After reading Selene’s Golden Record Curation assignment, I decided that I had to link to it because it was so outside of the box. Like myself, Selene felt it was important to include representation of cultures from all parts of the globe. To do this, she “broke the rules” and selected more than 10 tracks. After all, if the reason we need to pare down 27 tracks to 10 is due to space constraints, why not just edit the tracks for time? I admit, I had not read Selene’s rationale before looking at the class data. When I saw that she had selected all 27 tracks, I thought that it must have been an error and disregarded that data.
Selene’s post prompted me to do some more thinking about what I would actually recommend if I were involved in the curation of a new Golden Record. I really appreciate the idea of trying to remove any cultural bias. Perhaps we could make a future Golden Record that is less anthropocentric. What if we included sounds of different animals all over the world? Or maybe recordings of different weather (e.g. rain, wind, thunder). If a future record is still in audio format, there are so many interesting sounds on Earth other than carefully composed human-made sounds. Why not give intelligent life information about the planet as a whole? After all, if natural history has taught us anything, it is that the dominant life forms on the planet tend to change over time.
Selene’s Golden Record Curation
Thanks for giving me so much to think about, Selene! Keep thinking outside of the box.