Author: Erin M

Tumblr: https://affective-vernacular.tumblr.com

For my final project I decided to look at Tumblr from an academic perspective.  Tumblr is part social media platform, part archive, part microblog, part cool hang-out space, and I know this as a former long-time user of the technology.  It was enlightening to research the platform through academic studies and cultural discourse to read others’ reflections of experiences I had only felt and lived, but never verbally expressed.

The themes that emerged through the readings were of affect, art and technology, the concept of fandoms and new forms of open and free peer encouraged pedagogies.

The video above is simply a screen vid of me scrolling through the site. My #original material is pieced together and collaged amongst found and reblogged media throughout the Tumblr. Take a look and see if you can find my work in the following formats:

• 3 mini essays
• 2 GIFs
• 1 meme
• 1 TV still (reblogged from the past)
• 1 photo (latergrammed – I know, wrong platform)
• An interview with a real Tumblr celebrity

Enjoy!

By the way… This is what my original paintings looked like.

I haven’t attempted to scan anything fluorescent for…years and was surprised to learn that scanners still suck. Actually, just my scanner sucks.

My phone does a slightly better job, but still, not as accurate as the direct human eye! (Queue continued dialogue about authenticity).

You can see that I messed around with the colours quite a bit in Photoshop to get the final image for Task 12 (especially on the darker images).

Eli Discovers the Echo Chamber:

Kay Deals with a Broken Pair of Good Optics:

 

It was almost impossible to sift through the reading/viewing/listening materials to find the perfect nuggets to turn into this week’s narrative tasks. Impossible because the content, particularly Dunne and Raby’s (2013) book, Speculative Everything was so packed with insightful and exciting ideas about the world, our future and the potential of speculative design. Also, at least for me, spending a weekend developing two narratives isn’t enough time! I barely began to relay all the ideas floating around in my mind.

Besides name-dropping many of my favourite artists/designers/concepts (Haus Rucker, Archizoom, Etorre Sotsass, Sol LeWitt, Adrian Piper, conceptualism, Instruction-based Art, etc.) Dunne and Raby also provide a comprehensive answer to a question I am always asking: Why did all the coolest, revolutionary institutions, philosophies, movements and manifestos happen before I was born? Why aren’t they happening (at least at the same scale) now? Their (highly summarized) answer being:

“Hyper-commercialization” (p. 6) that came about in the 1980s; the shattering of hope that there could be “other social or political possibilities beyond capitalism” (p. 8) marked by “the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989;” the rise of society of individuals” fed by rampant capitalism; and, “the downgrading of dreams to hopes once it became clear that the dreams of the twentieth century were unsustainable.”

UGH. How depressing.

Yet Dunne and Raby didn’t write a book to simply outline the sad mistakes that have led humankind to where we are today, their intention is to provoke the reader to change the way they think and act in the world using speculative design as a catalyst. They write that in order to face today’s challenges, we need to change our “values, beliefs, attitudes and behavior,” and that rather than “channeling energy and resources into fiddling with the world out there,” we should shift the “ideas and attitudes inside our heads that shape the world out there” (p. 2).

Throughout the reading I thought of all kinds of speculative design ideas (biological mesh created from an individual’s own bio-matter to be used in surgeries and eliminate the complications that currently arise from surgical mesh; a computer that scans your body, and that allows you to order perfectly fitting, fully customizable clothing, leading consumers away from fast fashion). Yet both of these concepts were a little too practical, or perhaps even have already been invented.

I settled on joint narratives set in the ~2040s that explore two speculative designs that fall into the categories of wellness and communication, both are created by a made-up company called “Supra-Ception”. The first is called the Echo Chamber, a device that can be installed in a small room, creating an environment where an individual’s thoughts are transformed into physical, abstract geometric shapes that can be manipulated by hand. The idea being that if thoughts and emotions took on a physical form outside of oneself, one could form a deeper and clearer understanding of their self.  A second product, Good Optics, is a pair of glasses that are constantly analyzing what’s in the wearer’s sightline (a friend’s micro expression, the dynamics between a group of people, unassuming danger) to help the wearer make informed and ethical choices in their life based on real objective data rather than one’s own assumptions.

Although the designs are seemingly idealistic and altruistic in nature, it’s not a stretch to imagine how the use of the products could go awry. Using the comic format, I explore how the Echo Chamber could become an addictive method of escapism for the young and impressionable Eli, who is searching for answers in life. (Not to mention, cause a narrowing and diminished life perspective). A related narrative is addressed with Eli’s friend, Kay, utilizing the format of a social media post (a futuristic version of Tumblr). For this narrative I wanted the choice of media to look believable, thinking of what Dunne and Raby had written, “the viewer should experience a dilemma: is it serious or not? Real or not” (p. 40)? In her post, Kay is fed up with Supra-Ception products, and is discovering analogue spiritual content from the past, particularly, Ram Dass’ 1971 book of concrete poetry, Be Here Now. My intention for having Kay’s inspiration be Ram Dass was to reference Dunne and Raby’s reasoning for why “radical…imaginative, social and political,” design/content/movements are “more difficult and less likely” (p. 6) today, with the sad assertion that even in the 2040s, young people are still looking to the 60s and 70s for revolutionary inspiration.

Reference List:

Dass, R. (1971). Be here now, be here now, be here now, here be now, be nowhere now: Remember. San Cristobal, NM: Lama Foundation.

Dunne, A. & Raby, F. (2013). Speculative Everything: Design, Fiction, and Social Dreaming. Cambridge: The MIT Press. Retrieved August 30, 2019, from Project MUSE database.

Initial Translation of the Visual

The initial presentation of the Palladio graph appeared as a jumble of circles and lines, or “nodes and edges” (Systems Innovation, 2015) too chaotic to extract meaning. I played around with the settings in an endeavour to understand what I was looking at. I changed the size of the nodes and alternated which were highlighted and eventually began to be able to decipher the information. Rather than keep my classmates in clusters, I decided to arrange everyone in a circle, while attempting to moving people with similar song choices closer together on the circle. Then I placed the nodes representing the most popular songs in the middle and radiated them outward based on their popularity.  The song nodes outside of the circle of people are those with notably less popularity of which I identified as outliers. Thinking about the less popular songs as outliers had the opposite effect on me and made me curious as to what made them different. I also realized I myself had not chosen any of the outlier songs, which made me feel disappointed, as though these songs held true unique beauty that I failed to recognize and only a select few really understood. Upon revisiting my initial selection criteria, I remembered that my overarching goal was not to identify the strangest or most interesting songs, but to strive for equality by selecting representatives that spanned across the world and I was comforted by the possibility that the graph revealed that I had actually succeeded at this.

Popularity Contest & Looking for Meaning

As I studied the results of the graph, I was surprised to notice that Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony and Chuck Berry’s Johnny B. Goode did not hold the most prominent nodes. The clear winner, and largest grey circle, was the Senegal Percussion track. Don’t get me wrong, the Percussion song is excellent and was one my first quick favourites, but I like simple and layered repetitive beats and regularly listen to music that aligns with this sound – I had not suspected that so many of my fellow classmates did as well. I once took a course in pop music history, and our first lesson started with percussive music from Africa, we discussed the transcendental nature of this type of music and learned about its direct ties to the blues genre in America, followed by jazz, and ultimately rock and roll. When I heard it, I thought, well this track is wonderful, uplifting, and represents historical importance. I wonder if others had these considerations, or whether they were simply picking the songs they liked best, or perhaps were basing their choices on equitable geographical representation – these are all aspects I had considered as well.

But Johnny B. Goode and Beethoven’s Fifth weren’t even in the top five! Last week I had skimmed through my classmates’ blog posts and still can’t stop thinking about something Carlo Trentadue wrote in regards to Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, “my partner said it was ‘planet earth’s theme song’”(2021). Right!? I am in complete agreement with Carlos’ partner, but clearly the rest of the class did not collectively share the same feeling, at least not as strongly as they fell for Senegal’s Percussion masterpiece.

My curiosity directed me to locate the point where the Senegal Percussion track was revealed in the required listening podcast. I hypothesized that possibly the track won everyone over because it was one of the early songs, and the listeners’ interest tapered as the podcast went on. The Percussion song shows up around the 11-minute mark of a total 36-minute length podcast. It’s difficult to decipher if the song’s placement matters, it is presented in the first half of the podcast, third song on the list – but to contrast this, Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto which came first, had notably low popularity with only four votes. Alternatively, and what may serve to support this theory, the least chosen song with only two votes is Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 13, which is in fact last on the list of 27 songs and therefore last to be played in the podcast.

It should be noted that String Quartet No. 13 is a melancholic piece and frankly, boring. The two classmates who selected it are Ravneet and Peter. I followed up with their blog posts to identify whether either of them communicated any particular reason for selecting String Quartet No. 13. Ravneet does not share any specific information about the song choice but does note a goal of providing equal representation and then choosing songs for their emotional qualities. Most interestingly, Peter chose his songs through a random number system largely removing any subjectivity from his selection process. Would String Quartet No. 13 be more popular if it was the first listed track?

Our Own Modularity Class

I also explored the various modularity classes and sought out the one I belonged to. I found myself linked to Greg and Ravneet Sandhu and re-arranged our grouping’s nodes and edges for clarity and aesthetics. I felt relatively ambivalent about the three songs located in the middle of the graph, the songs that we had all chosen. My main reason for the selection of these tracks was to apply equal geographical representation, so I didn’t feel a great emotional connection to any of the songs. I found that those I connected most strongly with were the ones I shared directly with Greg and Ravneet, but that they didn’t share with each other. I can’t really understand why this is, and perhaps it’s just chance, or perhaps I am trying to apply meaning retroactively – For instance, I did pick Jaat Kahan Ho to represent India, and in that way the selection was systematic rather than emotion-based, but also, I am partial to that mystifying sitar sound.

Reference List:

J, P. (2021, March 7). Golden record. Pj ETEC 540 2021. Retrieved March 16, 2021, from https://blogs.ubc.ca/pjordanetec540/2021/03/07/golden-record/

Sandhu, R. (2021, March 4). Golden record curation. Text Technologies. Retrieved March 16, 2021, from https://blogs.ubc.ca/ravneetsandhu/2021/03/04/golden-record-curation/

Systems Innovation. (2015, April 19). Network Connections. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/2iViaEAytxw

Trentadue, C. (2021, March 4). Task 8 – what can we afford to lose: the golden record. Text, tech & thoughts regarding. Retrieved March 16, 2021, from https://blogs.ubc.ca/etec540techtextthoughts/2021/03/04/task-8-what-can-we-afford-to-lose-the-golden-record/

The Top 10:

1. Java, court gamelan, “Kinds of Flowers,” recorded by Robert Brown. 4:43
2. Senegal, percussion, recorded by Charles Duvelle. 2:08
3. “Johnny B. Goode,” written and performed by Chuck Berry. 2:38
4. Japan, shakuhachi, “Tsuru No Sugomori” (“Crane’s Nest,”) performed by Goro Yamaguchi. 4:51
5. Bach, The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 2, Prelude and Fugue in C, No.1. Glenn Gould, piano. 4:48
6. Beethoven, Fifth Symphony, First Movement, the Philharmonia Orchestra, Otto Klemperer, conductor. 7:20
7. Navajo Indians, Night Chant, recorded by Willard Rhodes. 0:57
8. Peru, wedding song, recorded by John Cohen. 0:38
9. China, ch’in, “Flowing Streams,” performed by Kuan P’ing-hu. 7:37
10. India, raga, “Jaat Kahan Ho,” sung by Surshri Kesar Bai Kerkar. 3:30

(NASA)

Click on image to link to actual Google Map

It’s difficult to curate from a selection of tracks when none are what I would have originally picked for the Golden Record, and further refining an already too-short list for such an important role: representing all of humanity, was anxiety inducing. I thought of Abby Smith’s (1999) warning, “The notion on the part of many young students that, if it is not on the Web or in an online catalog, then it must not exist, has the effect of orphaning the vast majority of information resources, especially those that are not in the public domain” (para. 34). Will extraterrestrial life think these limited ten tracks is all of what we have to offer? Will they think our choice of an analog object medium is a sign of extreme intelligence, or is it evidence of our primitivism? Probably, other life forms have learned how to send information faster than light-speed, through free-flowing mind channels. It pains me to think that these are the ten songs I have to send out, I can’t help but think the aliens would relate better to Daft Punk’s Homework album or Sun Ra’s Cosmic Tones for Mental Therapy.

As was considered in the original intention of the selection, in my top-10 I wanted to include an array of representation from across the world. With that in mind, it was difficult to part from my Eurocentric (or western centric) bias, however, as I am the curator here, my opinion is what is forms this selection and an entire elimination of bias (no matter how impossible that is) was not my goal. As you can see on the map there are clusters in both Europe and North America; the orange circles represent the key origins of each track, and the yellow circles show related connections. For example, I only wanted to use one of the three Bach compositions, but I chose The Well-Tempered Clavier because it was played by Canadian classical pianist Glenn Gould, and I needed to get a Canadian connection on the elite list. On the map, Bach holds the main (orange) circle in Leipzig, Germany, and Gould gets a secondary (yellow) circle located in Toronto, Canada.

There was a significant presence of classical music on the full track listing, but I only picked single tracks from Bach and Beethoven as they represent different countries and cover different time periods. Ideally, I wanted to choose everyone from North America, but to diversify the list, I kept it minimal with indigenous representation, and Rock and Roll – yes, Blues and Jazz led the way, but Rock and Roll changed the world! Remember how great that scene is from Back to the Future?  Johnny B. Goode is historically important!

With only ten options, some of the countries did not make the list. Firstly, I tried to cover off as many regions or continents as possible and to narrow it down further, then, I chose my favourites of the remaining tracks. There were multiple songs from Peru, so I picked Wedding Song, simply because I liked it – I would put that song on a mixtape for a friend.

Reference List:

NASA. (n.d.). Voyager – music on the Golden Record. Retrieved March 08, 2021, from https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/golden-record/whats-on-the-record/music/

Smith, A. (1999). Why digitize? Retrieved March 08, 2021, from Council on Library and Information Resources website: https://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub80-smith/pub80-2/