https://anneemberline.com/edu/task-7-mode-bending/

Anne Emberline’s Task 7 is similar to mine in that we both tried to add emotional context to the items in our bags. Anne noticed that in the original Task 7, the focus was on the objects and not on the person’s connection with them. To add emotional context, or how much she feels connected to each of her belongings, she created a bar graph using emojis to convey the connection strength. Emojis were created for this very task, to add emotion to an otherwise sterile block of text communication. In Anne’s case, she added emotion to an otherwise sterile bar graph. Anne’s background in digital media and graphic design naturally steered her to this mode. Her second infographic, also a bar graph, places all her belongings within her current experience of living during the pandemic. Very telling are the bars for mask, wallet, transit pass, business cards, and eye glasses which tell us that social travel went down significantly after the lock down. Personal travel for health or perhaps work remained the same, as told by the bars for house keys, coins, and her umbrella. Both infographics are very clever, creative, concise, and add new meaning to the original Task 7. In combination with her original Task 7, these images, together, create a story about who Anne is by telling us how she feels and uses all of the items in her bag. The second infographic tells us something about her changing behaviour, which is especially telling about who she is. After all, we are significantly defined by our actions.

Similarly, in my rap song for my reimagined Task 7, I also try to tell a story about who I am by adding anecdotes about my day that convey how I use the items in my bag and my emotions during their use. I think both Anne and I tried to humanize Task 7 in order to make our bags more transparent to our nature.

Anne also reimagines Task 7 in two additional modes – audio and audiovisual. Similar to my take on the reimagined Task 7, she goes back to the historical roots of text technology, and that is, verbal story telling. The songs she selected to represent each of the items in her bag collectively tell us who she is. From the song chosen for her guitar picks, I infer that she is a sentimental person who forms deep relationships with others. From the song chosen for her umbrella, earphones, and transit ticket, I infer that she is a pretty hip person who stays current with pop culture. Her song for coins is my favourite as it makes me think that she loves having fun and maybe is even a gamer (she was in my class on digital games). Her song for tampons make me think that she is a feminist.

Anne’s last reimagined mode, the videos, are the most removed from her goal of adding emotion and context to the items in her bag. The videos are impersonal as they are largely informative videos about the objects’ function, use, and design. They are instructional and have little to do with her as a person. It is odd to me that she included this last mode because it is so different from the first two, but, perhaps she did it simply because she was having fun. Reading through her tasks, Anne is someone who enjoys any opportunity to be creative. She is intrinsically motivated to explore all avenues of design because it is fun and her passion. I can relate to this. There are so many less cumbersome ways to mode bend Task 7, but I went with a rap song. It takes a long time to come up with rhythmic and rhyming lyrics, to practice singing it, and then to go through the hassle of recording, re-recording, and editing to splice together a video. Why would anyone do this unless they were having fun?