Linking Assignment #4-6
Link 4: https://blogs.ubc.ca/boldjo/2021/10/30/task-8-golden-record-curation/
This was the task that I was most curious about how my peers chose to curate their music list, and while I enjoyed reading everyone’s posts, I was must drawn to Johanna Bolduc’s. She had such an interesting process for her song curation; I appreciated that she actually strayed from the module instructions and followed a process that she felt would work better for her. Like me, she strove for emotional impact to make her choices, but she added extra steps that, in hindsight, I wish I had thought of. For example, she did breathing exercises to ground herself in preparation of hearing the musical selections. I was also surprised by her explanation of the Mexican song, and why it didn’t make her curated list. We both had a personal connection to Mexican music and our parents (my dad and her mother), yet she did not feel moved enough by this particular piece to include it, while I almost immediately added it to the list before even hearing it. She wondered if this was because she had been so focused on detaching herself from any positive associations, and perhaps her initial breathing exercises had allowed her to do so while my attachment to the genre influenced my choice completely. I was also impressed that she was able to identify the specific emotions she felt while listening to her final 10 choices – this was something I had been unable to do (or just didn’t do) during my process. I selected songs based on the level of emotion that I felt while listening, but it didn’t occur to me to try and put into words what the emotions were. This might be because, as an empath, I often get flooded with emotions that are too overwhelming to make sense of.
Link 5: https://blogs.ubc.ca/meetec540/2021/11/08/task-9-network-assignment/
Reading everyone else’s Network Assignment truly made me wish I could go back and redo my attempt at it. I was blown away by how much more my peers were able to get out of the Palladio data. Johanna Bolduc toyed with the different facets available (track, curator, and community) while I didn’t even realize that this was a possibility. Christ Howey discovered that by reloading the data at other times during the week, it was represented in visually different ways each time. Marlis Enders was able to organize the data in several ways that I did not even realize were possible, such as separating her own name and then adding curators one by one while watching the data grow and change. I appreciated that, like me, she recognized how Eurocentric much of the music included on the original record was, and posited that many of us tried to include more diversity in our curated selection of songs. Reading her post, though, made me question why I hadn’t ‘got’ as much out of the data as she did. Was it because I was too intimidated by the data? Did I simply not spend enough time exploring the Palladio website? Should I have sought out further tutorials on YouTube to push myself further?
Link 6: https://blogs.ubc.ca/etec540metporgram/2021/11/13/task-12-speculative-futures/
Nataliia Kudryk’s fictional apps for mental and physical health were great ideas! As I read about how easy it will be to make an appointment with your doctor or to get a refill, I was filled with instant longing for such a utopia. Maybe this has to do with the fact that it takes me weeks just to get through on the phone to my doctor’s office, and then a few more weeks on top of that to even speak or see them. This app would make my life SO much easier! I also thought the idea of an AI therapist/counsellor was really interesting. I think a lot of people are afraid to open up and share their innermost feelings with other humans, even if that human has a psychology or counselling degree but the prospect of talking to an AI might seem a lot easier. For instance, there’s no risk that your AI therapist is judging you about something you probably already feel uneasy revealing to others; however, a human therapist is just that – human – and might judge you whether they mean to or not. Really interesting ideas to (hopefully) look forward to in the future!