I am currently very aware of the fact that my current research question: “How can we measure the impact of fantasy-based fiction?” has yet to generate new change into this world and that has made me quite anxious and hesitant to do interventions.
After discussing this problem with the course tutor, I was given the advice to explore the area of both fantasy and magic tricks via traditional research(first and secondary) as well as action research(interventions).
So for action research(7.13~7.15), I decided to put the comic I showed the expert out publicly and show it to different people.
I printed out the comic, went to Kings Cross, and tried to interact with the pedestrians who were passing by. This proved unsuccessful and only one person wrote down a dream that they wanted to do.
So I changed tactics, and decided to reposition my intervention online. [There were 24 participants in total]
I asked each participant 4 questions:
Quantitative data:
1. On a scale of 1 to 10, how much do you think the comic influenced you personally?
2. Do you think that this transformation of the concept of an “unfinished building” into a story has a greater impact on the real world than it did before?
Qualitative Data:
3. What does this story remind you of? Do you have any thoughts about this story? Please feel free to write down any feedback you have on this comic.
(This question generated a lot of very long feedback that I’m still integrating into a readable format for a learning log. I will update bullet points of audience feedback shortly.)
e.g. I really liked the theme of giving meaning to things that seem otherwise meaningless. Personally, I like this subjective, materialistic way of understanding the world, and I feel quite strongly about this theme. Because everything in the world is meaningless in itself, it is we who give meaning to it. The unfinished building remind me of ruins, like when we go to see a historical site that is objectively just some broken rocks and mounds of earth, but just because someone says that it was once the splendour of a dynasty, we instantly feel a lot of emotion. And I really like the meaning you’ve given to it, it’s very cute and cosy, for me it can hold not only buried dreams, but also more of those carefree old times, childhoods that I can’t go back to.
4. Please recommend a work of fantasy (novel, film, TV show, musical or any other genre) that has had a profound effect on you, and explain briefly about the impact this work has had on you in real life.
(Same.)
e.g.1. I’m a big fan of “The Three-Body Problem”. It has a very ambitious setting, but if I were to say how it affected my actual life, I’d probably say that the line in the book that stuck with me the most was “To the civilisation of time, rather than to life in time”. This line is actually originally from Pascal’s “to the time to life, rather than to life in time, that is, “to give time to life, rather than to life in time”, Liu Cixin extended this line from individual life to the survival of the whole civilisation. He extended this phrase from individual life to the survival of civilisation as a whole.
In the book, human beings, facing the invasion of the Trisolarians, and realising the disparity in the level of technology between the two sides, after complete despair, established a calm mindset: since human civilisation is bound to be destroyed after a century, we might as well make the most of our last years and live our lives to the fullest. And it is precisely this mentality that has made the human mind break free and soar freely, and in this short span of 100 years, the level of human science and technology has taken an unprecedented leap forward.
This is the meaning of the saying that what we should pursue is not the continuation of civilisation, but to let civilisation blossom most beautifully in the years of its continuation. In the same way, each of us, with regard to life, should seek not to extend our life span, but to live out more values in our limited life.
e.g.2. There are countless fantasy and sci-fi works that I’ve read and enjoyed. Sci-fi still has quite a few logic holes, and fantasy relies even more on strange powers that don’t quite fit the rules of the real world. That said it may lead to a new question, what if the fantasy elements in this work are just observers of the real world and not interlopers? Or if we only look at the part that observes the real world and ignore the part that interferes with it for the time being, are there any works that have had a profound effect on me? Reality itself is full of “fantastical” but reasonable things, and compared to the sheer size of the real world I live in, a particular work of fantasy would be a drop in the ocean, and its effect on me would be like a handful of salt sprinkled in the ocean. So it’s a slight shame that there doesn’t seem to be any fantasy that really has a profound effect on me, it’s basically just fun to read.
Reflection
Although I received a lot of positive and constructive feedback from this intervention, the process in designing it felt forced. The fear of not being able to link this intervention to my research question had been paralysing to me, and was slowing my research process down distinctly.
The fantasy I created has different amounts of impact to different individuals. I will try my best to use the data I collected from this intervention and form a logical link to my current research.