Force Projection (Experiencing Place from the Comfort of your Couch)

1. Creative Work from Interview

https://titlepending19.blogspot.com/2018/09/project-milestone-2-creative-work-from.html

This blog post was made as a result of my first out-of-class interview, with Jacinta. The interview I conducted went extremely well, and I felt that I had learned so much about somebody I had only met just before it had started. We spoke for about half an hour, mainly regarding her studies, work at RMIT Connect as well as at the Women's and Children's hospital carrying out hearing tests for newborns, and her experience as a single mother.

There was so much that I gained from this interview, that unfortunately, it didn't all find a place in the fiction piece I crafted. What really stuck with me was how busy of a life Jacinta has. I was inspired by her ability to take satisfaction out of it and be happy, despite juggling study, two jobs and parenthood. I really wanted to get a firm understanding of what this lifestyle is like, so I created a character that has been through a similar experience as Jacinta. The character, Jacquie (the characters having the same three letters at the beginning of their names was not a conscious choice), struggles to relax while on holiday in Barcelona with her sister, due to her regularly busy life. My primary goal was to practice writing a world experience completely different from my own. I felt that due to the interview I had done, and all of the information I had gained out of it, I was able to more truthfully write this character. The process seems almost like astral projection, where I was able to experience and write about something completely different from my personal reality and habitus, almost through a proxy. Instead of projecting to a physical place, however, the interview helped me to project to a different way of thinking. A mental place, one that I was then able to explore through my own character and story.

2. Process Reflection

https://titlepending19.blogspot.com/2018/10/process-reflection.html

In this post, I reflect on the experience of interviewing my Hong Kong partner, Natalie, and how that inspired the creative piece that came with it. While in my previous interview, I had focused on getting to know the person and learn about their mental place, this one focused more on getting to know the physical place of Hong Kong. That's not to say that I didn't learn anything about mindset or mental state. I certainly did, especially with Natalie's personal response to the busy city that she lives in. This went on to inspire the primary theme of the piece I wrote.

As for learning about the physical place, Natalie and I spoke about the business of Hong Kong, the crowded nature of the city and the long work lives of its inhabitants. She really helped me see the city as it truly was, rather than how I had conceived it through the things I had previously heard. She helped me to illustrate the city truthfully, despite the fact that I had never been there.

In the blog post, I also wrote about the follow-up information she gave me after our interview, unprompted, and how that helped to further strengthen my understanding of the city. In addition, I touch on the early barriers we faced throughout the interview, and how I navigated around those in order to get as much out of the interview as possible.

Overall the process once again helped me to expand my habitus via proxy, projecting my mind to a place across the world, that I otherwise would not have been able to understand and represent as truthfully.


3. Habitus Enhanced

https://titlepending19.blogspot.com/2018/10/habitus-enhanced.html

In my final blog post for the semester, I wrote about my expanding habitus, and how it had been impacted not only by The Particular is the Universal, but also by my other classes, being Short Story Writing and Exploring Asian Popular Culture.

Short Story Writing enabled me to reflect on writing other than my primary passion for long-form fantasy. I was able to look back on all of the things I have written over the course of my degree, finding a common thread of how people deal with isolation. I believe that this theme comes from my own introverted nature. It was something that I had overlooked when first contending with the question of habitus, believing that I hadn't really reflected my habitus in my writing.

My other two classes, however, allowed me to broaden my habitus through reading. In the post, I mention that Stephen King believes that reading is almost a form of telepathy, and reflect on this. It allows us to experience a whole other place and time without having to go there. I have seen this in my own research for the final creative piece, as I read about the hiking trails of Hong Kong, as well as its train network. I pulled up maps of the Hong Kong MTR, as well as regular maps of the island itself, which helped me gain an understanding of the city almost as if I had been there in person.

Crucially, I also reflect on my interviews throughout the semester, with Jacinta, Natalie, in addition to my more casual interview with my father about the train network in Hong Kong. By far these have been the most effective ways to experience another place without actually going there, as I was able to follow up on anything that came to mind, a liberty not granted when reading. These interviews greatly informed the fiction pieces that followed, and they certainly would not have been as truthful to place, both mental and physical, without the time given by my interviewees.