I realized relatively quickly that I should have picked a story with a bit less abstract of a plot… but, we live with our mistakes! For this exercise, I definitely relied more on abstract placeholders to represent characters, items, and themes to represent different aspects of the story and its characters. I’m reminded of the platonic theory of forms; When we use symbols to represent ideas or things, we each have in our minds a specific object that represents the quintessential version of that thing. I think about this short video essay here on structures and the impossibility of interpretation and unknowable spaces within one of my favorite hobbies/obsessions, Magic: the Gathering. If you don’t want all of the lore and periphery, skip ahead to [3:45] and you will get what I am talking about (hopefully). The note of using illustrations as approximations of our intentions, and that the symbols are merely representational of a more pure, non-existent ideal form of the “thing” really struck me with this exercise. In this, I also relate back to Dr. Boroditsky’s discussion on the Amazonian cultures that have no words for numbers, and their lack of ability to communicate raw numerical information. If we lack the symbols to express our conceptualizations, we are unable to properly communicate our ideas, our stories, our concepts. Communication breaks down, and without the universals and a baseline understanding of what we are trying to communicate, we are unable to bring across our points. I struggled with this during this exercise, as there were symbols that were close to what I meant, but not one-to-one matches, so there is a real possibility of misinterpretation or miscommunication in my emoji story. An extremely eye-opening look at how communication can break down and falter if the baseline of how we interpret the mode of communication is not universal. I look forward to trying to piece together my classmate’s chosen stories!