WEEK 1

On the first day, there was an introduction that helped explain what is behind digital environments elective. There were some very key points that summed up digital environment and how it can become useful to us in our practise:

• GATHER - getting the ingredients together, understanding what they are
• TASTE - trying out the different flavours, knowing which flavours go well together
• MAKE - investigating the possibilities, experimenting with the ingredients
• THINK - this is reflecting, looking back at what you have done to help you find the right steps to go forward

I noticed that these key points can be applied to anything that is creative but in the case of digital environments it is a clear and effective structure to develop something new for example Facebook was developed after Myspace. They consist of the same idea but one is very music based and the other is about communicating with people in a very simple format.

A few more points that were mentioned:

• anticipate the future, beyond the horizon
• identify possible roles and strategies for future intervention

These are more important bullet points to consider when understanding digital environments. Always looking for the next best thing, idea, a gap and then acting on what it. This is how digital environments works.

Some of the information said in this session did help me understand a little better about elective but some of it knew already. The information taken in, has had an effect on the way I think and how these can easily apply to my own practice (illustration)