thesis itself, but in general about us, our projects and skills and where we want to head in the future. I told him about my master’s thesis idea and about the struggles I am currently facing. He also agreed that in my case only building something digital, which should help creatives in a time of creative blocks, might not be the best solution. We talked a bit more about my general research interests, such as mental health, social issues, feminism and tangible interfaces. He said this is already a good starting point and even though I feel unsure about my thesis right now they resonate with my current topic.
He gave me the advice to deeply dive into topics I am genuinely interested in and to think about what visions I have for my future self, this will help me find a clearer direction. Additionally, he said that, even though he knows it is hard, it is important to engage with the theme, see where the research leads me, and then, in the best-case scenario, a workpiece will emerge from this process.
Final Crit with Martin Kaltenbrunner
Mr. Kaltenbrunner is professor at the Institute of Media Studies / Interface Culture at the University of Art and Design in Linz, head of the Tangible Music Lab, expert in human computer interaction and co-inventor of the Reactivision framework.
Mr. Kaltenbrunner gave me valuable feedback on both my approach and the overall direction of my thesis. I explained my idea of creating a digital, interactive playground as a counter act to productivity culture in creative environments. The webspace intended to support creatives during times of creative blocks. He pointed out that, despite the playful intention, it still would function as a tool designed to increase productivity, since its goal is to generate more creativity. To be honest I never thought about it this way, but he was right. This underlying logic contradicts with what I actually want to explore and question in my thesis.
He told me about the exhibition Unuselessness – The Useful Useless they did at University of Arts and Design Linz. The exhibition explored the contradiction between art and usefulness and the growing expectation that art, design and technology always must be useful or efficient. While researching for the exhibition, they came across Chindogu – the Japanese art of “useless inventions”. He advised me to read up on this topic and narrow down my topic as it currently seems a bit too broad.
https://www.kunstuni-linz.at/archiv/detail/unuselessness-the-useful-useless
Talk with Ursula Lagger
Yesterday I also had a conversation with Ursula Lagger about my master’s thesis and my exposé. She advised me to create a pro-and-contra list if I feel unsure about my topic and to write down everything that comes to my mind about it. When I told her that I might want to explore different topics, she encouraged me to think about the graduation itself and what I want to present to my family, something I feel proud and happy about it, as this might help me to find a topic I truly want to write about.
These three conversations all gave me different perspectives, insights and impulses to move forward. Even though it feels frustrating to realize that I might need/want to rethink or even start over, the conversations felt encouraging.
AI was used to check spelling and grammar.
