My first thought in regards to mode bending was to use music in some way. But rather than try to represent each of the items in my bag with a song, I thought to choose an equal number of songs to the number of items I carry with me to try and convey information about myself to listeners. The significance of the items in my bag isn’t about the physical object, but rather about what they say about me as a person. The end result is a spotify playlist that I think gives nearly as much information about me as a peek inside my bag does.
In choosing my songs, I chose songs in a number of ways. First, there are some songs that represent my thoughts, feelings, and moods recently. These songs are the ones that are evocative either through lyrics or melodies. Then, there are songs that have strong memories associated with them from a place, a time in my life, or a person. Lastly, there are songs that I just enjoy listening to.
This exercise brought back memories of making mix tapes and later, burned CDs for family, friends, and partners. The act of thinking about a theme, mood, or message you want to convey and scouring your collection for songs that fit felt incredibly personal and intimate and is something that I hadn’t experienced in quite some time. And the response to what you created could be so telling. I vividly remember exchanging burned CDs with someone I was dating. We exchanged CDs just before summer when I was going to be away for a few months for work. Listening to the CD made for me, and then hearing the reaction to the one I made (too many female artists) foreshadowed our eventual breakup during that summer.
The reading by the New London Group is one that I’ve read previously and that I very much enjoy. It affirmed a lot of what I do in my teaching practice, such as allowing students to demonstrate their learning in a variety of ways and using a variety of technologies. In thinking about the concept of multiliteracies I considered what literacies someone might need in order to access this new mode of conveying “What’s in my bag?” Beyond being literate in terms of language, the user would need to be able to access and navigate the internet in order to even see the content. Once accessed, the user would need to be musically literate as well. Being able to interpret themes, emotions, and mood in music is core to being able to understand what I’m trying to communicate about myself in this exercise.
