Monday 21 June 2010

Decomposition/Recomposition

The Identity Campaign reminds me of a powerful thinking tool which I developed some years ago to help students understand the intuitive approach to creative thinking - Decomposition/Recomposition.  It is particularly useful as you can see from the video that there are almost unlimited ways of recomposing the "faces" once they are "decomposed" (with the camera).  

A subject is broken down into its component parts (decomposed) and is then composed again differently (recompose) to form a new whole.  If we apply this simple technique, say for instance, to naming, literally all (English) names are recomposition of a fraction of the 26 alphabets.  Similarly, all (Chinese) names are then recomposition of the characters strokes and radicals.  All music are recomposition of the musical notes ...

Or by simple logic, when we say all men are equal, it could be that all men can be decomposed into flesh and bones.  Every man is different, because he is recomposed uniquely in his own way.

So can you make a difference?

1 comment:

Ming Tak said...

Thank you Thomas' inspiration...

may be one's identity can be not only the face...
Chinese name...voice...handwriting...etc can also be decomposed and the recompose.

It's easy to make a difference. haha!