[5] Reflection on Binal’ Site Design and the Golden Record Curation

[A] Platform, Design, and Literacies

Binal uses UBC WordPress blogs. Her layout is similar to Jasmeet’s; they both opted for the top menu bar to navigate between the course assignments. It is straightforward, only two clicks away from any part of the website. I highly appreciate their intuitive and user-friendly design, particularly after experimenting with the frustrating “User Inyerface” task a few weeks ago, that reminded of some unpleasant experiences while browsing the college library system in the late 1990’s; it was a true challenge to locate any designated content or resource.
Similar to my approach, Binal set a featured image to each of her posts. Our selection approach of the featured images is pretty close; we tend to take captures from the task environment and use them. I believe that this approach provides a peek at the post’s inner content, draws attention to the critical piece of the task, and helps the visitors construct a sense of the process. A significant benefit of employing a specific image for each of the weekly tasks that it promotes visual literacy and gradually improves our visual thinking as we try to select appropriate images that fit with the content.

[B] Golden Record Curation

I was drawn Binal’s post because our approaches were distinctive. My selection criteria of the Golden record pieces were related to geographical diversity, social justice, feminism, discrimination, racism, cultural appropriation, and the overall dominant pervasive voice of the Western culture (in the 27 tracks) that has been noted by me and other colleagues throughout this task. I tried my best to gather as much information as possible about each piece (cultural significance, instruments, and artists or composers themselves) to ensure that each selection significantly valued humanity. Conversely, Binal prioritized emotions and her overall enjoyment. She justifiably stated that emotions are our first impulse, they are processed before meaning is processed, “well expressed with music” (para.1), and they distinguish humans from machines. Her statements reminded me of Taylor (2009) well known phrase: “we are feeling creatures that think” (p.17). Though her intent is sound and laudable, but, “we are [also] creatures of the world we grew in” (Smith, 2017),  our affection, emotional responses to things, and preference for music are not entirely innate, they are influenced by our experience, upbringing, and our national and cultural biases. As such, we might end up with a discriminatory list. Furthermore, we don’t know anything about the recipients. Does their limbic system (if we assume they have one) respond faster in their brains? And does it respond firstly on a sensory and emotional level like us? Is their first impulse to music is the heart’s, not the head’s?

Despite our distinct selection criteria, I found some similarities between us. Binal and I have five overlapping selections: “Melancholy Blues”, “Rite of Spring”, “Izlel je Delyo Hagdutin”, “Senegalese percussion”, and “Tsuru No Sugomori.” Also, both of us were allured by Smith’s (2017) calls for collecting the resources in the present as it will help people or other beings understand us better in the future. Additionally, we both highlighted that the issue is no longer technical, she thoughtfully cited Smith (2017) “the real issue is who can afford to pay for data storage” (para.2), we may add to this phrase “or pay for access” because there is a wealth of digital archives under the control of the big technology companies that they either refuse to provide complimentary to researchers and historians or add constraints that prevent meaningful access to the data (Zimmer, 2014). In a sense, it is all pulling back the curtain to reveal the brutal power of technology market and its control on all sorts of data assets and resources (Birch, Chiappetta & Artyushina, 2020).