In Class: Over the past 4 weeks I feel that my particpating levels in class are at a sufficient level. I could defiantly talk more in discussions as a class, but particulary in the group work (for the soundscape) I believe I have really contributed well to this. I was very straight up and organised from the beginning of establishing our groups which I think was very beneficial to our outcome of being on time and creating a successful soundscape to the selected locale. One thing that I want to improve on is my full attention in class. I feel that sometimes I zone out when theory and explanation about things such as ontography as I get confused or start to drift away. I think that to improve this if I take more notes through what Adrian is saying I will be able to reflect and comment on it more and this will help with blog posts and assignments.
Readings: I have re read ‘Alien Phemonology’ chapter 2 three times now… I really wanted to make sure that I was interpreting Bogost in the correct way for my essay and each time I did i started to understand it a bit more. After Adrian had a discussion with us at the beginning of Tuesday’s class, re reading Bogost after did actually make a lot more sense in regards to my soundscape and ontography. I feel I am participating in the readings at a high level and feel that my discussion around them is efficient for an in-depth understanding.
Assignment: Through the first soundscape I am happy with my participation with the group so far. I am always hesitant in the first meeting with a group because no one knows each others weaknesses/ and or what we are good at so it is mostly a trial and error. I think that since we were all straight up first hand (because we didn’t have a lot of time) we were able to get on track straight away where I made a draft of the script (list) that night that we were all able to comment on to get a good feel for where the soundscape was heading. Now it is due today and I feel reasonably comfortable with the outcome.
What I took from todays studio may not have a lot of importance or help me with this course but it stuck with me after reflection. Adrian made a very valid point that “you can’t be a photographer without photos and you cant be a filmmaker without a film” it is the thing itself (photographs, films, videos) that make you what YOU are. I think this is a really valid point because myself (which may seem silly) I classify myself as a dancer, but I haven’t competed in nearly a year so really am I dancer anymore? I want to be able to apply this to the course in relation to documenting my noiticing’s. I want to effectively over the 12 weeks of this course be a documenter and have evidence/work to support this.
After re-reading Bogost chapter two to try understand more in-depthly about what he is talking about I have come to what I think is a better understanding of what ontography is all about. The conclusion (right now) I have drawn upon is that it is a recording of things (lists or footage or sounds etc) mixed/contrasted together to constitute evidence of their intimacy and interaction.
Basically a break down in English for me (in relation to the currently project brief) it is a collaboration of sounds, mixed together to show the relationship between objects and or things.
On Thursday/Friday I created a list/ script of the noticing’s to include in our soundscape. We have decided to focus on a kitchen for our ‘room’ which I feel is a good start for this earlier project brief as there is a lot of sounds to put together in a 1 minute spectrum that doesn’t have to create a story. I think that this is something we have to be really careful with throughout each soundscape/video we make as story is not what this course is about it is what things ARE.
We have a rough draft of the soundscape which i’m quiet satisfied with. I think that it demonstrates the understanding of noticings and the relationship between ‘things’ and the physical surroundings. The further improvement that can happen with this soundscape draft is I feel their is a chronological order/ story which I think needs to be dis-jointed as it is not about this.
We finally have a draft of the PB2 soundscape which I feel has a lot of opportunity for uniqueness and to form quite nicely.
I had to do a in-class presentation for True Lies about the documentary film ‘Capturing the Friedman’s’. This film puts noticing’s into real live due to the contradicting plead of guilty and innocence of Arnold and Jesse.
I found this documentary so enticing into wanting to find out more as no new equilibrium was formed. This also opened up my eyes to the human memory and this can not always be relied on. A lot of this film was based on memory and claimed victims rather than hard physical evidence. For example, the police officer says that they found child pornographic magazines all around the house, BUT the evidence/photograph taken of the scene there is a few in the corner of the house? This made me notice the difference of claims between the police and the Friedman family leaving me more confused than ever after viewing.
From today to next Thursday I plan to:
- Increase my out of class work
- Focus more upon the reading of ‘Alien Phenomenology’
- More than 5 blog posts
- Understanding and completion of the soundscape
- Get a clear understanding of the essay
This is defiantly something that needs personal improvement. To myself I am beginning to feel more comfortable with the studio in regards to blog posts. I have started to post more about my findings, questions and what I am doing but there is always room for more and to not be so self conscious about what I post.
I also feel I have become more confident with my question asking, I used to brush things I didn’t understand to the side, but now I feel I have starting posting more about what I don’t know AND asking Adrian for help and advice on the upcoming assessments. What I could improve with this is getting more help and clarification with the readings. After reading 2 chapters of ‘Alien Phenomenology’ I still feel extremely lost even though I have slowed down my pace, highlighted confusing and or important points.
In class participation is not at the highest rate for me and I hope this will improve throughout the creation of the sound scape in the next assessment.
For my Documentary Studies: True Lies contextual study I had to watch ‘Capturing the Friedman’s’ for a Presentation on Friday. This film is about a children sexual abuse case in the 1970’s of Arnold Friedman and his son on apparent children in his computer class. Both were convicted guilty but there was never any hard evidence but memory. My goodness, what a disturbing and questioning film to ever have watched.
One point that really has effected my opinion on the whole situation is that the documentary is based a lot around human memory e.g. the memory of the apparent abused victims, memory of the Friedman family and the memory of the police. This film has really got me in two minds. We have children stating they were abused AFTER the police had questioned Arnold for a shipment of a child pornography magazine being shipped. Arnold admits to being sexual aroused by 2 children BUT THEN there is also children from the computer class that said they saw nothing going on and this was complete nonsense. There is so many different equilibrium and disequilibriums it confuses me and leaves me so many questions.
The police say one thing about what happened, but the Friedman children and mother say another- I really like how this expository documentary doesn’t choose a side of who is and isn’t guilty but just states the history of what actually happened. I highly recommend anybody to watch this.
The first part of this task I felt comfortable with in regarding to describing the aesthetics of my necklace, what is does and what it means to me. The part I struggled with and not sure if I executed to the best of my ability was the video part. We were not able to show the object we were describing, but thats the part that really confused me- what would be suitable to show instead? what fits in with this to make it flow and look comfortable. This is where I really got stuck and didn’t know the right path to take. I feel that this mis understanding of what to put in the video part was seen through my video as I showed many different things that made it seem quite disjointed and not have a lot of flow.
Overall I feel that if I had a better understand of what would’ve worked well with this soundtrack, the success of my video would have been a lot higher. I am not completely disappointed with my efforts as I did spend a lot of my time on this, but I don’t think the full understanding of the assessment was there.