Challenge #4: Digital Storytelling and BIPOC Cultures Linking VR/AR and Mixed Reality Tools and Technologies

Find the brief for the challenge here: Digital Storytelling and BIPOC Cultures Linking VR/AR Mixed Reality Tools and Technologies 

Instead of going into BIPOC cultures, I will be reviewing an interactive AR zine based on an artist’s experience with ADHD and my conversation with them about their design process. I believe this topic still intersects with the challenge’s main learning objective of reflecting from an EDIDA framework perspective.

As someone with ADHD myself, it was an refreshing to see a common experience visualized in a way that was thoughtful and creative. I have included the QR code to the zine in the blogpost below, and purposefully excluded any screenshots, as to not detract from the AR experience for the readers.


The other day I visited the art studio Slice of Life located on Commercial Drive as part of the  East Van Culture Crawl.

In a corner, someone was showcasing their zines, which piqued my interest. I initiated a conversation with the artist, Rowan (@keeponcreative), who created an interactive AR zine on their ADHD experience.

Before continuing to the rest of the blogpost, please take some time and experience the AR interactive zine yourself here:

Rowan created this zine to visualize the ADHD experience first-handedly through the interactive dialogue panels of a conversation. They hope to increase the ADHD awareness so that neurotypicals can understand the challenges that ADHD folks have during conversations with others.

They created the experience in Adobe Aero, and intertwined the digital interface of AR with the analogue form of zines and illustrations seamlessly.

In a choose-your-own-adventure type of interaction, the reader can choose from three different paths in a text message style conversation, with an insider view into the internal monologue; visual distractions obfuscating the dialogue bubbles; and rapid fire walls of texts.

Some aspects Rowan chose to focus on was:

    • Info-dumping: Sharing a large amount of detailed information about a topic of interest is a way ADHD folks connect with others and to express that they’re excited about a specific topic. However, sometimes it may come off as overwhelming or dominating the conversation.
    • Distractions: Staying on top of the conversation thread can be a challenge for ADHD folks, while overstimulating environments can also effect attention and participation in a conversation.
    • Interruptions: for many ADHD folks, the mind stays active and often thoughts get left behind and fade away if they do not get expressed as they come along. This can come of as rude or misreading of social cues when they interrupt conversations.

While conversing with Rowan, I felt like they conveyed an AR experience that felt really close to my experiences with ADHD. I learned that they are slowly working on their capstone project, “Visualize”, that addresses the lesser known qualities of ADHD through experiential zine. They created AR simulations to supplement the zine with animations allowing the reader to engage in a more embodied way.

We also briefly discussed the challenges of creating AR experiences; the technical limitations using Adobe Aero; integration of more analogue forms of media, or making users want to engage in “going the extra step” to use technology in hand with art.

This conversation with Rowan has made me reflect more on the utilization of AR with DIY culture values of decentralization of knowledge through analogue media of zines, especially with leveraging the affordance of AR to embed an experience for more embodiment, engagement and interaction.

Task #4: Race, Gender, Identity and Intersectionality in the Maker Environment

Brief

Design a critical and cohesive overview of race, gender, identity, and intersectionality in the maker environment. Introduce others to representational problematics in makerspaces and communities.

Choose your means of presentation so long it is multimodal.


Project: Inclusive Makerspace Twine Game 

This is an interactive text-based story surrounding a group of diverse makers that challenged the space’s gender norms and definition of “making” in the local makerspace the Iron Forge.

There are two main aspects of inclusivity that I focused on, specifically on gender and culture.

The story draws upon themes mentioned in the lecture by Kimberly Martin on   Centering Gender: A feminist analysis of makerspaces and digital humanities centres  especially the notions of the difference between “Making vs Crafting” and how that often is intertwined with the idea of “New Domesticity” when it comes to “softer” forms of making with sewing, knitting, weaving, etc. having it be dismissed as mere “craft”.

Another theme that really resonated with me in that lecture was the idea of “invisible labor” of women when it comes to expectations within makerspaces and the stereotypical gender roles affecting how work is organized into private and public spheres that in turn shape how we categorize tasks into “men vs women’s” work.

The narratives I have included are completely fictional and made with the help of ChatGPT. I wanted to utilize AI in this project as I was curious to see what stories it creates and the underlying biases and stereotypes that arises when it comes to inclusivity and diversity in makerspaces.

Below is an excerpt that I did not use in my story, but was given to me after prompting.

As the weeks passed, the dynamic between the men and women evolved. The men, who had been skeptical, began to respect the women’s leadership, learning new techniques and embracing projects they had never considered. Meanwhile, the women appreciated the technical knowledge the men brought, weaving it into their more holistic, creative projects.

By the end of the month, the makerspace had become a true melting pot of ideas, where gender was no longer a barrier to creation. Men and women worked side by side, designing everything from wind-powered kinetic art installations to smart home devices that responded to voice commands. They learned from one another, breaking down stereotypes and building something even stronger: a community that thrived on diversity and collaboration.

The women had taken charge, not by forcing the men out, but by expanding what was possible in the space—and in doing so, they had created a makerspace that belonged to everyone.

It felt like it was perpetuating the gender binary, even though there was one non-binary character in the story, and it felt like it was lumping “non-men” into one category of “women”. The erasure of non-binary-ness was somewhat surprising to me, and it played into a conundrum that I had when I was creating this project. Namely, the challenge of  wanting to “break gender stereotypes” but needing to lean into and “exaggerate” the stereotypes in order to highlight that gap. I felt like that was the case when I was reading some of the papers, like by talking about under-representation first entailed the re-enforcement of gender stereotypes!

In terms of culture, I think the story reflects the kinds of cultural assumptions nested within the creation tools used in makerspaces, especially the recent tendency for integration of Arduinos, circuit boards, e-textiles to add the “Art” into STEM. Many papers seems to place an emphasis on empowering girls to participate more in science and computational activities, but it feels like there is less of a push to empower boys to lean into their artistic side. Seo and Richard (2021) mentioned that bidirectionally responsive design (BRD) activities were shown to “dissipate gendered preconceptions, and the learners across gender equally saw value of crafting, coding, sewing and design”, which might be a start, but I am curious to investigate more into such design-thinking and the more practical aspects in a broader context.

Ideally, I would have liked to include characters that are based on lived experiences, and to make sure that the representations of the characters are reflective of people with such positionalities that the characters themselves occupy. Potential development would be by asking friends with culturally relevant maker experiences to be part of the storytelling.

Should I have more time, I would have liked to explore more into disability and accessibility aspect of makerspaces in terms of content and subject matter.

In terms of the making of this artifact, I would have liked to find ways to embellish the story with more visual elements, such as photos of the makerspace, the characters, the kinds of projects they are making, etc. to create a more immersive and visual experience.

 

References

Martin, K. (2017, November 28). Centering gender: A feminist analysis of makerspaces and digital humanities centers [Video]. Media Collections Online. https://media.dlib.indiana.edu/media_objects/47429d523

Norris, A. (2014). Make-her-spaces as hybrid places: Designing and resisting self constructions in urban classrooms. Equity & Excellence in Education, 47(1), 63-77. https://doi.org/10.1080/10665684.2014.866879

Parekh, P. (2024). Girls’ reluctance and intersectional identities in STEM-rich makerspaces. Education Sciences, 14(6), 628.

Seo, J., & Richard, G. T. (2021). SCAFFOLDing all abilities into makerspaces: A design framework for universal, accessible and intersectionally inclusive making and learning. Information and Learning Sciences, 122(11/12), 795-815.

 

Disability Representation – Toph Beifong from Avatar: The Last Airbender

 

Introduction

The series takes place in a world with elements inspired by various Asian and Indigenous cultures. Some people in this world have the ability to “bend” (i.e. manipulate) one of the four natural elements of earth, fire, water and air. The Avatar is a being that has been reincarnated and the only one that can bend all four elements.

The story follows young Avatar, Aang, and his friends Katara, Sokka and Toph on a quest to prevent the Fire Nation from taking over the world.

The Blind Bandit – Toph Beifong

One of the characters with a visible disability is Toph, who was born blind.
She was brought up in a wealthy royal household with overprotective parents that isolated her from the world to prevent her from getting hurt due to her disability.

Toph learned earth-bending skills from badger moles, blind creatures that live underground, which she related to. She would sneak off to earth-bending tournaments under the moniker “The Blind Bandit”, often defeating opponents that were more able-bodies, athletic and stronger than her.

Disability Representation

Toph is a powerful earth-bender, not despite her disability, rather because of her blindness. Her blindness heightens her perception to sound and touch through vibrations travelling through the ground.

In the beginning, Toph tries hard to prove that she can “carry her own weight” as a projection and overcompensation of her overprotective parents’ excessive coddling. She gradually overcomes her fear of “being a burden to others” through learning to lean on her friends for support and guidance throughout the series. This “counter-frame of interdependence” of solidarity and friendship between the team grows as they continue on their adventures.

In the series, Toph is portrayed through her strengths and weaknesses, such as showing how she navigates environments that are inaccessible to her (i.e. in the air or water), or when she lets her friends down in ways that are related to her disability in battles. Doing so moves away from the “supercrip” model of representation and offers a more “dis/humanized” perspective of how Toph is represented (Goethals et al, 2022) as we see her growth and character development.

Lastly, I want to acknowledge my positionality that this is a personal analysis of a disability representations as someone who is no blind. However, I was able to find discussion threads on Reddit with personal experiences of those who are blind, which provides a “cross-expertise, iterative and dialogic” approach to participatory framing analysis (Goethals et al., 2022).

I was able to learn earth-bending not just as a martial art, but as an extension of my senses. For them, the natural earthbenders, it wasn't just about fighting. It was their way of interacting with the world" 
---- Toph Beifong from Book 5 Episode 12: The Firebending Masters

References

Avatar: The Last Airbender. Directed by Michael Dante DiMartino, Bryan Konietzko, Nickelodeon Animation Studios, 2005-2008

Goethals, T., Mortelmans, D., Van den Bulck, H., Van den Heurck, W., & Van Hove, G. (2022). I am not your metaphor: Frames and counter-frames in th representation of disability. Disability & Society, 37(5), 746–764. https://doi.org/10.1080/09687599.2020.1836478

Purks, E. (2020, July 6). Writing disability: Black Girl’s Digest. Retrieved January 31, 2023, from https://www.blackgirlsdigest.com/post/writing-disability

 

Linking Task 12: Speculative Futures (Joseph)

ETEC 540 – Task 12: Speculative Futures

Joseph chose to use Twine as the medium to explore the two different futures — a utopian “sweet dream” and a dystopian “nightmare”.

This was a clever design decision, as “Twine was a natural choice [to display two different viewpoints] as I could have a split narrative path to contain both of these options” (Villella, 2022).

In the opening of the game, the player is prompted to enter their name and location in the text box, in which it is used as the main character in the narrative. This already immerses the player within the story, in addition to the background music and sound effects.

Utopian “Sweet Dream”

The utopian viewpoint had a more upbeat, cheery background music that plays throughout the game.
The narrative is set in a world where nature and humanity thrive in harmony. There is emphasis on renewable energy and eco-friendly technology, which is seen on the air-hovering eco-Translink buses and the newest model of Meta Headsets powered by oxygen.

The storyline splits into two side quests, one is finding your “brother”, and the other is the journey to school.

The brother provides more context of the world through the dialogue you have with him. The player finds out that it is 2025, and personal assistant driod eRobots help with taking care of your everyday needs. There is reference to the continuing existence of technology moguls, namely Elon Jr.

On the journey to school, physical classrooms that afford collaboration still exists, yet with heavy utilization of VR headsets. The classroom environment is surprising to me, as one would think there would be complete digitization and heavy emphasis on virtual interaction with the ubiquity of VR Headsets, such that a physical classroom could be deemed unnecessary. However, it seems there is still a focus on human interaction and physical presence in the classroom, especially given the set-up of the desks to be conducive to collaboration.

Dystopian “Nightmare”

The dystopian viewpoint had a more somber and desolate background music. The narrative is set in a somewhat post-apocalyptic and barren environment, where humanity seems to have reach destruction and is in the process of rebuild.

The education environment has become a mere “virtual daycare” where students are there to be supervised as they learn digitally. Remnants of technology is strewn across the classroom, interspersed with analog methods of teaching, yet students lacking the literacy skills to successfully learn.

Through the dialogue between the player and an “officer” with the same name, context of the current world is given. The hyper-development of technology has broken down the geopolitical borders between nations, and the influence of politics has created fear and paranoia of cyber-information warfare, which in turn causes a regression of civilization to the early 2000s. When asked about the origin of this dystopian disaster, we are left on a cliffhanger and wake up from this nightmare.


Reflection

I thought the world-building was very interesting and reminds me of very distinct futures.

The utopian narrative reminds me of the vision of a solarpunk future. Solarpunk is an imagination of the future where nature and humanity are able to maintain an equilibrium without exhausting all natural resources, even proposing that technology can enable humanity to exist sustainably.

On the other hand, the dystopian narrative, “technology has replaced our own abilities” (Villella, 2022) reminds me of the grungy textures of dieselpunk , especially with reference to the “retro-futuristic” aspect of technology. It very much alludes to the downfalls where “humanity collapses on itself” and the unforeseen consequences of needing to revert to previous technology, yet without the ability or skills to do so, due to over-reliance on technological advancement.

Overall, one main aspect I really enjoyed in this Twine game is that the narration brings the player to explore both the utopian “sweet dream” and dystopian “nightmare” scenarios in a way that flows with each other; there are paths that return back to a previous point and allows the player to explore the other option, while staying cohesive to the overall structure within a dream.

References

Dieselpunk (n.d.) Wikipedia. Retrieved August 10, 2022 from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dieselpunk

Solarpunk (n.d.) Wikipedia. Retrieved August 10, 2022 from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solarpunk

Villella, J. (2022, August, 3). Task 12: Speculative Futures. ETEC540 Joseph Villella. https://blogs.ubc.ca/jvillella540/2022/08/03/task-12-speculative-futures/ 

Task 12: Speculative Futures

Project Proposal – (retro)speculative futures

For this project, I wanted to take a different approach to thinking about speculative narratives in a way that is grounded in reality such that it can be conducive to actualizing our imagined futures in practice — (retro)speculative futures, a practice of looking into the past to project ourselves into the future.

To stay true to the spirit of “retrospeculation”, the foundations of this concept/ idea will be drawn from the course modules of Multiliteracies and Speculative Futures in addition to my own personal lived experiences, thoughts and feelings as an exercise in “transformed practice” (The New London Group, 1996) Therefore, this project will be self-referential in both the framework structure and in methodology.

Foundations:

In Speculative Everything, the authors pose “design speculations as a catalyst for collectively redefining our relationship to reality” with the idea of possible futures as tools to understand the present to discuss the future people want and do not want.

However, they also mentioned that “for us, futures are not a destination or something to be strived for, but a medium to aid imaginative thought- to speculate with”.

Though speculation about the future is indeed necessary and important, in some ways, it can become limiting. Without enacting agency and taking action in the futures we desire to create, it continues to stay immaterial and almost ethereal, an intangible hope on the horizon. There seems to be a large gap between “theory” and “praxis”, in which (retro)speculative fiction hopes to bridge in-between.

In the book, the authors take a diagram inspired by futurologist Stuart Candy to illustrate the potential different kinds of future they propose:

Book: Speculative Everything. Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby set out… | by Lorenzo Iuculano | Medium
PPPP, Illustration by Dunne & Raby

 

  • Probable Futures: describes what is likely to happen unless there is some extreme upheaval of natural or societal disaster
  • Plausible Futures: describes “what could happen” and exploration of alternative economic and political futures to ensure that organizations will be prepared for and thrive in number of different futures.
  • Possible Futures: describes the linking between today’s world and the suggested one. The scenarios should be scientifically possible and have a path from where we are today to where we are in the scenario.
  • Preferable Futures: describes the intersection between plausible and probable but poses the questions “what does preferable mean, for whom, and who decides?” Currently determined by government and industry, though limited by citizen-consumers.

With the above proposed structure, (retro)speculative futures will be operating on the level of Possible Futures, as it aligns with the authors beliefs that it will ” allow the viewers to relate the scenario to their own world and use it as an aid for critical reflection”.

Though not totally aligning or deviating from the author’s belief that designer’s roles “should not define futures for everyone else but work with experts, including ethicists, political scientists, economists, and so on, to generate futures that act as catalysts for public debate and discussion about the kinds of futures people really want.” (p. 6) , it should be noted that (retro)speculative futures is a retrospeculation of an individual’s own future, and is hyper-personal in that regard. It aims to plant the seed of imagination in the individual first and foremost, before extending it to speculative futures as a community, or even on a larger scale as a society.

This social hierarchical structure stemming from the individual-family-community-society is highly influenced by a central concept of social harmony within Confucianism, which is informed by my own cultural upbringing and education in Taiwan. (re: “highly-self referential”) Implications of cultural literacy will also be discussed in-depth and the influence it has when it comes to the structural decisions I have made.

Methodology

Borrowing from Pedagogy of Multilieracies, given this new “critical framework”, I hope to “retrospect” on my past to see how my previous experiences has influenced my passions, habits, literacies, decision-making processes, desires, etc. in the present as “situated practice”. With the help of “overt instruction” from the reading materials, I will use the concepts as metalanguage to describe and interpret the design elements. I will then “speculate” on what my current skills, talents, knowledge, lack of knowledge, etc. are, and how that aligns with the future I would like to create for myself as “transformed practice”.

In this case, I will limit my retrospeculation in the realm of language and education, which is relevant to my own personal life, professional career, and the scope of this final assignment, in regards to ” potential relationship with media, education, text and technology”. I hope to reflect upon the focus in three different facets:

  • Personal: personal interests, decisions, defining moments related to topic
  • Interpersonal relationships: important figures, family relations, friendships
  • Environments: location, cities, community, educational environment, etc.
Further Development:

So far, I have yet decided on a medium in which to deliver the concept and idea.  One potential would be hyper-text Twine zine, in which the medium would have enough flexibility for multi-media, and room for serendipitous exploration of different node-paths.

References:

Dunne, A., & Raby, F. (2013). Speculative everything: design, fiction, and social dreaming. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press.

Kunjo. (2017, February 12). Speculative. Retrieved August 7, 2022, from https://speculative.hr/en/introduction-to-speculative-design-practice/

The New London Group.  (1996). A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures. (Links to an external site.)  Harvard Educational Review 66(1), 60-92.

 

Task 3: Voice-to-Text Task

When I saw the description for the assignment, I was very intrigued and excited by it! Coming from a COGS/Linguistics background, I love exploring the intersection of language and technology!

The assignment reminded of a conversation I had with someone that I went on a date with. Below is a recollection of that conversation and what I found insightful and  relevant to the questions being asked in our analysis. The text is transcribed via the voice-to-text software Speechnotes.

In LING100, a concept that was really emphasized was the difference between descriptive and prescriptive grammar. Descriptive grammar is the studying and describing of language as it is used including “standard” and “nonstandard” usage; prescriptive grammar on the other hand is specifying how language “should” be used, often seen in academic settings aiming to teach how to use language “properly”. I wanted to point out the distinction, as I will be using the prescriptive perspective to analyze how the transcript deviates from written English conventions.

Testing testing 1 2 3 so last week I went on a date with someone they are cleared to say slam Poet we it was funny day we decided to meet up in a park on Commercial Drive I got my picnic blanket and some snacks and we just sat in the Sun and chatted for a while my experience with slam poetry is very limited I've been to some performances before hosted by UBC slam Poetry Club that was when benny's Bagels was still around and that was the venue they usually hosted of these Open Mic that so it was really interesting talking to them about accessibility and slam poetry since they are I think immunocompromised and with a lot of venues not adhering to covid measures it's very difficult for them to be able to go to these events feeling safe and it was something that I didn't realize like or put too much thought into how unaccessible these events were and so they talked about how there were some some poetry events that were hosted on now that things are opening back up they're going back in person and so when I asked them about their experience with performing slam poetry virtually in like commercial spaces they didn't really have a very good experience I think mostly because of technical issues for example like you can't really hear people feedback as immediately there's some latency or free sample you can't really see people's Expressions when you performing and I think that also affects like you know how how you how you feel while performing so they have been mostly trying to convert their some poetry soap forms of like we're like more oral forms of poetry into more written forms in zeins and Chad books I found that really interesting because of such a big difference in Media and they provided very interesting perspective because with like sin poetry lot of it is just the emotional aspect of it while performing but also so much information is lost when you convey it into a written form free samples of cadence you know the way you stressing the words your internation your infection stuff lost when you try to put that on paper though they've also given me a different perspective on like while they were trying to make their poetry into more readable format there was from ways of expressing that for example free sample like the way you put the lines on paper like I guess like formation structure punctuation could be one so very much I felt that you really needed to work with the limitations of the medium which was something I never really considered until they were talking about like yeah this transition of putting something that is mostly spoken and sort of like formless and that way into something that you can see and read on paper

Deviations

  • Punctuation is the first visually notable thing is the lack of punctuation, specifically to mark pauses in speech and sentence beginnings and ends. I realized that Speechnote requires you to enter them manually by saying “period”  or “comma” to type them in.
  • Capitalization is sometimes correctly identified, mostly for proper nouns. The software correctly capitalized “Commercial Drive”, “UBC”, “Poetry Club”, but overgeneralized for “Sun”, “Bagels”, “Open mic”, “Expressions”, “Chad books”, “Media”. There was also instances where it didn’t capitalize properly, for example “benny’s”, “covid” . Of course, since there are no marked periods, there is no capitalization of the next sentence start.
  • Spelling/Accuracy of transcription was mostly accurate, nothing too ridiculous or unreasonable, and mostly captured the majority of what I had enunciated properly, even my own mistakes (!!) such as mispronouncing “inaccessible” as “unaccessible”.  It was also interesting to see that it transcribed my “testing testing one two three” into numeral form of “1 2 3”. There were also instances where they misspelled what I had meant, such as “free example” (for example), “Chad books” (chapbooks) , “zeins” (zines), “internation” (intonation). Sometimes it didn’t complete the entire word like “hosted on(line)”. On the other hand, it was able to capture contractions correctly like “I’ve” and “didn’t” as well as possessive cases such as “benny’s”.

I think a lot of these tiny mistakes can be contributed to questionable quality of articulation/enunciation or spelling conventions. For example:

  • Chad books vs chapbooks: as the [d] and [p] sound are both plosives, where the airflow from the lungs is suddenly interrupted by closure of the mouth. The [p] is a voiceless aspirated plosive, so it sounds very whispy, which sometimes gets misheard even by the human ear.
  • zeins (/ziːənz/)  vs zines (/ˈziːnz/): the difference in pronunciation is very difficult to hear clearly in passing conversation and can sound similar. Also English spelling conventions are weird, like the famous example “ghoti” as alternative spelling of “fish”.

If I had a script prepared beforehand to present to the voice-to-text software, the first noticeable difference would be the lack of filler words like “like”, “yeah”, “I think”, which oftentimes are meaningless sounds to mark pauses, hesitation, or used to stall for time. I think the script would feel more structured and have a better flow, rather than feeling like I was saying the same sentence just in a different way and rambling along.  I would feel more confident and clear when I “deliver my speech”, which might result in decrease of the above mentioned mistakes, especially for spelling and accuracy of transcription.

 


Reflection

Lastly, I have many thoughts about oral storytelling and how it differs from written storytelling in the context of slam poetry. These thoughts were formulated after reflecting more deeply on the conversation I had with my date and their experiences.

There are two aspects I wanted to explore, in relation to the process and completion of the assignment exercise: the transition of in-person slam poetry events to online virtual events, and the translation of spoken word poetry into written poetry form.

Transition from IRL to the Web

Poetry slam is a competitive event where spoken word poetry is performed in front of a live audience. Often, it involves cheering, snapping of fingers, and other forms of participation. The reaction and feedback creates a relationship and interaction between audience and the performer, in addition to the poet and their own poem by virtue of speaking (in) their own voice.

During the pandemic, many of these open mic spaces transitioned online, yet the experience was drastically different. Besides the technical issues of the interface (i.e. muted microphones, audio issues, video-call latency, etc.) an integral aspect of of audience participation was lost. There was no immediate way for the poet to gain feedback as they were performing, no body language to show engagement, no eye-contact to show “yes I am paying attention”, no snapping of fingers to show appreciation. It was difficult to use the story-telling process of slam poetry to create a connection with the audience.

This was somewhat like the process of speaking to Speechnotes “as if simply talking to a friend and telling them an anecdote” as per assignment instructions — It did not feel like talking to a friend at all.
There was no feedback from my “friend”, no head-nods, no eye contact, nothing to show that they were interested in listening to what I had to say. There were no questions being asked about the details of my date, no gossip about whether or not I thought they were cute, or any back and forth to draw out more information in a mutual synergetic interaction of the “storytelling” process.

Translating the Spoken onto Paper

Now that many restrictions have lifted , more events are returning to in-person spaces, with little to no safety practices in place. which makes these events unsafe and inaccessible to many in the immunocompromised and disabled community.  This was one main challenge that my date faced , as they felt unsafe to attend poetry slams in-person in general. Therefore, they were trying to make more “readable” versions of poetry to put in zines and chapbooks.

Yet, there were many nuances that got lost in translation– intonation and cadence of the voice, rhythm of the words, stresses in the syllables — how can one accurately translate all of these sonic expressions into written form?*

Nevertheless, in the process of making their spoken word poems more readable, they started experimenting with line breaks, spacing, and even changing the line lengths to accelerate or slow down the tempo of the poem. Though, it was a frustrating translation process, it also pushed the need to be more experimental and innovative with the ways one can use words on paper.

This made me reflect back on Walter J. Ong’s lecture and what he says about the emergence of new mediums and how it enforces and changes the old mediums. In this case, literacy in both mediums is necessary to use them inextricably to overcome the limitations of the previous medium in which you are working with.

To conclude, I found this assignment really engaging, especially being able to think about “language as technology” as situated  in my everyday life and “deliberately” experience it first-handedly in the way I had over the weekend. This made me reflect on the diversity of mediums we now have, and the necessity of being “literate” in them in order to keep up with the changing landscape of language and technology. At times, it feels so easy to swim in-and-between the different types of mediums so fluidly, yet at times, it feels like the ocean in between is too vast and wide!

 

References

Ong, W. (n.d.). Oral cultures and early writing . Youtube. www.youtube.com. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvF30zFImuo&t=65s&ab_channel=AbeAboud

Wikipedia Contributers. (2022, May 15). Ghoti. Retrieved June 3, 2022, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghoti

 

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