INTEGRATED PRACTICE
2. Sharing is Learning
1. Transmuting Information. People have long sought to communicate important insights through condensed visual forms. The insight might be related to the physical workings of the cosmos, for instance (planets orbiting the Sun), or to more abstract concepts (ego, id, superego). The very attempt to condensate and share the insight can lead to greater, deeper insights . . . or to utter incoherence, if you lose your feelings of perspective and distance. In this workshop we’ll practice the art of “insight transmutation” and its looping process: insight >> information >> insight.
2. Displaying Information. Lay out information confusingly, and your reader becomes confused; lay out information amusingly, and your reader learns two things: the information itself, plus humor. This shows that the display of information is, in itself, information—and intimately connected with the original information you meant to share. In this workshop we’ll consider the interaction between information and display, and we’ll learn how to vary our approaches to absorbing and communicating information.
3. Sharing Information Visually. Images, drawings, letters, numbers, and all other types of information work both on an ostensible (or material) level and on a deep (or symbolic) level. For instance, you might draw a circle to symbolize the Earth, the world, the sun, self-containment, wholeness, a territory, a prison, a set of people, and many other things. In this workshop we’ll practice the skills of laying out information with drawings, sketches, and doodles that have the power of leading our minds on the passage between the material and the symbolic dimensions.
4. Sharing Information Orally. When you share information orally, your manner of expressing yourself is, to a large degree, the information itself. The clarity of your thinking, your posture in space and time, your tone of voice, your awareness of yourself and of the environment, your awareness of your listeners all influence your display of information. If you’d like your information to be clear and compelling, you must become a clear and compelling personality. In this workshop we’ll practice the skills of “working on ourselves” while sharing oral information.
Watch the Dutch professor Walter Lewin give an interesting oral presentation.
