After reading the readings for our group’s chosen inspiration cluster I felt a little lost. When I read the keywords I immediately thought that the cluster was based around the ideas of time and space. However once I actually read the readings and looked into the meanings of the keywords, I found that it was a little more complicated than that.
The first reading spoke about how technology today has affected our lives in an immense way. By saying this, what I thought the reading was trying to explain is that even though we live in a world where our cultures and our beliefs vary from country to city to suburb, technology seems to be used throughout (mostly) without hesitation.The reading used the examples of television and how even in little remote Mormon towns in America where you can basically only tune two or three channels, people are able to watch Cable television (porn) in the middle of the night. The reading goes on to talk about the light bulb and the affect it has had on society today in terms of space and time. With the lights being used in almost every part of the city, where we once were unable to go due to the restriction of light, is now available for us. Although this doesn’t apply to every part of the world, the point the reading is trying to make is that with technology today, the boundaries of time and space are so easily broken. “Light creates the necessary space, pushing back the boundaries of time.”
To get a better grasp of what the cluster was about I went online and searched the keywords “Zeitgeist”, “Volksgeist” and “Weltgeist”. I came up with a lot of explanations of the origins and the meanings behind these words. The main idea that was brought up was that of national, cultural and world spirit. The word spirit continued to appear over and over again. These terms refer to the spirits that are associated with context of time and culture. Although this idea of the “spirit” can be referred culturally, it is not bound by borders. “Zeitgeist” refers to the spirit of the age and its society, the mainstream ideas and trends. “Volksgesit” refers to national spirit. All national spirits makes up the “Weltgeist”, the worlds spirit. “Zeitgeist” is the experience of dominant culture of the world. As the first reading mentioned, even in the most isolated of towns, technology has allowed for the breaking down of the barriers for time and space relations.
I’m still a little confused as to how to go about my individual assignments using this cluster. I like the idea of collective consciousness, where the shared beliefs and morals of society make as a unifying force. I feel like that applies so greatly to me as an Australian, as being a part of the Australian culture is not so easily defined by boundaries but rather through the ideas and beliefs of Australians, especially since we are a multicultural society. I feel that this also ties in with the morals of society and how we as a whole have certain beliefs as to what is right and acceptable.
I’m not 100% sure of how I’ll go about doing my individual assignments but I like the ideas of collective consciousness and dynamic flows. I’m thinking maybe for my assignment I could use mirror images with small differences to create this idea of a dynamic flow. To somehow create links and spaces out of bigger spaces. I could use time frames to create alternative ideas and draw on how society has changed. Because the idea of light breaking down time and space barriers was brought up, I plan to make that a big theme of my assignment.
We’ll just have to see how that turns out.
