Through further research and development of my digital artefact, I have been able to make several changes which will ensure a better final product, including format, academic readings, and linking my topic to subject material and lectures. Feedback on my pitch as well as various tweets I have posted has proved valuable in making these decisions and setting my da on a better path.
Additionally I have looked at this suggested article which describes Bowie’s influence on the anime Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, of specific interest is the gender ambiguity which seems to be a pattern in both David Bowie’s artistry and future depictions in sci-fi and modern society as we look to a more equal future.
I will combine my research and study of David Bowie’s career and influence with academic research and ideas, such as Darkvo Suvin’s “Scientifically Plausible Innovation”, in order to give more depth and dimension to my digital artefact and help support my ideas of future cultures from David Bowie’s perspective.
REFERENCES:
Kilson, K 2016 “David Bowie was an internet pioneer and rock’s greatest futurist” INVERSE, viewed 10/03/21, https://www.inverse.com/article/10064-david-bowie-was-an-internet-pioneer-and-rock-s-greatest-futurist
Ursini F., (2017) “David Bowie’s Influence on JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure”, The Comics Grid: Journal of Comics Scholarship https://doi.org/10.16995/cg.95
Lindsay, E. 2018. The Evolution of Science Fiction (Feat. Lindsay Ellis) | It’s Lit!
COFFEEWITHREN 
Reblogged this on Future Cultures.
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I really love your DA concept; it is clear you are a fan of David Bowie and have already analysed a lot about his futurist ideas. I think that focusing on your interests will help propel your DA into something you enjoy creating.
In terms of your development during the pitch stage and now beta stage, it is clear you have listened to the feedback given by your peers to improve your project. Doing a video essay accompanied by a blog post will help your audience gain more information on your topic if they wish to find out more. I think a video essay compliments your topic well as David Bowie was a very flamboyant character where you can use lots of imagery to make the video more visually appealing.
My only critic of your beta was I think you needed to show more academic research in either the video or blog post. I would love to be able to see more of the research you have already done which you will use for the end DA.
I am sure you have already lots of research about this topic however I have found an article about David Bowie predicting the future of the internet https://www.theverge.com/2016/1/11/10753158/david-bowie-internet-future-interview. Within the article, there is also a short video interview which he did for BBC.
Overall, I think this DA is great and I can’t wait to see your end video essay. This has really opened my eyes to David Bowie and his views of the future world. I knew he was very abstract in his thinking but not to the extent which is explored in your DA.
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I love how you incorporated your artefact and Bowie’s relevance in various live tweeting sessions. It was so cool to see your DA gain feedback in real time through the lens of other people thinking about the same topics, like futurism and cyberspace. I imagine it’ll help in analysing how far his impact on the science fiction genre spanned, and how this impacts how he’s perceived in the present.
I like how you took on board all feedback (especially the running time of your video essays) and turned it into a feature of your DA that would work for your audience. If a view was particularly interested in a topic you covered or wanted to learn more, they could be redirected to the accompanying blog post. Your videos are short and engaging, but also suits viewers who’d like more depth from the topic.
I love the fact that you analysed the scope of your project, and realised it was a bit too large for the time given to complete the DA and how much time you want to allocate to creating videos. Creating a project that’s shorter, and better aligns with topics relevant to the future cultures content is an excellent change of course.
I’ve been trying to do the same with my DA, as it’s closely rooted in Wendell Bell’s ‘Possible, Probable, and Preferable’. I realised I could also link it to Alvin Toffler’s 1970 book Future Shock, in which he explained that futurists are responsible for creating the new and alternate versions of the future, something Bowie does perfectly. Similarly, tabletop games are always taking inspiration from current science fiction and world dilemmas, like the game Pandemic. Alternatively, futurism can be viewed as an advocate for pluralism rather than a single territory to be colonised. We can imagine, create, and design as many future possibilities as we please. For example, a future where BowieNet and wholly virtual tabletop games can co-exist.
Going forward, I’d recommend working closely with some of the academic sources uploaded on the Moodle site, as well as those that are relevant to the questions you’re looking at. I’d recommend looking at Csicsery-Ronay’s ‘Seven Beauties of Science Fiction’, in which he describes the way the past is conceptualised. It’s an alternative history, and serves to create ideas about future life through historical cause and effect.
When looking at Bowie’s impact of his future vision on our own, I’d recommend delving into the concept of ‘The Futures Cone’. I’d like to see how Bowie’s vision of the future could be compared to ours, and how the assumptions we made at the time about the future can help us make smarter decisions today. The cone sets out a range of future scenarios, categorised into projected, probably, plausible, and preposterous. (It’s based on the work of futurists like Wendell Bell, which is why it may seem familiar!)
Have a read of this article from Medium (https://medium.com/building-the-agile-business/possible-futures-1e91eecdcb08#:~:text=The%20Futures%20Cone%20is%20an,to%20make%20smarter%20decisions%20today) and this article by Joseph Voros (https://thevoroscope.com/2017/02/24/the-futures-cone-use-and-history/) that explains the concept exceptionally well!
Additionally, I enjoyed reading about how you might plan to incorporate his impact on other sci-fi based media, such as JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure in which gender ambiguity and futurism is a core component.
Amazing work and I look forward to seeing how you work towards a better project!
Hannah
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Hey Lorena! Great work on putting together such an interesting beta, it’s clear you’ve put a lot of thought into it!
Your idea is really awesome as it relates really well to the subject content and the films we’ve watched whilst also making you think about what you know. I think one way of looking at your topic could be analysing how realistic Bowie’s portrayal of the future was, and whether we are anywhere near what he showed!
You could also analyse how Bowie portrays the future compared to other depictions of the future at the same time, for example compare Bowie’s future to 2001: A Space Odyssey’s future and see if they share any similarities. I found a cool article which might interest you about the dual-nature of technology in the future and how “On one hand, the filmmakers and audience celebrate technology and adore the wizardry that is accomplished with special effects. On the other hand, many of the films can be interpreted as cautionary tales of what will happen if we do not begin to address our relationship with technology, and what it is doing to us and to nature.” https://www-sciencedirect-com.ezproxy.uow.edu.au/science/article/pii/S0016328707001206
Awesome job so far, can’t wait to see what you come up with!!!
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Hi Lorena! It is good to hear how you have taken the feedback from your tutor and fellow students to not only guide your decision making on the topic but also how it is produced. I think it is very creative to produce a visual video piece on your chosen topic and post it on YouTube, it fits well with the chosen topic. Through narrowing down your chosen topic to two points will not only help you in time management but will also relate with the subject outline, compared to if you focused on fashion or as a pop icon. My one concern is your engagement with users, how will people access your video apart from your blog? Will you share it on Twitter with fellow students, share it on Redditt? I find it really interesting how Davis Bowie can be such an influence on sci-fi films and the topic as a whole (https://www.denofgeek.com/culture/exploring-david-bowies-sci-fi-fascination/#:~:text=Bowie%20was%20an%20out%20of,of%20Fame%20in%20June%202013.&text=Bowie%20blasted%20into%20public%20consciousness,character%20of%20astronaut%20Major%20Tom.) Great to see your project is developing well.
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