“Building on a key aspect of design innovation, Digital Humanities must have, and even encourages, failures.” –– Burdick et al. “One: From Humanities to Digital Humanities,” in Digital_Humanities (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2012), 21.
This passage struck me as notable because you don’t often see the concept of failure built into the basic tenets of an intellectual discipline. The importance of the process of trial and error and creative experimentation strikes a chord with me because I have spent the summer working on a digital humanities research project where everyday brought a new challenge and tested my resilience. I was learning Blender in order to model parts of a viking longship for an educational VR experience Austin Mason is developing. When I ran into an issue, more often than not, I would be tasked with figuring it out on my own and would turn to online forums where other folks were asking the same questions I was. As a perfectionist I really struggled to see the value in work that wasn’t the best it could be.
I ran into this problem once before while taking an intro to computer science class. It’s so frustrating when your code that you worked on for so long doesn’t produce any change, and at the time I hated exhausting moments like that. Now, with this new definition of “failure” I can reorient the way I look at unproductive code or frustrating setbacks. Every second I work on the project I’m forced to imagine new creative ways to express what needs to be expressed. There are always new avenues of thought that a project can try and this process of trial and error strengthens the conviction of the final product as well as strengthening your own skills, patience, and understanding.
I sincerely hope I can internalize this piece of the definition of Digital Humanities as I take this class and begin to relish in the unpredictable flow of what it’s like working with computers.
I’m most interested in continuing to develop my 3D modeling skills and web design because design and 2D art are some of my personal passions. However, I see this course as an opportunity to learn as much about the wild instruments of computing systems as possible so I’m looking forward to every step despite its relevance or irrelevance to my personal interests.
2 thoughts on “Reflective Blog Post – Maddie Smith”
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I very much agree with you reevaluation of what failure means to you. Failure is just one of the steps of learning. It can be hard to discover that fact, but once you accept it, everything becomes more achievable. I also agree that when you want things to be perfect, assignments can become really frustrating. Not knowing how to work a certain software and having to scour the internet for tutorials makes work not fun. I’m also excited to develop my 3D modeling skills!
The Digital Humanities culture of failure will definitely impact the way I think about failure in my projects as well! I really liked that section of the reading. In many other fields, the culture surrounding failure and growth seems to be much different, so I really like that the editable nature of digital works means that failure and trial-and-error is part of the process. Definitely also excited for the design aspects of this course!!