The major theme that has shown up in my work is the revealing of my inner world. I had four classes beyond the capstone to complete the Digital Studies Major, not including transfer classes. The first course that I took was on making how-to videos. The second course was called Multimedia Thinking, where my chosen theme was the experience of living with Autism. Autism is a subject that can have a thesis paper in its own right, but there is no need to go into too much detail here. The next course was Computational Thinking, in which the theme I used was life as a game. The last Digital Studies course I took was called Design Thinking, which was more about the creative process according to IBM and professional graphic designers. Thus, my all-encompassing theme is something of a Venn diagram center that converges all four of these subjects. It was tough to sort out a singular theme that covered all of these topics, but the unveiling of my inner world fits as the overall theme.
It is my personal belief that in each mind exists not only a world but an entire universe. It is no secret that experience is vast, subjective, and highly self-defining. Some argue that it is the closest thing to having a soul that you can take and measure. What is often quantified in this capacity is how people see the world, define the universe, and what that means to him, her, or them. It is not unrealistic to say that an entire universe of experiences is lost when a life is lost. That is something profound to think about right now, especially when counting the number of deaths caused by events such as the recent, and ongoing, Covid-19 pandemic. It can also explain why we need to get to know someone before we can trust them and why we mourn for the loss of someone whom we did trust. You need to explore a person’s inner world to know if it is dangerous or if it holds something of value, and the loss of life is indeed the loss of that inner world. Perhaps the social nature of our species stems from this understanding more than anything. Thus, things such as creative expression can be thought of as the revelation of that inner world and universe.
This sets us up for the format of my portfolio, that of an amalgamation of my creative works and the inner world it reveals. At first, I intended to create the entire site in a retro 1990’s theme that captures the time in which I was first playing computer games. That turned out to be a niche genre in terms of personal aesthetics, so instead, I made the whole site in a vlog format that is ideal for the videos that are crucial to my portfolio. The retro theme is still there hidden as an Easter egg. It is not difficult to find the Easter egg, but I left it there for the people who can appreciate it. Beyond that, there is a page for every type of work that I can show to employers; Writing, Visuals, Development, and Videos. These categories share space on the navigation menu with the about page, a blog page where I can put a development diary of my latest projects, a contact page, and the home button. The pages include content appropriate to their categories with videos demonstrating both my software designs and my video projects. I will post this paper right under a personal introduction on the about page of my site.
Each project I work on does and continues to emphasize my major theme. Even as a child my head was always swirling with ideas. Each idea reflected a part of who I am and offered a glimpse into the universe of my mind. It is often pointed out to me that I write more clearly than I speak, which is no surprise since talking requires on-the-fly improvisation, while writing can be proofread and edited before submission. This logic can be applied to my work in drawing, graphic design, video editing, and game development. Like most people’s inner worlds, it is often best described with a story. World-building is so common that it is described as an essential skill for fiction writing. Tools and websites, such as WorldAnvil.com, are dedicated to helping people like me put the many facets of their inner universe into detail. Horror writing is often described as an exploration of the author’s psychology. Authors like Frank Herbert and J.R.R. Tolkien made their names by creating epic stories about sprawling worlds that we will never get to visit outside of the pages of our favorite books. The first thing done when making a video game is modeling the environment that is integral to the setting of the game. This environment can be as small as the single 90-degree hallway used in P.T. or as complex as an entire solar system, as seen in Spore. Even in the world of programming, the naming and conceptualization of things are so subjective that separate teams working on the same software system can become problematic when using different words for the same item. It is hard to work on anything without leaving a piece of yourself in it and my work is no exception.
I will continue to work on academic projects and keep doing this as a hobby. For me, learning and education are ongoing lifetime processes, and my body of work and output will reflect that, I’ll also add all of my projects to my portfolio one video, image, and piece of written content at a time. I will make business cards with my URL on them and include the website on my resume. I’ll also add my resume to the about page of the website. Keeping a development diary will encourage me to update my progress daily and to search for new projects. It will be great to have an outlet for all of my ideas and a place to watch them progress. After all, even when I am off in my inner world, I can still share it with the rest of the world I actively live in.