Prompt 10

Prompt 11

Prompt 12

Looking back at past prompts, I can see a sense of progress in my interpretation of climate change; how climate change is, could and should be presented on the media; and acquiring new concepts and knowledge on this matter at a more complex level than before. In a way, the sense of progress was shown through each assignment. This was all happening under the difficult and limited circumstances that we, as media practitioners and children of the Earth, are going through due to a global health emergency.

At the start of the course, my mentality on the issue was both reluctant and eager to learn more about it. This started to shift to the more ethical direction as I read the reading Deep Adaptation by Jem Bendell. I have never seen any sort of document that addresses the matter of climate change the same way. In particular, I was struck at sentences like “climate-induced societal collapse is now inevitable in the near term” (p. 2) and “But when I say starvation, destruction, migration, disease and war, I mean in your all life” (p. 13). These are powerful statements that for the first time gave me an artistic approach to climate change in using words. In a way, I use remixed speeches to produce the video in prompt 2. This is a method that I looked to use throughout the course because I found that there are too many good talks and speeches that could be game changers in changing people’s perspective about the matter. Ultimately, I also took this method into my media artefact.

Another reading that inspired me was the one on ecological grief by Cunsolo and Ellis in which they discuss this form of grief “isn’t being publicly or openly acknowledged” (p. 275). I think provoking ecological grief could be a vital way in helping others to acknowledge the matter more, and the fact that it is rather not widely recognised is one that I tried to attempt. My main attempt came via the first part of the final media work in which I tried using human’s suffocation instead of sea creatures in addressing the impact of the plastic crisis. I thought this would be more relatable as even I while producing found it to be quite disturbing. Another important reading that helped me to shape the approach for the final work was Johns-Putra’s A new critical climate in which the scholar discusses different approaches in climate change media.

I ultimately used both factual and artistic approaches in the final work and in my opinion, the two ways sound quite distinct to one another. Even though I was happy with both parts as individual works, I think being together as one media piece ruined them. Both had the role to show the impact of plastic crisis as a whole, but ultimately did not supplement to one another. If I could work on this again, I might have gone fully with the artistic approach as I think that particular part of my podcast was more powerful in provoking a sense of ecological grief.

On the matter of constraints, the project gave me some surprise discoveries. I initially thought that by not allowing myself to use news media, I should look into using music to make the project impactful. But in the end, I worked myself around this most notable constraint by using speeches and different sounds. No music was used to my surprise, and I was quite happy with it. However, I was hoping to use different languages of different people to showcase the plastic crisis as being a global issue. This was a suggestion that I got from the pitch and I really liked it. However, the language of the latter part was only English as I could not find suitable footage to include.

In the end, I think even though it has some flaws, my media work was a powerful piece of climate change media. I think it was able to show the impact of the plastic crisis, while the end of it gives hope with an emphasis that the younger generation – our generation can change the root of the problem. I hope to help anyone who listens to it having a better understanding of the effect of plastic on the global scale and maybe change how they would approach plastic goods from now on, especially when throwing them away.

References

Bendall, J 2018, Deep Adaptation: A Map for Navigating Climate Tragedy, accessed online: <https://jembendell.com/2019/05/15/deep-adaptation-versions/ (Links to an external site.)>.

Cunsolo, A & Ellis, NR, ‘Ecological grief as a mental health response to climate change-related loss (Links to an external site.)‘, Nature Climate Change, vol.8, no.4, p.275-281.

Johns-Putra, A 2013, ‘A New Critical Climate (Links to an external site.)’, Symploke, vol. 21, no.1-2, p. 7-10.

The pitch session a few weeks ago was the opportunity for me to define my best approach to the media work, which is a podcast that could be seen as a powerful address on the plastic crisis. I was considering between two different approaches: a factual one with speeches that address the nature of the plastic issue, or an artistic one that focuses on the suffering that comes out of the plastic crisis. I gained some valuable feedback from my peers and our guests, but ultimately I could not come up with the best way to use as the foundation of the project. However, after more research and sourcing different materials, I came up with the best way: use both approaches and divide the podcast into two parts.

I started with searching for different sound materials. A very valuable I gained from the speech was to use different types of sound to represent plastic, and the obvious way to go for was to base around the ocean. All audio pieces at this part of the project were sourced via Freesound and were to be used under Creative Commons Zero license. I realised that by using sounds, I could bring a sense of narrative into the whole piece. I thought that I could show the story of a man having a day by the ocean, enjoying a can of soft drink then throwing it directly into the ocean. Some sea creatures would consume this can, and eventually they suffocate as the result.

With that fresh idea in mind, I searched for some sounds of sea waves, and realised that duplicating a few pieces of them would create a suitable background. I have not accessed much using Audition throughout the years but I was not too struggled in mixing these audio pieces together and sourcing them into the order of my liking. I then found pieces of someone drinking, throwing the can away and rolling it into the ocean. I also found some audio files of seagulls and whales, which are two common sea creatures that suffer from plastic waste. After sorting these files together in order, this is what the project looks like at this point:

I then tried to find sound of sea creatures suffering from plastic. But then I realised: wouldn’t it be more impactful if I make it more personal to the people that might listen to this by provoking a sense of ecological grief? I thought that this could certainly be done by a few audio files of people that couldn’t breathe – exactly what sea creatures have to go through by consuming plastic waste. The result looks like this (and I’m not going to lie, this bit sounds quite disturbing but I was prepared to go down this route because I thought it would be more impactful):

I thought this is a good enough stage to move on from the artistic approach. As a constraint I set myself was not to use news audio, I focus on speeches. I have used TED talks in previous projects to base them around, and I still found these to be the most inspiring ways. I found three speeches that were suitable to refine: a talk on why plastic pollution is personal by Natalie Fee; a campaign to ban plastic bags in Bali by two siblings named Melati and Isabel Wijsen; and a conversation on a plan to end plastic waste by Andrew Forrest. In addressing the plastic crisis in South East Asia (which was the whole reason why I looked into plastic as my hyperobject), I luckily found a piece of Malaysian Environmental Minister addressing the issue which was the most convenient piece possible. After sorting them in a suitable order, this is what my final project looks like before exporting:

In the end, I was quite happy with the end result. Of course, there are a few things I thought I could improve, which I will address in the next prompt.

References

Fee, N 2017, Why Plastic Pollution is Personal, YouTube, 19 December, TEDx Talks, viewed 3 June 2020, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJiQt9ASSNg>.

Forrest, A 2019, A radical plan to end plastic waste, YouTube, 1 November, TED, viewed 3 June 2020, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5g9-4fx60A>.

Global News 2019, Malaysia to ship back tonnes of plastic waste to Canada and other nations, YouTube, 29 May, Global News, viewed 3 June 2020, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQHwR6-_bK8>.

Wijsen, I & Wijsen, M 2016, Our campaign to ban plastic bags in Bali, YouTube, 20 February, TED, viewed 3 June 2020, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8GCjrDWWUM>.

As I mentioned in an earlier blog post, the session of presentations was crucial for me in refining my approach for my media project. The media format I chose is a podcast, and I think my project is the only one that is not video-related. Again, I wanted to challenge myself with a whole new platform to work with, and I am more excited than confused at this stage of the project.

As I was preparing for the pitch, my idea for the media artifact led me to two potential approaches: one is more factual and one is more artistic. In both means, I want to be able to bring in some form of narratives for the work, making it more of a story with an emphasis on the experience of being directly affected by the plastic crisis. I acknowledged that plastic is easier to recreate visually, but the guests made very useful suggestions for me in finding sounds that could represent plastic. One such is the sound of ocean, which is another emphasis that the ocean (itself and the life underneath it) is being heavily affected by plastic. Before the session, I had imagined of producing sounds of wildlife like whales and birds – some typical ocean creatures and put out a statement: “with the way the plastic crisis is going, not just through South East Asia but the whole world. The day we no longer hear the sound of these creatures is closer than ever.” Of course, using human voices are crucial. I got another great suggestion to use voices of people of different language in highlighting that this issue should be a global one. Bringing in a global perspective on this would broaden the scale and impact of the artifact in my opinion.

I also put myself under three constraints: no use of news footage or media, no use of commercialised content and no use footage of humans or animals. As my project is audio-based, the latter ones are rather obvious while the first one will be my main struggle. I will have to be ultra selective in choosing the right content without showing the news when addressing the issue in South East Asia. Even though I am not totally sure how the final product would sound at the moment, I am excited to attempt putting these ideas into practice.