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”)

Image of the devotional spontaneous text I did for this task.

The Art of Handwriting 

This task brought me back to early 2020 when, for a few months, I was working on a project of devotional writing. Even though these writings were planned to be released digitally, I would do the writing process by hand, using a pencil and paper. As Collier notes in Cooke’s (2012) short film, there was a therapeutic and more intimate aspect to bringing thoughts into form through writing than typing. I would write about three to four devotional papers a day and soon begun to make some connections between handwriting and art. I noted that writing words is a form of visual art in the sense that you can do beautiful handwriting. As I practiced my writing daily, I became intensely aware of how I wrote the letter of every single word. I realized it was very similar to the process of signing, in which every single note of a melody has to be carefully located on the right pitch. I understood that if I took a “one letter at a time” approach while writing, the words I produced came clear and visually appealing, which is closely related to what Collier (Cooke, 2012) referred to as “putting the letters together”. This is certainly not present in the production of writing digitally in which a letter is produced by hitting a key. In that regard, writing puts us in a position of a designer or artist which is lost when we type. Bolter (2001) observed that each new technology claims to be better than the one it sets out to remediate in at least one—if not several—senses (p. 26), however, I think this is not correct, but rather depends on how we look at it. From a practical point of view, typing is better because it saves us time, but isn’t our ability to produce beauty and experience it essential for a good life as well? Of course, this all depends on the context and purpose of putting ideas into form.

As I became more proficient at handwriting I began to see them as pieces of music or art. The inspiration of a session plus the writing technique would make these “shinny” (beautiful) objects that contain the “wow factor” described by Collier (Cooke, 2012). I could see that, just as in singing, they were a performance that couldn’t be reproduced in any other way – a unique creation that reflects the inner emotional state of the writer, not only in the words and ideas but also in the visual production of the words. What I found particularly surprising about doing this task (in which I wrote again a devotional text) is that, compared to my writing in early 2020, I felt a little out of shape. This revealed more connections between art and writing because it made me reflect on the importance of practice. I know that when you stop practicing a musical instrument or singing for a long time, it might take you some time to get back to the top of your game. However, it is also interesting to see that the technique is also retained to some degree, so I was able to write within standards of what I consider beautiful.

References

Bolter, Jay David. (2001). Writing space: Computers, hypertext, and the remediation of print [2nd edition]. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Cooke, Danny (2012). Upside Down, Left To Right: A Letterpress Film [Video file]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6RqWe1bFpM&ab_channel=DannyCookeFreelanceFilmmaker

I enjoyed doing this exercise because I am fascinated by the act of using my voice to create form. This year I have been practicing singing and oratory on a daily basis, doing recordings of myself for music and narration projects. In the context of speaking, I’ve developed a passion for effective pronunciation and vocal vibration, recognizing it as an art form that can transmit beauty and emotional healing. While doing this week’s readings, I found Haass’ (2013) description of writing as a technology to be compelling and I think the same applies to speech.

With this in mind, while doing the exercise of speech to text, I had some technical advantages and experience that kept the transcription from having many flaws. I must admit, of course, that I was more mindful and careful in my speech. However, because of my practice, this is normal to me now.

While looking at the text, the major deviation I find from written English is that there is no punctuation. I have a big paragraph that looks like an endlessly flowing, very (very) long sentence. When I read the sentence I find myself slipping through sentences that sound non-sensical. This makes me think about the importance of punctuation and how this must have been an issue that the investors of the technology of writing came across while creating it. This must have required an analysis of how we use silence and inflections while speaking and find a way of symbolizing that through colons and commas. It’s interesting to think how we have assigned a form (a colon or a comma) to something formless (silence). This makes me think about Gnanadesikan’s (2011) statement about writing being “only a means of expressing language, not language itself” (p.4).

In this week’s readings, Schmandt-Besserat (2009) made me reflect on the connections between graphic symbols and language. While exploring in detail my experience of speaking, even in an improvised context such as this, I’ve noticed that words first appear in my mind, and then I read them. Looking more closely, it seems to me like, before a word is formed in consciousness, there is an image of an experience. In that sense, the text I am seeing is a description of images and experiences. What feels “wrong” in the text is when this description becomes non-sensical through an error in the text. For example, one was “nobody is really perfect, and if that is true Bend I have no reason if you ashamed”. It seems to me that sentences like this are considered wrong or mistakes because they create sentences that can’t be properly referenced to images and experiences in our memory. 

It’s interesting to think about how this might have been if it was scripted. As a musician, I have experience with improvisation, so the text came up fluently and structured. However, it is not as tight as it would have been if I had taken the time to think more carefully about what to say. As noted by Hass (2013), “written texts foster contemplation, analysis, and critique” (p.9). Speaking is similar to singing in the sense that there’s almost no time to take pauses to reflect, go back, and edit lines of thought. Writing on the other hand is more like sculpturing, in the sense that the thought objects we create can be molded and refined. Spoken words come into existence and quickly fade out of existence – there’s no turning back; while written words come into existence and are situated as an object in space. As noted by Gnanadesikan (2011), “writing is generally done more deliberately than speaking, so finished written pieces are much more carefully crafted than a typical spoken sentence” (p.5).

References

Gnanadesikan, A. E. (2011).“The First IT Revolution.” In The writing revolution: Cuneiform to the internet (Vol. 25). John Wiley & Sons (pp. 1-10).

Haas, C. (2013). “The Technology Question.” In Writing technology: Studies on the materiality of literacy. Routledge. (pp. 3-23).

Schmandt-Besserat, D. (2009). “Origins and Forms of Writing.” In Bazerman, C. (Ed.). Handbook of research on writing: History, society, school, individual, text.New York, NY: Routledge.

First, some information about me.

My name is Eduardo and this is my third semester in the MET program, taking my 5th and 6th course. I love this program and have learned a lot since I started it. I was born in Canada and grew up in Peru, where I currently live. I went back to Canada for a few years to study music and multimedia production at York University in Toronto. Professionally, I work at a university here in Lima teaching music production courses. Simultaneously, I work as a music producer and multimedia artist.

Moving on to the task.

During this pandemic period, I haven’t used a bag. So for this “What’s in your bag?” exercise I’ve constructed a simulation of what would be in a bag if I was going somewhere today or catching a plane.

The objects are:

1. Cellphone
2. Laptop
3. Professional headphones
4. Christian Bible
5. Hand sanitizer
6. Hat
7. Bag of almonds and a banana
   

It’s interesting to see how these items are “texts” that provide information about my identity, culture, and lifestyle. I will elaborate briefly on each item.

1. Cellphone

This item provides information about being an individual who is connected to the world through technology. At first glance, the cellphone reveals that I use spoken language to communicate with other people. However, I rarely use this object for this function. It would be more accurate to read this object as a smartphone and recognize that the communication happens primarily in written formats.

2. Laptop

This item also provides information about my connectivity with the world, as it is very unlikely that a computer is not used in some way to navigate the internet. The difference with the cellphone is that this is a larger and more capable tool, which indicates that this is a technology used for work. As such, it can be seen as a survival tool, or a tool for creativity, if my identity as a music producer and multimedia artist is considered. The object also gives information about a preference for Mac computers.

3. Professional headphones

This item provides information about being someone who engages in auditory experiences. This is an important trait of my personality, as l am very sensitive to sound and have a preference for auditory outputs. By itself, the object doesn’t have much meaning because it needs to be connected to something, may that be a computer, a cellphone, or a sound system. In that sense, this object reveals information about how the previous two items are used. Also, these are not ordinary headphones, but professional and rather expensive ones, which indicates that I give value for sound quality. This again gives clues about my inclination for music and sound. The headphones are also clearly a text technology because it is very likely that sung and spoken words will be reproduced through them.

4. Christian Bible

This item is the one that comes forth more clearly as a text, given that it is a book. It reveals information about my beliefs, values, and spiritual practice. It is a text technology used for humans to build a relationship with God. In that sense, just like the cellphone, it could be seen as a communication tool, but rather than being a form of communication that takes place on the net, this takes place on the level of the spirit. A revealing feature of this item is that it is written in Spanish, being the Latin American version of the Bible. Hence, this item is also providing information about the language I speak and the culture I belong to.

5. Hand sanitizer

This item provides information about personal hygiene. The text that is transmitting from observing this object is that I am mindful of keeping my hands clean. This means that I must be aware of issues that could arise from not having my hands clean in external environments, such as contracting Covid-19.

6. Hat

This item is interesting because it doesn’t seem to have the degree of functionality that the other items have, particularly because this is an ivy hat. This kind of hat doesn’t have the function of sun protection as most hats do – it is strictly for fashion purposes. Hence, this item reveals information about being mindful of my appearance and personal fashion style (at least from the neck up!).

7. Bag of almonds and banana

These items could be read in a number of ways. Firstly, being very healthy foods, they reveal that I am mindful about nutrition and care for my body’s well-being. It also provides information on particular preferences, such as preferring sweet instead of salty flavors (the banana could have been celery sticks). Finally, having these items in the bag also reveals information about being mindful of expenses, as it protects me from having to buy expensive snacks at the locations I might be going to.

Literacies

Overall, the items in my bag reveal numerous types of literacies. The cellphone, laptop, and headphones reveal digital, media, information, and technological literacies; the Christian Bible reveals more traditional notions of literacy (reading), as well as information literacy; the hand sanitizer and bag of almonds and banana reveal critical and information literacies; and the hat reveals visual literacy.

Coherency with self-image

I think there is coherency between these items and the image I project to the world. I normally present myself as a music producer and multimedia artist. Both of these roles imply having technological abilities that are implied in the use of the laptop, the cellphone, and the professional headphones. On the other hand, the Bible reveals values that are expressed in how I treat people with respect and kindness, as well as being happy and having a positive outlook on life. The healthy foods are coherent with having my body in shape, while the hat is coherent with dressing in a mindful way.

Fifteen years ago?

Fifteen years old, this bag would have looked very different. I would have been 19 years old. Back in those days, smartphones were not around and laptops were not as accessible as they are today. Similarly, this was before acquiring some of the technological and digital literacies I use today for work. The headphones might have been there because my music journey had already started, however, I wasn’t so mindful or sensitive to high-quality sound as I am today. Back in those days I also used to eat more sugar and sweets, so instead of the healthy foods, there would have been bubble gum and a bottle of Coca-Cola. Also, although raised in a predominantly Christian culture, I hadn’t started a serious and committed relationship with God.

Found by an archeologist

If an archeologist was to find these objects in the future, I think he/she might be able to draw similar conclusions to what has been written in this analysis of the texts. The archeologist could research the capabilities that computers and cellphones had these days and make assumptions of what kind of activities I engaged in with these technologies, for example sending emails, navigating the world wide web, texting, using social media, etc. I can imagine these technologies would be seen as very basic compared to what will be around in those days. What might be interesting, is that the Bible is still relevant and that could provide information about essential desires of the human spirit than transcend time and space.