In this linking assignment, I’m going to make connections and analyze differences between the reflections my classmate, James Martin, and I did for Task 8 – Golden Record curation. I was interested in reading James’ reflection and rationale for the curation because he is also a musician. In fact, last semester we were classmates in ETEC 524 and had some interesting discussions about music.

It was very interesting to read James’ rationales as we used different approaches for the selection of the 10 pieces. My selection was guided by the question of how music could provide information about the human experience so that the receptors can understand who we are. For this reason, I focused on selecting tracks that revealed information about our existence as time and space beings, transcendental awareness, the human body, emotions such as joy and fear, our social nature, our intellectual capacity, our creativity, and understanding of the universe. On the other hand, James’ approach was much more focused on the music itself, looking for ways of representing the widest range of musical possibilities. He was very thoughtful in ensuring his curation displayed the “widest possible combinations of diverse musical elements”. For this reason, he included unaccompanied vocal music, instrumental-only music, solo music, accompanied signing and playing, etc.

This contrast between our approaches helps me discover something very interesting. While selecting the pieces, it seems like I didn’t focus too much on the forms of music (I am surprised by this!), but rather on the non-musical content, it is capable of containing, expressing, and transferring. This makes it more obvious to me that music has different dimensions and functions. At one level, it is an art form that creates objects of perception that can be assembled in a variety of ways (hence the richness of music possibility and languages); at another level, it’s a communication tool with immense capacity of revealing implicit content of those who participate in the creation of it.

I believe the approach I followed reveals aspects of my character, as I tend to be very introspective and usually like to explore the deeper and unseen realms of something. However, I think James’ approach was also very skillful and coherent. It would have been very interesting to work as a team for this assignment, as both of our approaches combined could have resulted in a well-founded curation.

As a musician, I found the Voyager Golden Record story to be fascinating. What an incredibly difficult task to choose 27 music pieces out of the millions of songs that have been recorded in history. Even these millions of recordings only represent a small fraction of all the songs created throughout human history.

Carl Sagan states that the objective of the Voyager Golden Record was to choose the songs that best represent humanity. I believe this is an impossible task because the idea of “best” is going to be hugely biased by the cultural background and ideologies of those who select the pieces. Of course, I don’t intend to de-contextualize Sagan’s comment, as he does confess this is a difficult task. However, I think the Voyager Golden Record case is a perfect example of what was stated in this module’s introduction: “what counts as legitimate knowledge is the result of complex power relations and struggles among identifiable class, race, gender, and religious groups” (n.a., n.d.).

With this in mind, I would like to disclose that my curation is highly biased. This is not only due to aesthetic preferences. In some cases, I will use reasoning similar to Sagan’s, who selected some pieces because they represent strong mathematical foundations or philosophical ideas. In my view, these are also biased by ideologies of what is relevant and meaningful content. I actually enjoy how this task exposes the subjectivity of music appreciation and preference, a topic I like to reflect on and always come across while interacting with other musicians.

I think one crucial aspect of doing this task is to think about how the pieces can provide information to the receptors about our human experience. This is the approach I followed when selecting the pieces. Inevitably, I am making some assumptions about the receptors, such as their ability to perceive frequencies through hearing, self-awareness, awareness of a higher universal source, intelligence, and capacity to experience emotions.

Here we go…

(In no particular order of importance)

I’ve selected this piece because rhythm is the most basic form of musical expression. It only deals with localization of sound in time, but it doesn’t have a dimension of tonality (although in this piece some of the drums are tuned) as we would find in melodies in harmonies. The repetitive drum patterns show an understanding of mathematical proportions. This would let the receptors that we are time-beings.
Click here to listen

I’ve selected this piece because of its melodic complexity. This would let the receptors know about our incredible ability to play with organized divisions of space, which in turn also reveals information about the spatial component of our existence and thinking processes.
Click here to listen

I’ve selected this piece because of its vocal component. In my view, the human body is the most complex “gadget” on Earth. With this in mind, the amount of content a human voice (particularly a virtuoso) can transmit is unique and represents the power of our creator.
Click here to listen

I’ve selected this piece because of its spiritual character. In my view, a performance like this is not so focused on the forms of music (and that’s why it is simple) but rather on the silence and the essence from which music (or creations) emerges. This would let the receptors know that we are not just time and space beings, but also spiritual beings. This represents a level of awareness of the formless and timeless being within us – which is probably the same universal being within the receptors
Click here to listen

I’ve selected this piece because of its exuberant and joyful character. This, of course, assumes that the receptors are emotional beings. In my personal view, the purpose of music is to express aliveness, beauty, and joy – to celebrate the fact of existence, which would express an understanding of the value of life.
Click here to listen

I’ve selected this piece because it shows a very important aspect of human life, which is our social nature. The many vocals heard in this piece show our ability to come together as a whole, which reflects an understanding of a level of our existence in which we are not separate and individual.
Click here to listen

I’ve selected this piece because it reflects an outstanding understanding of mathematics. It is very difficult to imagine that the receptors wouldn’t comprehend mathematical foundations – as the universe is built on such principles. I believe this piece would provide a lot of information about our level of intelligence and mental capacity.
Click here to listen

Although all the songs give clues about our technological ability (songs had to be recorded using microphones, for example), this is the only piece that has an electric instrument. This could show the receptors that we also use electrical technology for creative purposes, revealing again our expressive nature.
Click here to listen

I’ve selected this piece because it reveals the dark side of the human mind and soul. This piece evokes fear and I believe it would be important for the receptors to understand our vulnerability and existential struggle. I think it’s probable that the receptors could be beings that have transcended time and space (hence fear) and know what to expect from our behavior under certain circumstances.
Click here to listen

I’ve selected this piece because of its very fractal nature. It consists of a simple phrase that gets modified and elaborated in numerous ways. In my view, this reveals an understanding of how creation unfolds from simple patterns into complex ones.
Click here to listen

In this linking assignment, I’m going to make connections and analyze differences between the reflections my classmate, Christina Hidalgo, and I did for Task 7 – Mode Bending

I think Christina’s mode bend is a good example of what has been mentioned often throughout our course materials about how experiences are always multimodal. The video scribe she produced has visual, textual, auditory, and gestural representations. It was interesting to compare Christina’s approach with mine for many reasons. My mode bend had been mode literal in the sense that I took the objects and did my best to represent them in auditory form (for example the cellphone sounds represent the cellphone image) or evoke them through gestures (for example moving my hands as if I was reading a book represents the Bible). The first couple of seconds I was watching Christina’s video I felt there wasn’t much mode bending going on, as it seemed primarily visual and also included the pictures from the original post. However, I soon begin to realize I was incorrect as I became more attuned to her narration and understood how the representation was largely auditory. Her voice also had a lot of gestures, in the sense that emotions were being transmitted as she expressed ideas and concepts. When this became evident, I closed my eyes and realized that the auditory representation was by itself sufficient as it was very detailed and full of content. In the analysis of my mode bending task, I had observed that my auditory representations were not so clear as the images in the original post because I used sound effects instead of verbal descriptions. Christina’s mode bend supports well this argument, as we can see how using sound to produce words is highly descriptive and precise. This is again pointing to the power of language as one of the most efficient tools for experience description. I could even argue that words through sound (speaking) has a higher degree of content than words through images (writing), as it can transmit emotion with more precision. This is probably why in texting we often use emoticons or other symbols to convey emotion.

I also found it interesting how Christina was able to expand the visual dimension and representation through the use of video. While describing an object many new visual objects would emerge to support the description. This was not necessarily a bend of mode, as it still is a visual representation, however, it seems like the auditory representation gave birth to new auditory representations creating a whole new multi-dimensionality and richness to the descriptions she was making. This also shows interesting dynamics of how information is translated from one form of representation to another (visual to audio) and this creates new possibilities of re-representation of the original source (visual to audio to visual). In effect, it seems in my experience that the different senses are constantly informing one another creating more complex forms of human experience (for example I can hear a song that brings an image to my mind, which then I express in speech, which in turn makes me feel particular emotions that influence my gestures, and so on).

A Multimodal Approach: Gestural + Audio

For this task, I decided to do a mode-bending that included two new modes not used originally for task 1: gestural representation and audio representation. Originally I was going to do only a gestural representation but then I thought that including an audio representation would allow me to give more clues to the viewer, as I am presenting the objects without giving away their identity through words (although there is a link to reveal that information).

Using gestures, I am expressing how each object is used. Using sound, I am expressing what sounds can be produced with the objects or activities I do with the objects. It is interesting to contemplate how, compared to the original task, there is no visual nor textual representation of the objects, and how the immediacy of identifying them is reduced. This made me think about how visual and textual representations are usually the most precise modes to describe objects. Seeing an object and its name makes possible instant recognition. I believe it mirrors how the mind works, as it seems in my experience that, in thinking, a name can’t be separated from form (try to imagine a nameless form!). However, what I also learned from this mode-bending task is theat audio (not as speaking, but sound effects) and gestures are very efficient to illustrate actions or dynamic content. This made me think about how when we think about verbs, the images produced in the mind are dynamic and, in that sense, more like a gesture or a sound effect.

Hence, this redesign process was one of going from static content to dynamic content; from objects to activities; from nouns to verbs. However, if I look at it more critically, it seems like the act of representation is in itself a dynamic process of transformation. Even in the case of the images and the words, there is a initial process in which the objects (which is a perceptual experience) are converted into a static form (pictures and words). This help me to understand Kalantzis and Cope’s (2009) observation that “all forms of representation, including language, should be regarded as dynamic processes of transformation rather than processes of reproduction” (p.175). Another important idea expressed by Kalantzis and Cope’s (2009) and in ETEC 540 is that experiences are multimodal. For example, the gestural representation was clearly visual as well, although gestures could also be expressed only through sound or words. But could we have gesture separated from a visual, auditory, or linguistic experience?

Another interesting observation that came from this task is that my gestural and visual representations are biased. To read these visual and gestural texts the observer must have a cultural background sufficiently close to mine. An individual from 2000 years ago wouldn’t be able to understand most (if not all) of the representations. The gestures and sounds are informed by cultural objects that belong to a particular culture and time. However, it is interesting to think about how some of the emotions I display in the videos (for example enjoyment or peace) have a transcendental quality that could be understood by any human. This made me think about Dobson & Wilinsky’s (2009) assertion that “literacy should be viewed, rather, as a set of complex characteristics and processes that influence and are influenced by social context and personal circumstance” (p.15). From my analysis of how the objects biased the representations, I can see the truth in this statement. However, from the analysis of the transcendence of some texts (for example emotions), I believe it could be argued that maybe there is some literacy that is inherent in human beings, regardless of context or culture.

Object 1

Reveal Object 1

__________________________________________

Object 2

Reveal Object 2

__________________________________________

Object 3

Reveal Object 3

__________________________________________

Object 4

Reveal Object 4

__________________________________________

Object 5

Reveal Object 5

__________________________________________

Object 6

Reveal Object 6

__________________________________________

Object 7

Reveal Object 7

References

Dobson, T. M., & Willinsky, J. (2009). Digital literacy. (pp. 286-312). Cambridge University Press.

Cope, B. & Kalantzis, M. (2009). Multiliteracies: New literacies, new learning. Pedagogies: An International Journal, 4:3, 164-195, DOI:Links to an external site.
10.1080/15544800903076044Links to an external site.

In this linking assignment, I’m going to make connections and analyze differences between the reflections my classmate, Amy Jazienicki, and I did for Task 4 – Manual Script.

It was very interesting to read Amy’s reflection because she made very practical and objective observations about the differences between writing and typing. Amy observed that typing, compared to writing, makes editing and organization much easy. It is a medium that facilitates adjustment-making in a flexible and clean way. I was able to recognize that all these observations are true. In my everyday experience, as I write emails, messages, assignments, etc, it is evident that typing is a more convenient form of bringing thoughts into form. For this reason, it is not a surprise that it has become the most popular medium for text creation.

I was surprised to see how different my reflection was from Amy’s. Not in a contradictory way but a dimensional one, as it seems like we explored different aspects of the differences between writing and typing. I didn’t go much into a comparison of the practicalities of these ways of producing text but rather did a more abstract and subjective analysis establishing connections with performing arts (singing, playing instruments, and improvising). My focus was not particularly on the organization and editing of content but rather on how this content comes into form, observing that writing had a creative-aesthetic element not present in typing.

It seems to me that our analysis was probably influenced by the type of text we were producing. I produced a devotional text which lends itself to spontaneity through getting in touch with inner feelings and express them on the go. It is also a very personal and intimate kind of production that usually no one will read, except oneself. For these reasons, the usual editing and re-organization process is not so relevant, which makes writing a suitable approach for such a task. As explained in my reflection, it is more like improvising music – one simply performs and there is no turning back. Amy’s analysis, on the other hand, connects better to the dimension of composing music, in which there is a whole process of doing adjustments and polishing musical ideas. I would say that most of our daily endeavors of producing text are more similar to composing music. However, other more spontaneous (and unusual) ways of writing come closer to improvisation, for which writing could be a more suitable alternative.

As in my other linking tasks, I appreciate how these comparisons allow me to expand my thinking and see text production from different angles I hadn’t considered.

In this linking assignment, I’m going to make connections and analyze differences between the reflections my classmate, Ping Cao, and I did for Task 5 – Twine Task.

In more general terms, as observed in my first linking analysis with Vera, I noticed that Ping’s aesthetics and user experience are nicely done and more advanced than mine. I find this inspiring because it gives me ideas about how to improve my blog space. I am indeed a creative and very detailed designer but given that I found UBC Blogs to be not as comfortable as other platforms I close down to its capacities. Ping uses headings and color-coding in creative and pleasant ways and, as Vera, includes images and emojis that lighten up the seriousness of doing a reflection for a graduate program. I also appreciate how she made her Twine more accessible through itch.io. All these extra-mile efforts are admirable and make me think about the value of engaging with peers for growth and benchmarking, something I also encounter in my professional experience as a musician, producer, and multimedia artist.

While reading Ping’s reflection I experienced a lot of empathy because I see she (also) struggled while getting around and working with Twine. This was indeed a task that required a first step of learning how to use the program. It is not a complicated program, but the initial process of learning it does require time and effort – just like when we first learn how to play an instrument. It was very interesting to experience emotional release through empathy while reading Ping’s reflections and this made think about how, as human, we appreciate not feeling alone in our difficulties and challenges.

When I saw Ping’s screenshot of her Twine structure, it became apparent that she had followed a very different approach while designing her game. While mine looked more like a tree built on a linear sequence, hers looked like a net of interconnected possibility. In effect, after playing her game I was able to appreciate that Ping had created an experience in which the user has much more freedom to explore different possibilities; while mine (the Beatles story) consisted of a one-possibility infolding of events. However, it is interesting to note that the freedom created in Ping’s game is, to some extent, illusory as all the possibilities are already pre-determined. That being said, I believe her design affords higher levels of curiosity and engagement and displays more efficiently the multidimensional aspect of hyperlinks. As mentioned in the beginning of this analysis, I value how exposure to my peer’s work inspires me and activates my creativity. For example, now I imagine it could have been interesting to make my Twine story about the different possibilities of what would have happened to the Beatles if they reunited in the ’70s, ’80s, ’90s, and 2000s in relation to the political and artistic contexts of each decade.

In this linking assignment, I’m going to make connections and analyze differences between the reflections my classmate, Vera Xiong, and I did for Task 3 Voice to Text.

Before going into Task 3 I would like to mention that, in more general terms, I found Vera’s blog page inspiring, as her posts are nicely produced with images. There is an aesthetic element that for me, as an artist, is essential for user-end experience, which made me think about how I could improve my own blog site and future work. I saw her posts before doing Task 4, and this motivated me to improve my blog’s design and also be more mindful of aesthetics while producing content.

While reading Vera’s reflection I noticed that we both realized how punctuation was not translated while doing this task, an issue that arises from the fact that punctuation represents silence. In my analysis, I mentioned that this created an ever-flowing long line of text that is difficult to read. What I found interesting about Vera’s observations is that she went a step further, explaining how this can alter the meaning of sentences. She provides a great example that illustrates this:

Without comma: I found John an experienced doctor. (John is an experienced doctor).
With comma: I found John, an experienced doctor. (I found an experienced doctor for John).

I found some differences between our reflections, not in a contradictory way, but simply in the way we experienced the excessive. Because of my background in music and performance, much of my analysis explored how the act of speaking (or singing) is different from the act of writing, however, I didn’t go much into what is it that makes them different. Vera did a good job in identifying some of these differences, particularly on the emotional content that becomes ambiguous when producing text, which can only be clarified with extra information. She gives a great example about how the phrase “I am so excited to see you” could be said with excitement or sarcasm and this could only be expressed clearly in text with the addition of more words, such as “she joyfully said, I am so excited to see you”. This observation made me think about Kress’ (2005) assertion that words are relatively empty entities and how voice, in contrast to text, has a greater potential to hold emotional content. In effect, it is very difficult to find vocal content without emotional content. I think this has its pros and cons. As a very sensitive person, I find that sometimes interacting through text can be more practical and fast as I don’t have to process much emotional content that is not relevant to the particular situation I am in. However, in the context of appreciating art (for example a great song) the power of a singer’s voice goes way beyond the lyrics they are singing to.

References:

Kress (2005), Gains and losses: New forms of texts, knowledge, and learning. Computers and Composition, Vol. 2(1), 5-22.

For this task, instead of describing the plot of a movie or book, I decided to represent the lyrics of a (famous) song using emojis. I didn’t find the task to be difficult nor easy. It didn’t take long to find emojis that represent the objects described in the lyrics, probably because these are quite ekphrastic. However, it was more challenging to find the emojis which function was to represent verbs or more abstract concepts such as “to”, “as”, “these”, “your”, “be”, etc.

What became evident to me as I did this task was that, even though images or symbols can provide information of experiences and objects, words can do a more precise and accurate job. It seems like, compared to semiotics, writing is a more sophisticated technology to create detailed descriptions. As we’ve learned in this course, there was an evolution from semiotics to writing and this task was useful to understand the reasons for such unfolding. However, I think it is important to make a distinction between the effectiveness and richness of symbology and visual reality. In this task, words (the lyrics of the song) are indeed explaining things more accurately and vividly than the emojis – but this is because the emojis are a very limited tool in the vast potential of visual perception. If the lyrics of the song were translated into a movie or a hallucination, we would probably gather much more information through perception than words. In effect, it seems like words are a limited technology created to describe the rich content of human experience – that is perceptions, emotions, and thoughts.

Both Kress (2005) and Botler (2001) mention how writing is going through a crisis and visuals are becoming more prominent because, in Botler’s (2001) words, “the image dominates the text because the image is regarded as more immediate, closer to the re­ality presented.”(p.51). If I was going to rely only on my experience from doing this task, I would argue this is not true – however, as mentioned, this is due to the limitations of the symbols used (the emojis). If I consider Botler’s observation from my experience of watching movies, videos, animations, high-res images, then it seems correct. It is hard for words to compete with these and, even when they do through complex and sophisticated elaboration, it can’t compete with the immediacy of the visual realm. However, I think it would be erroneous to dismiss writing over visuals or vice versa – it seems to me like each one of them has unique affordances. One that comes to mind is that words enable reflection and critical thinking which, it seems to me, it’s not possible to do through perception.

Another interesting observation that came while doing this task was that my representations are biased, which reminds me of the relationship between reading and subjectivity described by Kress (2005). An individual from another culture or from another time might not be able to derive meaning from the symbols I’ve selected to represent ideas, the world, and experiences. For example, an individual from 500 years ago wouldn’t be able to recognize the symbols of the microphone or the plane. In this regard, I could argue against Kress (2005) assertion that depictions are “full of meaning and always specific” (p.15). The author attributed vagueness and emptiness (p.15) exclusively to words, however in my view this also applies to images, and much of the meaning we derive from them is part of our cultural makeup.

Curious to know what was the song?
Click here to see the emojis next to the lyrics: Emoji Song

References

Chapter 4. Bolter, J. D. (2001). Writing space: Computers, hypertext, and the remediation of print (2nd ed.). Mahwah, N.J: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. doi:10.4324/9781410600110

Kress (2005), Gains and losses: New forms of texts, knowledge, and learning. Computers and Composition, Vol. 2(1), 5-22.

Twine Story: A Beatles Reunion

In the year 2050, The Beatles gather in Heaven to go over fond memories, not before dealing first with some appearance issues established by God.

Download the Twine Story here:
A Beatles Reunion.html

Creating the Twine story for Task 5 reminded me of the design process described by Brennan and Resnick (2013), which is defined as an iterative phenomenon that involves cycles of imagining, creating, playing, sharing, and reflecting. I had never used Twine or experimented much with storytelling, however, I have lots of experience in using software applications to create artifacts (music, video, animation, websites, graphics, etc), so I was able to push through the periods of stagnation in the design process, going through the different cycles described by Brennan and Resnick (2013) until achieving the final result. Creating the Twine story was very similar to the process of producing music or doing a video animation. I had to use my creativity to organize ideas logically in a time frame, experiment, make mistakes, learn software tricks, and re-invent ideas. The translation of my creative software abilities into Twine made me think about Englebart’s (1963) H-LAM/T system and his observation that “each individual develops a certain repertoire of process capabilities from which he selects and adapts those that will compose the process that he executes” (p.11).

Through producing music, I’ve learned that it is not helpful to stay much time in the imagining stage and it’s better to dive into the creating and playing stages (with a few rough ideas, of course). In Nike’s words, just to do it. When creating the Twine story I was tempted to get stuck or spend too much time in the imagining stage, particularly after having the idea playing with the concept of a Beatles’ story. However, at some point, I realized it was just a matter of getting things started and see where I was going to be led. In fact, the initial idea I had for the story was different (a meeting at John Lennon’s house in which the Beatles joined to talk privately with John about their shared music experiences). As I begin to put the images and build the passages the story was transformed, into something more convincing and entertaining, and led me to experience that wonderful sensation of being in the zone. I was able to enjoy the creating process and build momentum once the idea was clear and I understood how to operate Twine. This makes me understand that when we are working on the creation of an artifact if we go beyond the issues of 1) uncertainty of what to create and 2) software operation limitations, our creativity and enjoyment of the process takes off. We can establish connections here with performing arts too, such as singing. For example, once you have control of your instrument (the vocal) and know a piece, you can enter the zone, where there is freedom of expression and enjoyment. 

Creating the Twine story, meaning working with a set of digital writings connected through hyperlinks and reveal links, made me reflect on the ideas explored in this week’s readings. When viewing the project’s structure (trees) and content in the Twine platform, I thought of Botler’s (2001) concept of a “network of interconnected writings”

 (p.27) and understood that this was a different kind of writing experience. I could have written all this content on a single page, however, hyper-textual structures allowed me to explore a new form of writing which, I believe, also creates a different experience for the reader. The reading experience is more exploratory, dynamic, and multidimensional. In my view, this is what Botler (2001) referred to as “hypertext as a break with the past” (p.4). I was also able to contemplate how the Twine story was a network I created to build associations that could be transmitted to the reader’s mind to follow a storyline – a process that connected well with Bush’s (1945) assertion that the mind operates by association. 

References

Brennan, K. & Resnick, M. (2013). Imagining, creating, playing, sharing, reflecting: How online community supports young people as designers of interactive media. In C. Mouza & N. C. Lavigne (Eds.), Emerging technologies for the classroom: A learning sciences perspective (pp. 253-269). London; New York: Springer.

Bolter, Jay David. (2001). Writing space: computers, hypertext, and the remediation of print. New York, NY: Routledge.

Bush, V. (1945). As we may think. The Atlantic Monthly, 176(1), 101-108.

Englebart, Douglas. (1963). “A conceptual framework for the augmentation of man’s intellect” In Hawerton, P.W. and Weeks, D.C. (Eds.), Vistas in information handling, Volume I: The augmentation of man’s intellect by machine. Washington, DC: Spartan Books. Available (as “Augmentation of human intellect: A conceptual framework”)