FSU R/C READING GROUP: SPRING 2014
Friday, January 17, 2014
Animated Griots
To tell our story, we decided to represent ourselves as cartoons that look and sound exactly like we do in real life. We were also too cheap to upgrade, so we were limited to 30-second videos. Hey, isn't the essence of DJ-ing improvisation?
(Click on the links below)
Introduction
Scene 1
Scene 2
Scene 3
Scene 4
Conclusion
Sincerely yours, Jen, Aimee, Bruce, and David
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Set that bar high! Woot!
ReplyDeleteOkay, brilliant comments to follow (soon), but my initial response is YOU GUYS! THIS IS SO COOL!
Excellent Post!! This is a great way to jumpstart the DG style. My question is how, in their role as DG's, do we interpret what Jen, Aimee, Bruce and David achieve? If the DG as Banks identifies, is the historian and archivists responsible for:
ReplyDelete(1) interpreting current events
(2) raising social critique
(3) entertainer
(4) and the person responsible for passing down communal values
--where or how are these practices operating in this weeks posts? How do we reconceptualize black rhetorical excellence via the DG, within THIS specific multimodal and/or digital communication?
***(for more on the black rhetorical tradition see Gilyard "Aspects of AA Rhetoric")
Again, I appreciate the creative risk taken by our DG's. Thanks for steppin' up and out!!!
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ReplyDeleteUm. No. I never actually deleted this comment. Weird.
DeleteAll 4? Their work is entertaining, they've gotten me thinking about social critique, current events, and communal values. What follows is my attempt to reply in kind to the fade aspect featured this week:
ReplyDeleteFade
AND WE RETURN TO THE VERY BEGINNING
“ ... writing in this multimedia age must be more than multimodal, more than multimedia: it must be a digital humanities project -- in other words, intellectual work connecting technologies, in all the layered senses in which we use the word, to humanistic inquiry. Acts of writing ... entail questions of what it means to be and how we come to see, hear, sense, and know the world with all of those technologies, power relations, social networks, and cultural contexts” (Banks 154-155).
Fade
I-75 near Lake City. “We Run This” comes on my shuffle. The music streams from the iTunes library on my phone through the car stereo via Bluetooth technology.
my style can’t be duplicated or recycled / this chick is a sick individual
Missy Elliott sings a song I know well, but this time I’m transported back to 1982, the year the Sugar Hill Gang released “Apache,” which later became familiar as “Jump On It” during its Sir Mix-A-Lot days.
Car dancing: a variation of the “jump on it” dance, a dance popularized by Will Smith and Alfonso “Carlton” Ribiero in a scene from Fresh Prince of Bel Air. A dance white people like to attempt at weddings (see YouTube).
“old school/new school - tradition and innovation” (160)
my style can’t be duplicated or recycled
But“The beauty of the remix as trope is that in its focus on renewed vision, on re-vision, those doing the remixing never discard the original text” (156).
Fade
Posted by a friend to Facebook today:
"We are caught up in an inescapable network of mutuality. . . Strangely enough I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the way the world is made." - Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
[earlier] Crossing the Howard Frankland Bridge into Tampa today, the U2 song, “One,” comes on my shuffle. The music streams from the iTunes library on my phone through the car stereo via Bluetooth technology.
Ever since I read it, I think of Chris Cleave’s novel Little Bee whenever I hear the song. That’s because Little Bee, the Nigerian girl who’s sister who has been murdered, thinks
“that is my sister’s favorite song and she will never hear it again” and says
“Everyone in my village liked U2. Everyone in my country, maybe. Wouldn’t that be funny if the oil rebels were playing U2 in their camps, and the government soldiers were playing U2 in their trucks. I think everyone was killing everyone else and listening to the same music. Do you know what? The first week I was in the detention center, U2 were the number one here too. That is a good trick about this world, Sarah. No one likes each other, but everyone likes U2.”
One love
One blood
One life
You got to do what you should
One life
With each other
Sisters
Brothers
One life
But we're not the same
We get to
Carry each other
Carry each other
Irish musicians, a British novelist, and one of the most important African American leaders the world has ever known -- griots -- delivering important political commentary musically, lyrically, rhetorically. Layering history.
“The antecedent remains an important part of the next text, the next movement; ancestors and elders remain clear, and even central, to the future text” (156).
Fade
Maybe fade isn’t fin, isn’t scene, isn’t “the end.” Maybe it isn’t merely a pause. Maybe “fade” is a necessary tuning out, a quieting down, a moment for reflection. We never stop moving but we do need to pause sometimes to rest and to think. If the “scratch” is an interruption, perhaps the “fade” is a pause for reflection and regeneration: after the music ends, and before it begins again, the DJ (or the composer), having learned from history and tradition, participates in and leads the creation of a collective and collaborative future.
In his conclusion, Banks tells us that “composing in everyday and academic contexts is far more multimedia and multimodal than it has been at other times in our history” (154). In other words, we are more multimodal today than ever before, and the posts from Jen, Aimee, Bruce, and David attest to this (as does Martha's response: it interweaves multiple modes, including song lyrics, FB posts, literature quotes, and references to YouTube videos). Banks tells us that being multimodal is not enough; we must also connect “technologies, in all the layered senses in which we use the word, to humanistic inquiry” (154). The way I understand “humanistic inquiry” is inquiry that looks to attend to/further understand individuals and groups within systems of power.
ReplyDeleteWith this in mind, we might consider what the videos as specific multimodal texts suggest about gendered systems of power. In the videos, the women characters talk to one another and the men do the same. Dr.Lathan pointed out that the DG is responsible for raising social critique, and so I wonder if this video suggests a critique of our gendered tendencies. Specifically, is the video pointing out the ways in which women predominantly speak with/socialize with women and men with men? Also, at the end, the women are left to wash dishes in order to pay the bar tab. This is clearly a domestic task left for the women; not only are the women left to wash the dishes (and perform their “natural” roles), but they are doing so as a way to take care of/clean up after the men. Perhaps this is another way the videos raise a social critique of gendered tendencies?
Another responsibility of the DG is to be an entertainer. Two ways this is done is through an awareness of audience and the purposeful, planned use of the scratch. The videos posted this week have a clear audience in mind; it is a familiar audience of peers who are united in reading a single text and participating in the same discussion. We know this because the videos refer to people from the group by first name only (last names are not needed; we all know each other) and no background/contextual information is provided (it was assumed we have all read the assigned parts of the text, we all participated in the discussion, and we all understand why they created these videos). Thus, there was a clear consideration of audience in the making and distributing of these videos, and yet I also wonder how this aligns with our discussion that the DJ, as a creator of music, is also engaged in an element of composing in the moment with the audience – responding to the specific reactions/needs of the audience. Since there is a delay in when Jen, Aimee, Bruce, and David created the videos to when we as an audience experience them, does this suggest that this act of audience/DJ composing can be delayed, yet still occur? Maybe the audience interpretation/reaction doesn’t have to be simultaneous with the DJ’s creation.
Finally, the “scratch” is another tool the DJ uses to entertain the audience and Banks tells us that it is a “purposeful interruption” (1). The videos this week also make use of the scratch, but it seems that the scratches within the videos are determined by the 30-second time limit of the videos. So, is the scratch in these texts purposeful? Is the DG, to some extent, at the mercy of the technologies (its limits and affordances) that s/he uses?
The most illustrative quote from this group’s DG post was, I think, “The DJ is a contemporary griot preserving the traditions of the hip-hop community.” Through their synthesis of the conversation that took place in reading group last week, Jen, David, Bruce, and Aimee provide an illuminating example of the relationship between DJ and DG: a DJ is one kind of DG whose function is, as Dr. Lathan reminds us in her post, to interpret current events, raise social critiques, entertain, and pass down communal values. The DJ performs this role for the hip-hop, R&B, and music community. For me, this reminds us that the DJ is only one possibility in a wide variety of DG identities and contexts.
ReplyDeleteDo I think that this post functions as an example of the DG function? It’s definitely entertaining̣. But, does it provide interpretation? Does it raise social critique? Does it pass down communal values? I’ll start with the last question. In their summary of Martha’s comment about DJ-ing as composition, this group reminds us that the field now values a capacious definition of composition (one that is no longer tied to composition-qua-writing). The group and Martha-via-the-group’s attention to this reinforces (passes down) that communal value. Too, I think that the fourth scene (video five) does raise social critique be bringing in Janelle’s point about references. Who is privileged by certain references? Who is excluded? How might references police who can or cannot access texts and knowledge?
I want to end with an exploration of the implications of a few of Banks’s and Christine’s claims, specifically about us being more multimodal/multimedia than we have ever been before. I can understand the assumptions behind such claims. The world is more digital than it has ever been before; that much is unquestionable. But the “we” in such a statement gives me pause, because of who is included and excluded in that pronoun. The “we” here only includes those who have the means and opportunity to purchase and/or utilize the technologies that supposedly make us more multimodal/multimedia. Too, such a claim suggests that digital technologies make multimodality possible or more possible. Again, certain populations are excluded, specifically those who might have access to technologies, but not the skills or knowledge base necessary to utilize them. Finally, it implies that communication can ever be “less” multimodal or perhaps mono-modal. Christine suggests that Martha’s blog response is multimodal, and it absolutely is. However, Christine suggests that it’s multimodal because it includes song lyrics, FB posts, and references to YouTube clips. All of those are represented through the mode of _writing_ in Martha’s post. Yet, the post is multimodal because it is visual: we must see it to be able to read it. Also, we are only able to see it because the black text contrasts with the white background, utilizing the mode of color. I mention all of this not to criticize any of the names I’ve mentioned in this paragraph, but to call into question what we mean when we say “we,” when we say “multimodal,” and the connection between the digital and the multimodality, particularly when we discuss the DG.
I appreciate your thoughts on multimodality... In line with your questions about access, skills, and knowledge base, I think Banks raises a similar point - that access to technology is not enough - and I'm sure most of us can think of situations in our own lives or in the lives of others where this rings true.
DeleteA note on Logan's definition of multimodality: I had planned to insert hypertext links in my response, but this technology does not seem to allow for this. Had it, I'd have linked the songs, the videos, MLK's quote, and possibly even Google map pin-drops to the places I mentioned. Unfortunately, I was disappointed to learn that wasn't possible, or else I wasn't able to configure it, limited by my own lack of knowledge, perhaps. Had I done that, would we see my attempts at multimodality differently? If this platform does make those tricks available but my knowledge was too limited to figure it out, is this a case of Banks' point, which Christine mentions above, about skills and knowledge base being requisite along with access to technology?
DeleteLogan, you said (and I want to highlight):"The “we” here only includes those who have the means and opportunity to purchase and/or utilize the technologies that supposedly make us more multimodal/multimedia. Too, such a claim suggests that digital technologies make multimodality possible or more possible. Again, certain populations are excluded, specifically those who might have access to technologies, but not the skills or knowledge base necessary to utilize them." One of the things that I really like about Banks' book so far is the way that he treats access - aligning himself with Anderson and Powell - that access is not an object but a social process. So I think that Logan rightly pushes on constructs like *we,* because it does imply an inclusivity that may not (and probably is not) the case. And per Banks' point, access can be a block to that inclusivity, because as he points out, writing curriculum - digital, oral, and print alike - more often than not emphasizes academic and civic discourses which have always and continue to exclude would-be participants.
DeleteScene four stood out for me for a number of reasons. I struggled with my feelings on this one in multiple ways.
ReplyDeleteIn one moment, I felt that's an interesting way to see it, the notion that the author is intentionally keeping people out, especially considering Banks' description of DJ's, holding on to a cultural and historical past of a specific audience and the notion of keeping that history sacred and to oneself. This may be true. There is a tendency in the black community to keep something just for us.
Then I thought how liberating it had to have been for Banks to write this. Was he really thinking about keeping people out, or carving a space in. This book in itself is a scratch in the dominant ways of thinking, usage of metaphors, and cultural experience. In other words, he can finally say what he wants without filtering it for the dominant culture. Admittedly, the black community might feel more comfortable, but to say it is only intended for them is something different. This seemed evident in reading group, especially when Andrew knows much more than I do about music, technology, and other pop culture references. He is the more suited audience member than I.
In a more controversial way, Janelle's point took me in a different direction that spoke to race and dominant culture. The minority constantly has to read texts deemed to keep them out, knowing they are not the intended audience, without any mention of their experience. The minority is then required to reach out for understanding, even when the words continue to chastised them. Is Bank's asking for redemption, doing it on purpose so that others have to work as he did? I don't know. The assumption is also that Bank's metaphors and references will automatically connect with a certain audience of color. As a black woman, I didn't understand everything either. This further complicates who the intended audience is. Am I outsider? Of race or culture?
Like the cartoons suggest, we all bring to the turntables different samples, histories and languages. Digital griot is then a way to value all these histories both collectively and simultaneously. The digital age, now more than ever, allows us to blend these histories and practices together. The metaphor of the scratch allows us to be more open, and the metaphor of the turntable allows us to bring it all to the center.
At last, if we turned our class interests into a turntable, we might find that Andrew brings film, Jason videogames, Logan multimodality, David theology, Molly dance, Heather bodies, Aimee language, etc. If I am the dj, am I going to stay on the same track, of course not. You should already know what I'm bringing!!!! The digital griot decides how long it plays and where a scratch is needed to meet the needs his or her audience. But this space requires me to have a little knowledge of everything (sampling). Though Bank's may not argue it this way, the metaphors invite me to think more productively about the author or composer's intent and the reason to remix.
End of Scene 4
To attempt to answer Dr. Lathan's questions, I would first like to ask a question of my own: Is it possible to be a Digital Griot without fulfilling all of the functions that Banks describes? My instinct is to say yes, most likely due to the fact that lately I've been talking with my students a lot about genre, and how a text can be considered to belong within a particular genre, but not necessarily follow all of that genre's "conventions." However, I recognize that this might not be a very good analogy, so I am curious to hear other's thoughts on this question.
ReplyDeleteThe reason why I felt it necessary to ask this question is because I think that Jen, Aimee, Bruce and David's cartoons are excellent examples of the work of Digital Griots, and yet at the same time I'm not sure that they completely fulfill all of Dr. Lathan's succinct synthesis of the roles that DGs perform.
The cartoon is certainly entertaining, both due to specific features they included (the costumes, having an intellectual discussion while sloshed, imitating the titles of Banks' chapters and the musical work of a DJ by scratching scra-a-atch and solemnly saying "fade" at the end of the clip) and also due to the medium they chose. There is something humorous and slightly ironic in seeing ourselves as cartoon characters, as evidenced by the popularity of bit-strips on facebook, and the artists at fairs and amusement parks that will draw people cartoonishly stylized.
They also fulfill the DG's role by preserving and passing down communal values - in this case the communal values that are in Banks' book as well as the communal values expressed by the voices of the reading group. On top of these layers, they are also passing down their own particular communal values, in collectively deciding which aspects of the reading group discussion should be included in their cartoons.
However, where I am not sure if they fulfilled the function of a DG is in the first two categories - interpreting current events and raising social critique. As Christine pointed out, they may have a sub-text of social critique regarding gendered practices, however, this did not seem to be to me a central aspect of the cartoons. Perhaps one of the reasons why there was less interpretation/critique is found in the constraints that they were operating under - they were working with short clips, and they needed within that time frame to focus on recording and reflecting the tenor of the reading group's conversation in an engaging way. Thus, I think that by improvising and working with the affordances and constraints of the particular rhetorical situation and medium that they were operating in, they did the work of a DG, although they may not conform to all aspects of the exemplar DG that Banks describes.
However, I also think that their cartoon is reflective of a DG's work in other ways as well. Banks writes that a DG is "A canon maker. A tie binder. A model of the Gramscian organic intellectual at work, the intellectual who is nurtured and sustained by local communities rather than professionalized in universities or think tanks or foundations" (3). Viewed through this lens, the cartoons are the first installment of the reading group's canon, a shared text that shapes how we see our last meeting and will shape the texts of the future reading group DGs. It binds the group together in shared memory and in the posts that enter into the conversation that they put into motion. And, although we are operating within the professionalized setting of the university, the reading group has the possibility of being communally oriented, a gathering of people with a shared interest in understanding and shaping the world in new ways.
I, like Logan, find that “The DJ is a contemporary griot preserving the traditions of the hip-hop community” to be a key point of synthesis in the DG post from this group. David, Aimee, Jen and Bruce, although constrained by the technology, highlight the relationship between the DJ and the DG in terms of their approach to interpretation, social critique, entertainment and passing down communal values.
ReplyDeleteThis representation of our class was decidedly entertaining. But, I see a lot of social critique here…some of which may not be intended (here I am thinking specifically about the implications of gender). My guess is that some of the gender representations were constrained by the availability of avatars in the “free version.” But—look at the female characters: they look like overly sexualized superhero characters. I too found it an interesting choice to have Aimee and Jen only talking to one another and Bruce and David to one another as well. What does this say about gender roles? How does that connect to the role of DJ and also the DG? I’m even wondering how the technology employed here also creates exclusion in terms of avatar availability? Also… glad to see the women went to do the dishes… that was a particularly unfair game of “nose goes” since Bruce and David disappeared. ;) I think that an overarching question for us is situated in access, and I would be willing to bet that we will ask the question of access within many of the spaces we choose to tell our stories. In Banks’ conclusion, he claims “African American rhetoric 2.0 must build a strong focus on studying and changing the relationship that endured between race, ethnicity, culture, rhetoric, and technologized spaces” (164). For me, this is an important thing to think about because we will all (most likely) be engaging and composing our stories in these technologized spaces.
The practice of having a DG reminds me of the National Writing Project institute wherein we each were the “ethnographer” for the day and we then had to “creatively” represent the day. In retrospect, this was definitely a multimodal endeavor…we were writing stories/visually representing stories/ interpreting the stories. And, as Logan has pointed out the multimodal-ness of these representations were situated in words but employed a variety of modes—digital and not.
I think that all too often we, and I include myself here as well, are quick to position mulitmodal/multimedia within the realm of the digital. To some extent, Cindy Selfe comes to mind, this is a particular line of thinking within the field; however, others, such as Wysocki are quick to remind us that the digital is not the only rendering of multi modality. As we can see in Martha’s post, she was engaged with multiple medias, but we, as her audience, are only engaging with her interactions through words—but I agree with Logan that this is still multimodal, and visual. The visual representation of the lyrics, for instance, force us to see it beyond the words on the age. As we continue thinking about remix, the DJ, and the DG, I am wondering how we as a group want to define how we conceive of multimodality?
I’d like to commend the group on their accurate representations of themselves in this cartoon. Truly, you –do- look and sound –just- like this, and I always had a feeling David was Robocop. It’s good to finally put that looming question to rest.
ReplyDeleteI’ll begin by agreeing to some of our colleagues who’ve posted already. I, like Christine, appreciated the group’s use of “scratch” and “fade” in their discussion. I was at first a bit confused about why the passed-out male characters were saying the words, but then I started to see “scratch” and “fade” working as part of the narrative. I thought this was very clever (and funny once I realized what was happening). However, I take Christine’s point that the scratch and fade feel a bit formulaic in these 30 second clips, undoubtedly a result of the time constraints the platform. I think the scratch is meant to be purposeful. I definitely see application of concepts coming through here that makes for an interesting hybrid of griot ways of telling. We have an oral tradition “remixed” with the DJ tradition for a thoughtful and interesting storytelling experiment. However, I’m not sure I see them working as intended here. Per Banks, the scratch is meant to open up space for new voices or for interruption. The scratch is not concerned so much with continuity or integration, so much as it is a hard shift into something new, radically different, recognizably independent. The scratch in these videos is interrupting, sure, but the story continues to be told by the same people, with the same tone, with the same set of values. For me, the scratch is a bit radical, a vernacular tradition that grows out of silence and subordination that seeks to interrupt not only music, but the status quo through juxtaposition. The scratch used by our compatriots feels more like an end to something, rather than the beginning, almost like cue cards between scenes in a silent movie. So, now, I’m wondering how easy it is to step into new or alternative ways of storytelling. Are we so conditioned to or familiar with western European (see also: white, patriarchal, capitalist, colonialist) ways of storytelling that we are unable to participate in new ways of storytelling without ample reflection and conscious disruptive efforts? Moreover, if the task of the griot is tied up in interpreting current events, raising social critique, entertaining, and passing down communal values, we have to decide what our social platform is. Do we assume the values and social critiques of the hip-hop community? Do we have our own? Are we so united in our values (as a community), that we can do this?
[FADE]
Sarah speaks to some similar questions in her post. Drawing on Banks’ discussion of the role of the griot, Sarah indicates (in some language I feel I -must- point out as beautiful. Really some very beautiful sentences), “the cartoons are the first installment of the reading group’s canon, a shared text that shapes how we see our last meeting and will shape the texts of the future reading group DGs. It binds the group together in shared memory and in the posts that enter into the conversation that they put in motion.” And I agree – our brave colleagues have done excellent work in laying the foundation for our group’s own griot tradition as well as recording the events of the day’s discussion. But, I give pause in this, too. I don’t necessarily see myself reflected in this record of reading group, not because my remarks are unrecorded (did I even make remarks?), and not because my name is never mentioned, but because some of the moments I regarded as integral to our conversation, particularly moments of ambiguity or tension, moments rife with our implicit understandings of the world, writing, remixing, hip hop, the role of the composer, and race, collided with Banks’ or each others’, are missing from the conversation. We were often unclear as to what terms meant (although sometimes reticent to out ourselves for not knowing); we didn’t understand how this music was made or why; we were reluctant to call DJs composers. This is the discussion I remember. Where is the discomfort? Where is the debate? Where is the negotiation? Where is our disagreement? Communities are sometimes in flux; sometimes that flux is where change is made. Embrace the flux.
ReplyDeleteThough I could be projecting, I think some of the comments on this post speak to (what I see as) the omission of these tensions. Brittney’s post rightly speaks to one such tension. Banks’ text invites all of its readers to renegotiate their insider/outsider status as well as our intersectionality as readers and researchers. There is a tension in reconciling ourselves as (multi)media or literacy scholars, and people (of a variety of subjectivities) who are unfamiliar (for a variety of reasons) with hip hop culture. But I’m sort of haunted by some questions at this juncture: Why are we so enamored with Girl Talk as a remix composer while we had to be sold on awarding Grandmaster Flash the same title? Is it Banks’ (the insider’s) responsibility to teach me (the outsider) about the culture he’s investigating? Or is my (the outsider’s) responsibility to learn about the culture (the Other)? I’ll give you a dollar if you can guess how I might answer that question ;)
[SCRATCH]
It occurs to me that I’ve spent a lot of time in this post providing (unsolicited) critique of our friends’ first digital griot entry. To be clear, I appreciated the time and attention the group spent in creating these videos, curating the discussion, and building a foundation for our future discussions. The videos were poignant and funny, witty and insightful. It is only because the videos were so well done that I had so much to say about them anyway. Thank you for a provocative first post!
I, as several people have already begun discussing, am thinking a lot about representation, both in multi-modal texts as well as in the video posted by the first group. Representation is always complicated. Even as writers, we decide which characteristics to describe in our characters/research participants/student/etc and which to leave to the reader's imagination/assumption. Is there a way to get close to a true representation of a person (yeah, yeah, I know it's a contradiction in terms)? I guess, I am thinking of "true representation" meaning how a person views and understands him/herself. This involves the physical, partly. So, we may wonder if unedited photographs get closest to a physical representation. However, what about transgender individuals? Would an avatar be close to a true representation than a photograph because he/she could chose the sex?
ReplyDeleteBeyond the physical, do multi-modal texts help us more fully represent someone? We can combine voice, visual, maybe metaphorical visuals that represent the person character. Of course, people are complicated, but I am wondering with mutli-modal texts, we can get a closer picture of the complicated by piling, layering, joining and juxtaposing media.
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ReplyDeleteHeather said this: "However, I’m not sure I see [the animations' scratches] working as intended here. Per Banks, the scratch is meant to open up space for new voices or for interruption. The scratch is not concerned so much with continuity or integration, so much as it is a hard shift into something new, radically different, recognizably independent." I had the same feeling. In reading Banks' account of scratch and the potential of scratch (and I am willing to take the position that DJ and writer are one and the same), scratch feels like an incredibly generative moment. It disrupts sequences. And in turn, the scratch provides room for the DJ to do the work of the Digital Griot: curating past, suggesting future, interpreting the community, unifying the community, etc. In other words, as more than technical skill or part of the anatomy of a song, scratch provides a way to sever, splice, and weave narrative threads - in Heather's words: to begin & in Brittney's words: to blend and center. Thus through scratch, the DJ begins a new layer. See, for example, the narratives exemplified by the Grandmaster Flash live album posted to this blog. For me, when Flash disrupts "Another One Bites the Dust" by scratching to and from Chic's "Good Times," I get fired up.
ReplyDeleteSince I had to miss the first session of Reading Group w/ the flu, I can't leverage much praise or critique about the selection of content in the video series. Still, the video series does strike me in two ways: [1] It's well done. [2] The series feels like a gesture toward Banks' call for a larger digital humanities project: conducting intellectual work that connects technology to human inquiry. And I attribute that status to the video series not because it strikes me as being explicitly about raising social critique or as a clearly defined example of our community values (however we might define those). Instead, I think this video series gestures toward a digital humanities project because it invites us to locate ourselves and our values within the clips; to raise questions about the processes of making, representation and communication; to start to give voice to how we encode our work through vocabulary (multimedia/multimodality); and to start to articulate why that act of encoding is significant.
I think David’s funny comment, “we were also too cheap to upgrade, so we were limited to 30-second videos,” deserves a little attention here. The first time I read this comment I chuckled (I understood and empathized with what he was saying… grad students don’t make a whole lot of money... we all understand, right?), but later, when I read that comment again, it occurred to me that this group was able to create a potent blog post that creatively and compellingly conveyed a clear message to an internet (and thus, potentially huge) audience. Not only that, but in reading through the comments, I realized that these cartoons worked really well in terms of encouraging conversation and a dialogue about the chapter and a bunch of other, related subjects.
ReplyDeleteThat’s a lot of (potential) exposure, a lot of virtual communication and idea-transaction, and the medium was free. It didn’t cost the group anything; the only thing they had to offer up was time and their combined cognitive powers.
Christine, in her comment, brings up Banks’ term, “humanistic inquiry,” and then she offers us her own definition of it: humanistic inquiry “is inquiry that looks to attend to/further understand individuals and groups within systems of power” (Christine Maddox). This definition is helpful and seems so smart to me. From what I understood about what Banks was saying, I think he thinks multimodality is not enough, that we should be striving for humanistic inquiry.
To Christine, I think this means endeavoring to reach and connect with others, all kinds of others, and using the (technological) means we have to do so, and making it possible for others to connect back with us. This is Banks’ noble charge and quest: to create, encourage, and sustain a reflexive web of communication ability that extends in equal proportions in every direction.
What this team was able to do here (in composing an interesting, entertaining, and informative message through multimedia) for free is indicative of the fact that, because of the internet, we are already better off in terms of being modern participants in a more democratic communicative environment. That being said, we have so much farther to go (in terms of discussions and actions regarding teaching approaches, literacy, access, etc.). There’s still a lot of work to be done, a lot of connections to make. But I still marvel at the fact that we can create something like this without having to pay for the ability or access to the software.