One person from each group should submit their group’s responses to the below brainstorming questions to me via email by the end of the day on Saturday, October 15.
1 – What: What do you want to do?
Whether you’re thinking about a more expressive or political movement, what kinds of things do you imagine actually doing for/during this staged movement?
- – For example: Do you know that you want to do something outside? If so, do you have ideas of where? Do you know that you want to do something that incorporates a multimedia installation? If yes, what kind of media? How big? Can you find an example(s) of similar types of installations that have happened at BC or other places you’ve been or that you’ve seen pictures of online?
And if you don’t have clear ideas about what you want to do, you can at least start to take note of what you don’t want to do or what you’d like to avoid doing.
2 – Why: Why are you staging a movement (other than the fact that it’s an assignment)?
Whether you’re thinking about staging a more expressive or political movement, you should have an understanding of the goals and objectives you have for staging the movement. Goals and objectives are more concrete than ideology, politics, or feelings. You will need to think (and keep thinking through) the ideologies, politics, and/or feelings that animate the what and why of your movement, but goals and objectives should be thought of as the answer to the question, What do you want your movement to accomplish or affect in the world? Do you want your movement to make your audience feel something? If so, what (why and how will you know they’ve felt it)? Do you want the movement to make your audience do something? If so, what (why, and how will you know they’ve done it)?
In fact at this point in the game, you might actually start with the why if you don’t have a clear sense of the what.
- – For example(s), you might ask: What do we want to communicate and to whom? What story is important for us to tell? what issue do we want to bring awareness to?
3: Who?: Who is your audience?
Implicit in both questions one and two, is the question of audience? To some degree, I’ve already helped you narrow your audience down inasmuch as I’m requiring you stage a movement “at” BC directed to some part of the BC community. However, you still need to narrow down your intended audience quite a bit to make this movement manageable and successful. Some questions, you might ask include:
Do we want to focus on our peers in terms of age and rank (meaning focusing on students, perhaps a particular year or even a particular major or minor)? Or are you thinking about your audience in terms of area of study, particular administrative office, a particular demographic background, etc.?
Keep in mind, that having an intended audience doesn’t preclude folks who are not your intended audience from witnessing and/or being affected by the movement you stage. So don’t think about this question as a matter of who’s one the guest list. Think about it instead as an extension of questions one and two. Because once you start to get the what, why, and who down, you can start to ask the hard question of, “How?”
Bonus:
If you want to go further (or if it’s just already on your mind), you might also take a moment to jot down some of the texts and/or topics discussed thus far that you think your group might want to incorporate or think more about in the process of developing and staging your own movement. At this point, it’s okay if you have texts or ideas that you want to engage, but you’re not really sure how relevant they are to your responses to one or more of the above brainstorming questions.
