My digital history may not go back as far as some, but my life now consists of many different technologies including the internet, smartphones, and computers. As a young child my parents pushed more for me to be creative in my own gameplay, and thus I was never truly exposed to video games and technology such as that until I was older. As I became older, and school work demanded a bigger use for technology, I began using laptops to help me with my work. Now I feel I am mostly caught up with the world as far as technology goes, I may not have all the latest gadgets, but I know how to use the ones I have and I even know how to create art with them.

In this class I learned how technology can be a valuable tool in the art room. My most influential work was when I researched the drawing pad and discovered how apps on the Iphone and Ipad can be used to create art that seems as real as if it was done by hand. Before this research, my only knowledge of digital art was using complex programs like Photoshop or something simple but difficult to control like MS Paint. Both of these programs I did not care for. I was not aware of being able to draw on a screen just as easily as on a piece of paper. Now that I have used such a program, its almost tempting to go out and buy an Ipad for myself if only for the purpose of being able to draw on it.

For many children, using technology is not only helpful, but it’s also fun. For children, doing even mundane things can be more exciting when using technology. Such as making a power point as opposed to writing a research paper. I remember being particularly excited when I got to do even simple things in my computer classes. Also children will be more enthused if they get to use technology to make art. Perhaps this enthusiasm comes from the idea of technology still being a novel idea. People have been drawing on paper for thousands of years, but only recently have they started to draw on a flashy screen.

Technology can be useful in the classroom in many ways, such as the blog I am writing on. I started this blog my first semester for my English class, I used it again during my 2nd English class with the same teacher. Finally, I am using it once more to share my ideas of this class. I will say it was a new experience using a blog, but one I am glad to have. Through this class, technology has become less of an unknown enemy to me, and more of a friend. Before I thought technology really couldn’t be used as a tool in a normal art class. Now that I have this knowledge of how I can use technology, my only hope is that I will be able to teach at a school that will accept it in the same way I have.

At the beginning of this course, I wasnt worried at all actually. I felt i could take on anything, however that quickly faded and i soon felt lost and confused. However i began to look for help and i was able to quickly get back on track. I think the thing that im most able to take away from this class is that i had a piece of work suitable to be submitted for publication. I am also pretty proud of what i discovered about my topic through my work and i feel these accomplishments are going to stay with me the longest.

The document most useful to me was one titled LSD, spirituality, and the creative process. This online book discussed the effects of LSD on human creativity and even more specifically, art. I think my peer reviews were most helpful because they allowed me to see how another student viewed my work and how they understood everything. I think the most difficult part was finding information when I was still struggling with my focus. Once i did get a grasp on it though, things came together easier.

From my peer review projects I learned how to give advice to other people for their projects. I also learned how to use my own advice on my own paper. And i learned that it is important to have someone else read your paper. Yes, marlen was right. One of my partners either did not have someone else read their paper outloud, or the person who did read it, did not know grammar.

-Results

http://abacus.bates.edu/~ganderso/biology/resources/writing/HTWsections.html#results

The most important part of a results section is to present the results without interpretation. It can also include graphs and diagrams to help present the results.

-Discussion

http://www.rcjournal.com/contents/10.04/10.04.1238.pdf

The discussion is for the purpose of interpreting the results and to explain new understanding. It discusses how the study has moved

-Conclusion

http://leo.stcloudstate.edu/acadwrite/conclude.html

Should explain and demonstrate why this info was important. It should also stress the importance of the thesis and wrap up the essay.

The biggest changes I had to make for my paper was correcting all the citations and combing the papers to make sense and flow easily. I think really the only things that need major editing would be small details such as grammar and again making sure the works cited and all that is correct.

My research participants will be some of my friends and hopefully some other people from class will give their thoughts (hint, hint). I know so far of 3 that I could use. Ill protect them by hiding their identitiy with a pseudonym. So far the only questions I have right now, or what questions can i ask?

Purpose
-How was data collected?
-How was in anaylzed?
-Need to know how data was obtained because method affects results.
-Methodology should clearly state why a method was chosen.
-Should be appropriate to the study
-Should discuss problems anticipated and how they were avoided
-Sufficient information on method should be given in the case that it be replicated.

Over view
-introduction of objectives and how they will be achieved.
-Lit review, reviews previous work on the subject
-Method, how results were achieved.
-presentation of results and interpretations.
-Conclusion, has the research problem been solved? What has been learned?

“Writing up Research: Method and Research Design.” Language Center. 2010. Asian Institute for Technology. 15 March. 2010.

101 rubric

Abstract
There are similarities in traits of creative people and psychological characteristics of the psychedelic drug experience. Results in studies in the 1960s were inconclusive, however there has been a new growing interest in research with psychedelic drugs.

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The first thing is to discover how it is possible to define and measure human creativity.

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Creativity is a mental process that involves generating new ideas or concepts. Usually applied to the art industry and recently commercial industry.

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Five stages of creative process: preparation, incubation, intimation, illumination, verification. Creativity is an evolutionary process.

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Creativity requires the communication between the regions of the brain that don’t ordinarily have a strong connection. So called “smart drugs” or nootropics available over the counter have little validity yet inspire the study for such drugs.

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Measuring creativity is extremely difficult because it cannot really be tested because tests have set correct answers and creativity involves originality.

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Tests for divergent thinking including the “Unusual Uses” test, “Structure of Intellect” and Mednicks Remote Associates Test.

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Barron compiled a list of 8 traits shared by creative highly creative individuals. Creativity not linked to IQ. Finding meaning in the world and being enthusiastic to share it. Intuitive. Introverted. Find simple explanation to a complex problem. Slightly more psychologically imbalanced. Maintain independent judgment. Maintenance of psychic opposites, as in free and disciplined, masculine and feminine.

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Both internal and external conditions are nescesarry to enhance the creative process. Internal conditions include low psychological defensiveness, lack of rigidity, permeability of boundaries in concepts, beliefs, sensitive awarness to feelings, and openness to new experiences, intuition, aesthetic sensibility, ability to think in terms of analoges and metaphors, and ability to toy with new ideas. External conditions are psychological safety and freedom.

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The term “psychedelic experience” describes the psychological effects under the drug such as LSD, peyote, DMT, and psilocybin.

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The psychedelic experience include a broad range of common characteristics including alterations in sensory perceptions, changes in emotions, expansion in individuals thought and identity. Another feature is the openness challenges the usual ego-bound restraints of preconceived ideas, and tendency to assign unique and novel meanings to the experience with an appreciation that they are part of a bigger universal cosmic-oneness.

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Using psychedelic drugs under appropriate controlled tests satisfies all criteria to enhance the creative process.

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There are many accounts of artists and writers describing the drugs enhancing their creativity and also a similar number disputing this. The link between psychedelic usage and creativity is well documented in many pre-historic art works.

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Opium was also a useful tool in creativity though it is not considered a psychedelic.

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Famous artists using the drugs include, Henri Michaux, Aldous Huxley. Some artists call them selves specifically psychedelic artists.

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Pyschiatrist Oscar Janiger studied LSD in an 8 year study involving nearly 1000 patients from 18-81 and from vast careers from doctors, to housewives, to students and unemployed. One was film star Cary Grant. The experiences were varied but negative reactions were very rare. Most patients reported the experience being valuable and sustaining. Two characteristics emerged repeatedly, spontaneous spiritual experiences and boosting experiences of creativity.

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He then tested LSD in a controlled setting. He gave it to a mixed group of 60 visual artists over 7 years and the produced over 250 drawings to be analyzed by an art history professor who also looked at the art they had done before the LSD session. Though its almost impossible to make positive statements. But there were many self written reports by the artists who found the LSD to be personally profound.

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In a study artists were given LSD and mescaline and encouraged them to complete paintings while under the influence of the drug.

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American psychologist Frank Barron give psilocybin to creative individuals and recorded their reactions. McGlothlin gave LSD to 72 graduate students with two control groups. In a follow up, the experimental group showed a greater appreciation of music and arts but no increase in creative ability.

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These groups ranged in doses with one group receiving a placebo. They were not selected for artistic or creative abilites. Creative test data was conducted at baseline, during and after acute intoxication. It was noted that though LSD did not induce creativity in everyone, it did increase the awarness and accessibility of creativity in those who had a more creative personality.

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Little importance was shown given to personal mind set and environmel which are two important factors which have been shown to radically alter the outcome of individuals outcomes.

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In the study perfomed by Harmen, the researchers selected individuals engaged in creative industries. The “primed” them with a pre-drug session in where they were to select problems of professional interest that required a creative soloution. A positive mind set was encouraged by telling the subjects that the drug would enhance their creativity. In follow ups all participants showed enhanced abilites on creative tests compared to non-drug tests. These 11 strategies of enhanced functioning were extracted: Reduced inhibition and anxiety. 2. Improved capacity to restructure a problems in wider context. 3. increased fluency of ideas. 4. Increased visual imagery and fantasy. 5. Increased empathy with objects and processes. 7. Increased empathy with people. 8. Subconscious data more accessible. 9. Improved association of dissimilar ideas. 10. Heightened motivation to obtain closure. 11. Improved ability to visualize the completed soloution.

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The concept of how creativity in enhanced is largely misunderstood.

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Some historic examples of psychedelic drugs improving designers skills included the architect Kyoshi Izumi’s use to design a psychiatric hospital in Canada. He took LSD and performed visits to old mental institutions to see if he could see them in a new light. He found himself terrified by different hospital paraphernalia, no privacy and no sense of time because there were no clocks or calendars. He then designed what has been called “the ideal mental hospital.”

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Francis Crick also used low doses of LSD who discovered the double helix of DNA.

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Nobel Prize winning chemist inventor of PCR stated “Would I have invented PCR if ha hadn’t taken LSD? I seriously doubt it. I could sit on a DNA molecule and watch polymers go by. I learnt that partly on psychedelic drugs.”

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Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak founders of Apple computer industry were both products of the 1960’s counter-culture who were a part of a group of visionaries setting out to turn computers into a means for freeing minds and information.

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The most obvious clinical area that could benefit from a creativity enhancement is autism. One of the central tenants of the psychedelic experience is the ability to encourage the user to find new meaning in and see associations with objects and feel part of the abstract connection with the universe. In the 1960s experiements were conducted on children with severe autism, consistent effects of the drugs included improved speech, greater emotional responsiveness, increased positive mood and decreases in OCD behavior. Results argued for more extensive research but did not materialize because of socio-political reasons.

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Set and setting are essential to the psychedelic experience that must be atteneded to achieve maximum positive response.

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When under the state of acute influence of psychedelic drugs, performance on standard tests of intelligence, learning, memory and other cognitive functions show impairment or lack of change. It is difficult to get meaningful info from such measurments because subjects become engrossed it the subjective aspects of the drug experience and lost interest in the tasks presented by investigators. Arthur Kleps stated “If I were to give you an IQ test and during the administration one of the walls of the room opened up, giving you a vision of the blazing glories of the central galactic suns, and at the same time your childhood began to unreel before your inner eye like a 3D color movie, you too would not do well on an intelligence test.”

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LSD, thought it has therapeutic possibilities is considered off limits because it was used recreationally.

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Psychedelic enhancement of creativity is an area that may have potential benefits for furthering our understanding of neuroscience.

Works Cited
Sessa, B. “Is it time to revisit the role of psychedelic drugs in enhancing human creativity?” Journal of Pyschopharmacology. 18 Jun. 2008. .
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Op art apperared in the US and Europe in the late 1950s. It included paintings dealing with surface kinetics. A movementthat exploits the fallibility of the eye through optical illusions. It gives the viewer a sense of movement. Through perspective illusion and chromatic tension.

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It encompassed artists of different nationalities. The aim was to create movement with out using actual movement which is an art called kinetic art.

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The term Op Art was first seen in the October 1964 issue of Time Magazine.

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Denise Rene was the first person to show Op Art to the public.

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The Responsive Eye was a major Op Art exihibition in The museum of modern art in New York in 1965

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Op art became very popular and was seen in commercial contexts. Victor Vasarely helped the most to popularize it. He produced most of his work within architecture and cities. Bridget Riley is the best known Op artists.

“Op Art (Optical Art).” 2007. Museum Quality.

In both these articles the author hook interest by stating clearly what the writing is about. The purpose of these articles is to inform the reader. They are not argumentative. The first article’s question is if the use of psychedelics can enhance creativity. In the 2nd it does not directly seem to ask a question but rather gives a definition of and history of Op Art. The first article uses studies from research and experiements and the results of these experiments to bring us to the final conclusions of the research.