{"id":747,"date":"2009-09-17T19:53:14","date_gmt":"2009-09-18T00:53:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mikeconley.ca\/blog\/?p=747"},"modified":"2023-12-20T16:25:19","modified_gmt":"2023-12-20T21:25:19","slug":"a-few-things-drama-can-bring-to-computer-science","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mikeconley.ca\/blog\/2009\/09\/17\/a-few-things-drama-can-bring-to-computer-science\/","title":{"rendered":"A Few Things Drama Can Bring to Computer Science"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>So, <a href=\"http:\/\/mikeconley.ca\/blog\/2009\/09\/16\/what-can-drama-bring-to-computer-science\/\">yesterday I wrote<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>[W]hat can Drama bring to Computer Science?<\/p>\n<p>The easy one is presentation\/communication skills.\u00a0 A CS student might be brilliant, but that doesn\u2019t mean they can present or communicate.\u00a0 And if an idea can\u2019t be communicated, it\u2019s worthless.<\/p>\n<p>But what else?\u00a0 Any ideas?\u00a0 I\u2019m going to think about this for a bit, and I\u2019ll see if I can come up with any more.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I posted the question on Twitter, and on my Facebook.\u00a0 I was quite surprised by the amount of feedback I got back &#8211; apparently, quite a few people are interested in this topic.<\/p>\n<p>Thanks for everybody who posted, or who came up to talk to me about this!\u00a0 Let me summarize what I heard back:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Without a doubt, work in Drama hones movement\/body senses.\u00a0 It also trains us to use and take care of our body, and voice, like a musician would take care of a musical instrument.\u00a0 Spending too much time hunkered over a keyboard can have detrimental effects on the body over time &#8211; I can personally admit to having absolutely awful shoulder tension, no doubt to my constant typing.\u00a0 I only became aware of this tension, and how to deal with it, thanks to my work in Drama.\u00a0 The dichotomy between body and mind is, in my humble opinion, a Western myth, and when you stop separating them, and get them to work together, amazing things can happen.\u00a0 Just ask any <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=sBU9Oernv50&amp;feature=related\">contact improviser<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Drama is also emotional work.\u00a0 No, this doesn&#8217;t mean we sit in a big circle and cry, and get credit for it.\u00a0 Emotions are something that we study &#8211; how to <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Jacques_Lecoq\">mimic<\/a> them, how to<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Stanislavski%27s_system\"> summon them out of ourselves<\/a>, how to describe them, and abstractly represent them.\u00a0 This is where Psychology, Drama, and Human-Computer Interaction might have some overlap.\u00a0 In particular, it must be remembered that theatre is a communications medium between the actor(s) on stage, and the audience.\u00a0 A webpage is also a communications medium.\u00a0 Perhaps the theatre can teach a website a thing or two about communication.\u00a0 I wonder what <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Marshall_McLuhan\">Marshall McLuhan<\/a> would have to say on all of this&#8230;<\/li>\n<li>Drama folk are creative, and are used to doing impossible, unreasonable things.\u00a0 If you ask them to fly, they&#8217;ll figure out a way of doing it.\u00a0 It&#8217;ll probably be abstract, and involve crazy lighting effects, but they&#8217;ll do it.\u00a0 Production Managers are used to getting crazy, impossible requests from Directors all the time.\u00a0 In my opinion, that&#8217;s what Directors are for!\u00a0 Sometimes (usually due to time constraints), the Production Manager just says no to the Director &#8211; usually, though, they just go ahead and make impossible things happen &#8211; <a href=\"http:\/\/picasaweb.google.com\/mike.d.conley\/MiscAttemptsOnHerLifePhotos?feat=directlink\">like building a triple layered reflection box.\u00a0 This thing was a beast, and used a ton of computing power for live, context sensitive visual effects.<\/a> I&#8217;m proud to have been a part of that.<\/li>\n<li>In Drama, if the project is no fun, the end result suffers.\u00a0 I&#8217;m pretty sure the same goes for software.\u00a0 Drama students have a way of finding the &#8220;game&#8221;, the &#8220;jeu&#8221;, and the &#8220;play&#8221; (that&#8217;s why it&#8217;s called a &#8220;play&#8221;, people!) in what they&#8217;re doing.\u00a0 The best actors are the ones who are clearly having a great time on stage, and are sharing this with the audience.\u00a0 I believe this is applicable to software development&#8230;<\/li>\n<li>If you want to think about complex systems, think about the stage.\u00a0 At any given moment, n actors are on stage, interacting with various bits of set or props, interacting with each other &#8211; and each has their own motivation and personal story.\u00a0 It can&#8217;t be a coincidence that <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/I*\">the I* modeling language<\/a> orients itself around terms like &#8220;actors&#8221; and &#8220;goals&#8221;.\u00a0 It also can&#8217;t be a coincidence that many <a href=\"http:\/\/mikeconley.ca\/blog\/2009\/09\/05\/adventure-games\/\">adventure game engines<\/a> refer to in-game sprites as actors&#8230;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>But now I want to hit the big one.\u00a0 There is one thing that I really think Drama can bring to Computer Science.\u00a0 Drama students are very good at it.\u00a0 From what I can tell, Computer Science students rarely get exposed to it.<\/p>\n<p>That thing is <em>collaboration skills.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>I already know that a few of my fellow Drama students will laugh at that &#8211; and say, &#8220;there are plenty of people in this department without collaboration skills&#8221;.\u00a0 Yes, this is true.\u00a0 But they tend not to do very well, or produce anything too interesting.<\/p>\n<p>For me, the best, most exciting stuff comes when I&#8217;m with a group, and we&#8217;re not sure where we&#8217;re going with a project, but we just <em>try things.<\/em> We all throw a bunch of ideas in the middle, and try to put them on their feet.\u00a0 The most unexpected things can happen.<\/p>\n<p>Two years ago, I took a course in Experimental Theatre.\u00a0 We were broken down into groups of 3 or 4 right at the beginning of the term, and given this challenge &#8211; <em>show us what you like to see in theatre.\u00a0 Show us what you think good theatre looks like.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>That was it.\u00a0 A blank canvas.\u00a0 No script.\u00a0 No &#8220;spec&#8221;.\u00a0 Just each other.\u00a0 It felt hopeless at first &#8211; we&#8217;d improv things, trying to get a feel for what our group wanted to do.\u00a0 Nothing would happen, it&#8217;d fall flat.\u00a0 We were lost.<\/p>\n<p>But slowly, <em>something <\/em>started to piece itself together.\u00a0 We found some material that we wanted to play with (The Wizard of Oz), and a subject that we liked &#8211; &#8220;home&#8221;.\u00a0 What it means to be home, why people leave their homes, why we miss home, why we can&#8217;t stand home, what if we can&#8217;t get home, etc.\u00a0 We divided the work up into 4 sections &#8211; 1 for each of us:\u00a0 Dorothy, Cowardly Lion, Scarecrow, Tin Man.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s really hard to describe what we did.\u00a0 The characters and structure from The Wizard of Oz was just a playground for a huge meditation on what &#8220;home&#8221; meant to different people.<\/p>\n<p>And, wouldn&#8217;t you know it, <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Robert_Dzieka%C5%84ski_Taser_incident\">the Robert Dziekanski Taser Incident<\/a> happened just a week or so before we were to present.\u00a0 It integrated perfectly into our piece.<\/p>\n<p>When we finally presented it, some people were incredulous, others nauseous, others outraged.\u00a0 Some were crying.\u00a0 We had a huge class debate on whether or not it was appropriate to include the film clip of the Taser Incident in our piece.<\/p>\n<p>But a lot of people really got something out of it.\u00a0 And I believe a bunch of people from that class went to a protest rally about the incident that took place only a few days later.\u00a0 I heard a lot of really positive things.\u00a0 We were so excited by it that we almost took it to the Toronto Fringe Festival.<\/p>\n<p>In my opinion, that was one of the most interesting, educational, horrifying, and rewarding art pieces I&#8217;d ever been involved in.\u00a0 And it all started from <em>nothing<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>When are Computer Science students grouped up, and told to make whatever they want?\u00a0 When are they given total freedom to just go crazy, and come up with something beautiful?\u00a0 Something unique?\u00a0 When are they given the frightening prospect of a blank canvas?\u00a0 Maybe I&#8217;m being naive &#8211; but where are the collaborative creativity assignments in computer science education?<\/p>\n<p>Now, I can imagine someone shouting &#8211; &#8220;but what about those group assignments!\u00a0 What about CSC318, or CSC301?\u00a0 Those were collaborative!&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>My friend, thanks for trying, but there&#8217;s a distinct difference between group problem solving, and collaborative creation.\u00a0 In my mind, for collaborative creation at its best, the ensemble starts with <em>nothing<\/em> and must create <em>something <\/em>from it.\u00a0 It&#8217;s the difference between having a script to toy with, and not having a script at all.<\/p>\n<p>And don&#8217;t just tell me that an independent study fits the bill.\u00a0 The word &#8220;independent&#8221; sabotages the whole idea &#8211; the key word is <em>collaborate<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.ca\/Artful-Making-Managers-About-Artists\/dp\/0130086959\/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1253233414&amp;sr=8-1\">Oh, and did I mention that Artful Making sounds like an excellent book?<\/a> Why don&#8217;t you <a href=\"http:\/\/www.artfulmaking.com\/\">go to their website<\/a>, and read the forward by Google&#8217;s own <span>Dr. Eric Schmidt<\/span>.\u00a0 I found it very illuminating.\u00a0 I think this is going to the top of my to-read list.<\/p>\n<p>Thanks to <a href=\"http:\/\/weblog.latte.ca\/\">Blake Winton<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sensorial.org\/\">Veronica Wong<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/sastraxi.wordpress.com\/\">Cam Gorrie<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/catenary.wordpress.com\/\">Jorge Aranda<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.neilernst.net\/\">Neil Ernst<\/a>, Peter Freund, Jennifer Dowding, and Yev Falkovich for their input on this.\u00a0 Yes, those little conversations made an impact!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>So, yesterday I wrote: [W]hat can Drama bring to Computer Science? The easy one is presentation\/communication skills.\u00a0 A CS student might be brilliant, but that doesn\u2019t mean they can present or communicate.\u00a0 And if an idea can\u2019t be communicated, it\u2019s worthless. But what else?\u00a0 Any ideas?\u00a0 I\u2019m going to think about this for a bit, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[428,5,9,4],"tags":[481,21,482,483,476,1205,17,479,480,477,478,22,484,1208,134,1204],"class_list":["post-747","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adventure-games","category-computer-science","category-theater","category-ucdp","tag-actors","tag-attempts-on-her-life","tag-collaboration","tag-collective-creation","tag-communication","tag-computer-science","tag-drama","tag-game","tag-i","tag-impossible","tag-jeu","tag-play","tag-robert-dziekanski","tag-theater","tag-theatre","tag-ucdp"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/prmTy-c3","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikeconley.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/747","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikeconley.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikeconley.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikeconley.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikeconley.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=747"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/mikeconley.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/747\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3224,"href":"https:\/\/mikeconley.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/747\/revisions\/3224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikeconley.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikeconley.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikeconley.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}