Virtual Reality Means Creativity Manifest Your Creativity Through Virtual Reality
Workbook
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction ........................................................................ 4 Chapter 1: Create your own answers .................................... 5 Exercise 1: ........................................................................ 5 Exercise 2: ........................................................................ 6 Exercise 3: ........................................................................ 6 Summary ....................................................................... 7 CHAPTER 2: YOUR REALITY YOUR LOGIC .............................. 8 Exercise: 4 ........................................................................ 8 Summary ....................................................................... 9 CHAPTER 3: SET THE RULES ............................................... 10 Exercise: 5 ...................................................................... 10 Exercise: 6 ...................................................................... 11 Summary ..................................................................... 11 CHAPTER 4: PRACTICAL DOESN’T APPLY ............................ 12 Exercise: 7 ...................................................................... 12 Exercise: 8 ...................................................................... 12 Summary ..................................................................... 13 CHAPTER 5: IT’S TIME TO PLAY .......................................... 14 Exercise: 9 ...................................................................... 14
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Summary ..................................................................... 15 CHAPTER 6: WHY AREN’T YOU HERE? ................................. 16 Exercise: 10 .................................................................... 16 Exercise: 11 .................................................................... 16 Summary ..................................................................... 17 CHAPTER 7: FOOL AROUND ............................................... 18 Exercise: 12 .................................................................... 18 Exercise: 13 .................................................................... 19 Summary ..................................................................... 19 CHAPTER 8: UNCERTAINTY IS GOOD .................................. 20 Exercise: 14 .................................................................... 20 Exercise: 15 .................................................................... 21 Summary ..................................................................... 21 CHAPTER 9: ERROR MEANS LEARNING ................................ 22 Exercise: 16 .................................................................... 22 Summary ..................................................................... 23 CHAPTER 10: NO OTHER CHOICE BUT TO BE CREATIVE ....... 24 Exercise: 17 .................................................................... 25 Exercise: 18 .................................................................... 26 Conclusion ........................................................................ 27
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Final Advice ....................................................................... 29 Author .............................................................................. 32
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INTRODUCTION
Apply your imagination and creativity while listening to the corresponding audiobook in the Virtual Reality Mean Creativity series. Actively stimulate your creativity and innovation by actively participating in the exercises. The Virtual Reality Means Creativity series does not provide how to create virtual reality programs, devices, and associated technologic advancements or innovations. This workbook corresponds to the audiobook of the same title,
Virtual Reality Means Creativity to gain the best benefits, the author highly advises listening to the audiobook and doing the exercises when instructed to. If one is not able to listen to the audiobook while proceeding through this workbook, completion of the exercises and understanding of the fundamentals of the ideas is highly likely without the audiobook through the transcript. The transcript of the audiobook Virtual Reality Means Creativity is provided. Throughout the workbook, the images will have a theme of 3D boxes. The boxes are to help the listener/reader to imagine a given space for virtual reality manipulation. Each chapter image will have a specific box in correlation with the picture book provided with the audiobook. This series is based on the Roger von Oech's book A Whack
on the Side of the Head. The Virtual Reality Means Creativity author highly recommends reading the book after going through this series as it focuses on creativity in all and any fields rather than focusing on just virtual reality.
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CHAPTER 1: CREATE YOUR OWN ANSWERS
Look for the second right answer, the third, and so on. If you just look for one perfectly right answer, you will be missing so many opportunities. Learn how to think from different points of views and perspectives. By thinking more openly, you will be more prone to ideas and expanding your creativity and imagination. Forget your assumptions and knowledge by asking questions. Remember that there can be more than one answer and more than one right answer. For virtual reality (VR), you are essentially creating your answers instead of finding them. You are only limited by the ideas and your execution of them. EXERCISE 1:
How do you get to 7? Write as many possible answers within one minute.
You may have said 1+6 while another reader may have said 10-3. There are more than one way to get to 7. Apply this same kind of thinking to VR, there are more than one way to make anything and everything. Different equipment may have different functions with different VR programs. Respect that others may have different answers, right or wrong.
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EXERCISE 2:
What are in the boxes? List at least 5 answers.
EXERCISE 3:
What do you see?
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SUMMARY
Virtual reality is very open as it can be related to almost all fields in one way or another. It is all a matter of how you can connect these fields. How you can connect to different aspects of reality and the number or ways you can connect to these aspects are key to understanding the undiscovered. There can be more than one answer and more than one right answer. Don’t restrict yourself into believing that there is a set guide to virtual reality.
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CHAPTER 2: YOUR REALITY YOUR LOGIC
In virtual reality, logic can shoot itself in the foot. Virtual reality is all about creating new worlds and experiences. Nothing has to be logical unless you want to make it so. If you want to replace armadillos with birds, go for it. There is no way that traditional logic based on the law of noncontradiction/consistency would accept such nonsense, but virtual reality can make it logical because you made it logical. The only limits are what you think and how you do it. Go with your intuition and stick to it. There may be times when you are stuck between soft thinking, where you focus on similarities and connections, and hard thinking, where you focus on differences. The creative process utilizes soft and hard thinking to go from the imaginative phase to the practical phase: thinking something different to getting something done. If you are stuck, think in metaphors. Metaphors helps you understand one idea by means of another, making abstract and strange ideas familiar due to similarities. You can use the metaphors themselves as inspirations for virtual reality. EXERCISE: 4
Fill in the blanks to complete these metaphors and explain your answer. Example:
Life is like a box of chocolate. Life is full of surprises; you never know what will happen next. Dogs are like ____________________________.
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Virtual reality is like ______________________.
SUMMARY
Common sense and logic do not need to be seen in your virtual reality works. What needs to be logical within your possibly illogical work is your transition from soft thinking to hard thinking within the creative process. If you are in situation where it’s hard to imagine, use metaphors.
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CHAPTER 3: SET THE RULES
If you follow rules, you are only abiding to the whims of others. You cannot allow yourself to be under someone else’s wings if you want to be truly creative and innovative within the virtual reality field. What you need to do challenge these rules to see all the possible perspectives to take down the obstacle. You may not know it, but you may have some ‘sacred cows’: rules that have become so successful that they have become immune to criticism. “Every rule can be challenged except for this,” is essentially how you restricted yourself with a rule of your own. EXERCISE: 5
What are some consistencies and patterns that you see around you? How can you break them and present them virtual reality?
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EXERCISE: 6
What are some restrictions and rules that you have always adhered to when it comes to thoughts on technology?
SUMMARY
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CHAPTER 4: PRACTICAL DOESN’T APPLY
It’s all about imagination. Always question everything and anything since it is the method of learning. Imagination is led by asking ‘What if’ questions and pondering on them. Asking ‘what if’ and finish something contrary to the fact condition, idea, or situation opens up the opportunities and avenues to showcase your imagination in the realm of virtual reality. Your answer may as well be your virtual reality work based on asking a simple ‘What if’ question. Remember to look at the question in different viewpoints and perspectives in broaden your imagination’s horizons. These ‘Stepping stones’ provoke ideas that stimulate us to think of other ideas. Be an artist first before you judge, practicality can come after you have imagined. EXERCISE: 7
What if the world was flipped upside-down? How will it change?
EXERCISE: 8
Where do you want to go? How will you experience it with virtual reality?
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SUMMARY
Always think ‘What if’ and think of varying perspectives to use as ‘Stepping Stones’ for inspiration. The basis of virtual realities is founded on the speculative ‘what if’ realities. Virtual reality games use these thinking tools to place the player in a ‘what if’ world.
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CHAPTER 5: IT’S TIME TO PLAY
Just live life, have fun, laugh a bit, and love what you are doing. What is fortunate about the virtual reality world is that most of the current innovations and progress is coming from gamers. Virtual reality games from big companies to indie games lets you play with virtual reality. One can consider playing as the current foundation of virtual reality. EXERCISE: 9
What games would you like to play in virtual reality? What games would you like to make in virtual reality?
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SUMMARY
Play around. Toy with your idea and situation. Make it fun and interesting and others will see it the same way.
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CHAPTER 6: WHY AREN’T YOU HERE?
If you are saying ‘That’s not my area’, virtual reality can be incorporated into almost all areas. It’s all about the idea of recognizing a basic idea of one situation and applying it to another, cross-fertilizing and relating to different areas. There is a lot of information out there around you that you have still yet to explore. Exploring will lead to discovering something new and different in unusual and unexpected places. Embrace ideas from these unexpected inspirations. EXERCISE: 10
Brainstorm how your daily life can have virtual reality in it?
EXERCISE: 11
What are the most obvious things I can say about virtual reality? Explain your situation in detail to someone who know absolutely nothing about it
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SUMMARY
Anything and everything applies to virtual reality, it’s just a matter of connecting them together.
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CHAPTER 7: FOOL AROUND
The way to fall behind in the field of virtual reality is by following exactly what someone else has done. Don’t conform because you will be following orders, rules, ideas that aren’t your own. New ideas cannot occur when you are part of this group thinking, so avoid this herd mentality. Be a fool: find the humor in your situation, reverse your viewpoint, and take a contrary position to common sense. EXERCISE: 12
Doodle
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EXERCISE: 13
Listen to some music and dance to it. SUMMARY
Don’t stick to just thinking ‘work, work, work’. Have some and fool around. You’ll never know what you’ll come upon when you do.
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CHAPTER 8: UNCERTAINTY IS GOOD
Even though the thought of virtual reality has been around for more than 50 years, it is only recently that we have developed the technology to actually make it into a reality. It’s only been the past decade that virtual reality has started being explored through experience instead of just theories and conjectures. The unknown leads to uncertainty and the only way to get used to it. Surprises will be surprises, whether you like it or not. Since virtual reality is all about the unknown, you will just come to find that exploring and discovering the unknown will lead to innovation and advancement for both the field as a whole and your learning. EXERCISE: 14
Write down a question of virtual reality?
Now write down something completely random.
How does the random thing apply to virtual reality? What did you learn?
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EXERCISE: 15
Draw the most recent dream you had. How will you visualize your drawing in the virtual reality space?
SUMMARY
To get over your fear of the unknown, you either need to get used to being afraid or be afraid no more. All it comes down to is if you do it or not.
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CHAPTER 9: ERROR MEANS LEARNING
You better get used to getting errors and failures since you will get a lot of those in virtual reality. The restrictions of equipment, devices, and programs restrict your creativity due to their limitations and parameters. You’ll get comfortable to these errors and failures since they will happen so much, so no worries. From these errors and failures, you learn what the actual limitations and parameters that you have to go around in order to achieve your goal. On the other hand, don’t let success change how you get to your goal. Success is good but it can also lock you into a pattern, make you arrogant and over-confident, and create even worse situations for you. Be apprehensive like you are in survival mode: keep moving forward and improving no matter the situation since it is the only way you can survive and thrive. EXERCISE: 16
What are some problems you are facing now? How will you face your problems based on your past experiences?
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SUMMARY
In virtual reality, everything starts with errors and failures. It’s better to get used to it and not to be held back by successes either.
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CHAPTER 10: NO OTHER CHOICE BUT TO BE CREATIVE
It’s all about using your creative side when you are in the virtual reality field. There is still exploration and discoveries happening frequently because of the fact that it is a very recent phenomenon. As long as you keep on thinking, you will act upon that thought. Virtual reality only expands the range of thoughts that can be acted upon.
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EXERCISE: 17
Write down your life-long wishes, dreams, and/or goals. How can virtual reality help you fulfill them?
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EXERCISE: 18
Look around and draw any ideas and inspirations of where virtual reality can by incorporated. What environments/activities give you the most ideas with virtual reality?
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CONCLUSION
Now that you have finished this workbook, I hope that you can see virtual reality in a more creative way. Since virtual reality and its related fields have been booming in the last decade, we are all exploring what these fields can offer us. It is up to you, the reader, to be creative in your exploration into the digital unknown. Remember when you experience virtual reality to:
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Believe in the worth of your ideas
Have persistence to continue building on them
Take more risks
Break the rules occasionally
Look for more than one right answer
Explore ideas outside your area
Tolerate & embrace ambiguity
Be foolish every now and then
Play a bit
Ask “What if” questions
Go beyond the status quo
Whack yourself into doing all of these things
In your creative process, you will go through four roles: first an explorer, next an artist, then a judge, and finally a warrior. As an explorer, you will be searching for new information and resources. As an artists, you will be turning these resources into new ideas. As a judge, you evaluate the merits of an idea and decide what to do with it. As a warrior, you are carrying your idea into action. More along the lines of a spectrum, you will be transitioning between these roles fluidly where you can be taking both aspects of the judge and the warrior at the same time. You can also go back forth between these roles as it is not a one way progression. Don’t let weak roles, timing, and being stuck stop you. Keep on moving. Do not restrict yourself but be mentally flexible: easily shifting between “different types of thinking depending on the needs of the situation at hand.”1
For more information on the impact of virtual reality, augmented reality, holograms, and related industries, check out Hwang’s blog and podcast, CNVRT: Chicago’s Next Virtual Reality Technologies. Not only does it discuss new innovations and advancements in the virtual reality and related industries, but it also discusses issues that will impact daily lives and the technologic landscape. Thanks for checking it out.
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FINAL ADVICE
1. In virtual reality, any idea can be a great idea. Think it, plan it, act on it! a. What are three things you can do to reach your goal? 2. Like with any other idea, you need to be backup and defend what you believe in. Put your all into anything and everything you do and you can accomplish great things. Have courage, faith, passion, and perseverance to do what you set out to do. What you create in virtual reality can further this field or inspire others to create even greater things a. What inspires you to be courageous? 3. The field of virtual reality is a compilation of several collaborations in devices, programs, and other related technologic efforts. Work with others and get support. Sharing and asking for help can only help you learn new and different ways to get you to your goal. a. How can you create a support system around you? 4. No excuses. As Yoda said, "Do or do not. There is no try." Fear will always be there when you are dealing with something new and unknown. If you are hesitating, you can either find a way to stop being afraid or get used to being afraid. a. What three factors will make it difficult for you to reach your objective? How can you “kick� these excuses? 5. Take risks. You will never know what you will discover. The greater the risk, the greater the reward will be. All
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you will be doing when you are experimenting with virtual reality will be taking risks. You'll get used to it after a while. a. How can you continue taking risks? 6. When you have something at stake, you'll try harder. As von Oech stated on having and raising the stakes, you can have your 'survival, reputation, self-esteem, money" and so on will make you appreciate of what you have on how to at least maintain on what you have at stake. Virtual reality is great because you will have little at stake since it is a very recent field. a. What do you have at stake? 7. Failure is always an option. Don't be dissatisfied or afraid of failure. From failure comes experience, understanding, and learning. When you create anything, you will have many failures to start off with. This is how progress comes about and will help you find different opportunities, expanding your creative and imaginative process at the same time. a. How can you turn irritation into inspiration? 8. New and different ideas can throw you off when you encounter them. Prepare for these new ideas and get what you can from it but don't let it bring you down. a. What negative reaction do you expect? How can you deflect it? 9. "If you are good at something, never do it for free," as Joker (Heath Ledger) said. Try getting something from what you do. Get a reward or make a reward for yourself. Sell yourself and what you made for something.
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a. How can you make your idea more attractive to other people? 10.
Deadlines are your friend. Even if there isn't one, make
one. a. What tight deadlines can you give yourself? 11.
Keep on doing and never stop. Persevere and persist
till the very end. You are only hurting yourself by not doing what you have set out to do. a. How persistent are you?
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AUTHOR
Kelly Hwang is a Columbia College Chicago (CCC) marketing senior and the content creator of the new podcast and blog 'CNVRT: Chicago's Next Virtual Reality Technologies'. In correspondence with the ‘Virtual Reality Mean Creativity: Manifesting Your Creativity in Virtual Reality’ series, Hwang focuses on the implications and the effects of virtual reality, augmented reality, holograms, and related technologies. She uses both her business and entrepreneurship skills and experience to further expand the implications of present-day and possible future technologies and innovations for herself and for others.
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