Reflective Report 2

Themes: 

• Internet, Social Media & Web 2.0 can all be summed up as - The Attention Economy
• Attention Economy = "Attention economics is an approach to the management of information that treats human attention as a scarce commodity" - this treating of our attention as a commodity means that we are increasingly distracted in the modern day through our electronic devices, advertising and what have you. Creativity is something that must be nurtured and given time to prosper. So is there a case to be argued that the two of these don't necessarily go hand in hand?
• What is creativity? How does our desire (& need) to be creative interact with the influx of this new 'Attention Economy'?

Current Sources: 

• The Twittering Machine (Book), Richard Seymour
• This Is Not Propaganda (Book), Peter Pomerantsev
• Ways of Seeing (Book), John Berger
• How To Thrive in the Digital Age (Book), Tom Chatfield
• Digital Prohibition: Piracy and Authorship in New Media Art (Book), Carolyn Guertin
• The Death of the Author (Essay), Roland Barthes
• The Culture of Connectivity (Book), José Van Dijick
• The Postdigital Membrane: Imagination, Technology and Desire (Book), Robert Pepperell and Michael Punt
• Jaron Lanier Interview on how Social Media Ruins your Life (YouTube)
• Joseph Gordon-Levitt ‘How craving attention makes you less creative’ (TedTalk)
• John Cleese on Creativity in Management (Talk)

Tutorial Notes:

• Wonder if it's necessary to constrict the argument by looking at the digital side of the essay though the eyes of Instagram alone? This might make finding a credible argument quite difficult. Instead, look into the attention economy as a whole. Looking at behavioural effects of it etc. 
• Along side this, continue research into WHAT creativity is, what impact is the internet having on the ability for one to sustain & evolve a creative practice???
• When looking into creativity, research into the theory of flow may be useful (divergent & convergent tendencies). Looking at cultural homogeny (Gramaci) as a result of the digital age. But does this end up straying from a clear line of argument?
• PRACTICAL - what about playing with 'the algorithm'? Try creating work that adheres to a particular trend - how could that work? Travelling through the 'discover page'/hashtags to create generic, algorithm driven outcomes and try to gauge peoples impressions of this kind of work? 
• Could potentially use the business account settings to view the interaction statistics of any posts you do?
• Only problem... don't have a phone! So I am restricted! As can't actually post to instagram... But can find trends etc online. 
• Start producing work in relation to popular, art-related trends?