Week 8  of ETEC 540, we were asked to curate the songs from the Voyager Golden Record into a carefully selected list of only 10 songs. While I personally had my own criteria for not excluding certain songs onto my curated list, I found I didn’t necessarily have profound reasons for excluding the other songs I left out. The process of exclusion seemed that it may potentially have more of an impact then the inclusion process, it felt like unjustified rejection to leave out some of the greatest works of all time. This week as we attempt to analyze the results of the network of curators, it is evident that we all share commonalities for our choices. The first & second network images show how we’ve been grouped together based on our selections. I have been placed in one of the second largest groups, the LIME GREEN GROUP with Barbara, Saniya and Tanya. My placement is on the outer perimeters of the network suggesting perhaps that I shared the least commonalities with others in the entire cohort.

The challenge was placed upon the ETEC 540 cohort to reflect on the reasons why the “null’ choices were made and if it is possible for them to ever be represented in the data? Below is the network showing all of the Golden Record songs and the above question has planted a garden of subsequent questions:

• Perhaps the network can be displayed and analyzed in reverse order where only the excluded songs be included?
• Maybe the excluded songs carry more significance than the ones that were included?
• Can the reasons why I didn’t chose certain songs come down to simply personal preference of music?
• Should our personal music preferences be assessed prior to curating a song list such as that of the Golden Record?
• Should individual and situational influences on musical preferences be considered when analyzing the networks of this page?

It appears that the more questions that arise, the more unclear the network becomes. Your thoughts?

Stephanie Mauro