Walker and discovering our own part in racism

I must comment of Joyce Walker's peice, "Textural Textuality: a personal exploration of critical race theory."

I found myself navigating through the "interwebs" of this text like a splunker exploring further and further into the cave...without a map to get back to the fork in the road of which I had decided to diverge. Maybe this is what Borges meant to discuss when he wrote "Garden of the forking path."

In any case, I do think that the text that I was able to navigate speaks clearly of our postmodern connectitivity and separation from and to others. But something even more strange occured while reading this text that I need to address.

While reading Dr. Walker's personal experiences of encounters of racism in her own life...I began to think about my own upbringing. I too was from a small town (in the South which may or may not contribute any complexties to my experiences) where we prided ourselves on the concept of community. However, I first learned about racism about three months after I began middle school. Then in the seventh grade, I began noticing that the white girls that were "going with" African American boys were teased a lot. This disturbed me because I was developing a crush on one of the drummers in band class. When I asked my aunt (a teacher at the middle school I attended) if she would disown me or not like me if I dated an African American her response left me very confused. Afterall, she and her sister both were considered very liberal thinkers in our town, and they always harped on me about how we should never judge anyone too quickly...they lectured me for hours on the ills of racism in our society and the destructive nature of it. She told me, in the midst of curling her hair that morning, that she would allow me to date someone outside of my race, but she would worry about me and feel sorry for me...the way she saw it, relationships were hard enough without adding the outside pressure society places on interracial relationships. I often think of how I have distanced myself from African American male friends once I thought they held romantic interests in me, and wondered if I too were contributing to racist attitudes by adopting the same viewpoints of my family.

But then, as I was contemplating all this, I heard a knock on the door...which is strange since no one ever just shows up at my place. But I decided to answer it and came face to face with a young African American male. He explained that he was a Norfolk State student and was applying for a scholarship and needed to collect signatures and get people to sign up for subscriptions to books or magazines. But in his introduction, he stated that one of the requirements of the scholarship was to get the signature and also to get the person buying the subscription to fill out a quick survey stating that they were not frightened by him...he even lifted his sweater slightly to show that he was wearing a crisp white shirt and tie. Naturally, I felt bad saying no to this young man, but I'm a college student as well and have limited funds...but I started thinking about it after he left. Why had he gone out of his way to assure me that he was not dangerous and why did he want to get documentation that I did not feel intimidated by him? And what scholarship program would want their recieptients to document, "Hey, this person was not afraid of me when I talked to them." I mean, I can understand if we were in GA or AL in 1890 this being a concern...but why would people be afraid to open their door to a young African American in dress pants and a cardigan in 2008? What type of message does that say about race issues in America?

"Curtailment of free speech is rationalized on grounds that a more compelling American tradition forbids criticism of the government when the nation is at war...Nothing can be more destructive of our fundamental democratic traditions than the vicious effort to silence dissenters." ML King, Jr.

I found this quote on Danny Schechter's blog entitled, News Dissector. http://www.newsdissector.com/blog/

It just got me thinking about new media and how new media can help someone express themselves without using the written word. In a way, it helps someone in an out-group express themselves more freely so that they can criticize the government or be an outspoken dissenter without coming under as much scruitny as, say, Ward Churchill of Univ. of Colorado...if he had made his composition, "Some People Push Back: On the Justice of Roosting Chickens" in a multi-media platform, would he have gotten as much scruitney?

project 2 reflection

Ella Shaffer
Reflection on Sound Project
This sound project grew out of our class exercise. I decided that I wanted to do a piece about a friend of mine’s most recent relationship. Since I was and still am friends with both parties involved, I wanted to try and include both perspectives of the relationship. I also was constantly around both of these people as they both lived with my boyfriend. They have since split up, and Janelle has moved back to FL while Ricky has stayed here and is continuing to live with my boyfriend, Brian.
Janelle and Ricky met randomly one night while Ricky’s boat was in Port Canaveral, FL. Janelle was leaving a bar with her friend and Ricky was in the parking lot under a street lamp and called out to the girls to come talk to them and offered to buy them a drink. They talked on the phone for a couple months and then decided that Janelle should move up to Norfolk so that they could be together. Like all whirlwind relationships, they had a very tumultuous relationship of highs and lows. They even broke up for a few days over Christmas and eventually, Janelle decided that she had rushed into the relationship and decided to go back to FL and pick up the pieces of her life there. As I stated, Janelle and Ricky are both people I would consider good acquaintances, if not friends, and she is doing very well. She has gotten a job, sounds over the phone (something that I wish I could have captured in this piece) like a totally different person—relaxed and full of joy and energy. Unfortunately, I cannot say the same for Ricky. He puts on a good face at home…acts like nothing bothers him, but his actions over the last month show otherwise. He has been out drinking a lot and the latest on him is that he was caught by Brian and two junior officers huffing on the boat while they were underway. While Ricky has always been a thrill seeker, his actions have turned more self-destructive since Janelle has left.
As a writer, and avid and varied music fan…I wanted to create a sound essay interpreting their relationship. I used several songs in my iTunes Library. Unfortunately, some of the CD’s that I had added to my Library where MPEG4’s and would not transfer to Audacity (at least, I couldn’t figure out how to convert them). Also, I tried to just use songs and mix them together, although, now that I think about it, the project would have probably been better with some primal screams and slamming door sounds…since that happened a lot throughout the time they were living together. My audience would be people that are considering jumping into a serious relationship or moving in together before establishing a strong relationship first.
At first, I was really excited about this project, but as time went on, I became more and more frustrated with the editing aspect of the project…I felt like I kept having to fade everything in and out which became tedious. I also had to try and get the snippets of sound very precise which was pretty cumbersome over time.

Sources used:
Dire Straits: “Romeo and Juliet”
Rusted Root: “Beautiful People”
Sheryl Crow and The Dixie Chicks: “Strong Enough”
The Beatles: “Here Comes the Sun”
The Grateful Dead: “One Toke Over the Line”
Alice Cooper: “School’s Out for Summer”
Good Charlotte: “My Bloody Valentine”
The Clash: “Should I Stay or Should I Go”
Joaquin Sabina: “Quien Me Ha Robado El Mes de Abril”
John Coltrane: “In A Sentimental Mood”
Gypsy Kings: “Samba”
Pablo Neruda: “From Twenty Poems of Love” http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/from-twenty-poems-of-love/

the importance of teaching multi-modal discourse

"Listening is an art, a conscious process of observing and defining sound. And like the art of writing, it is affected by one's place in and knowledge of a particular sonic environment as much as one's previous experiences with sonic forms” (Comstock and Hocks 2). How often do we ask students to listen? Yes, we expect them to listen to our lectures, our podcasts, etc., but how do we teach (and do we teach) our freshmen how to dissect spoken discourse? How can we expect them to develop this skill, unless we ask them to create arguments in spoken discourse? Just like subliminal messages, our students listen to types of music that do in fact over time change the way they think and feel about certain issues. Our students can say, “Man, that Wyclef song is tight!” But do they really know what Sweetest Girl means? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PxBGHjABnU) [Or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zryvBnCaShc, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aj1sznTdLM, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Un2dbprtZFE&feature=related] They may listen to the nightly news, or a politician’s speech, but can they really decipher the rhetoric and manipulation of language? Would they be able to do it if we taught them how to construct multi-media texts that included sound? Plus, we have to take into account that visuals lend to meanings (as in music videos as displayed above). Each time we construct new sounds as a composition, we are redefining what we believe to be our own “truth,” and we are revealing a part of who we are as individuals because of the choices we make in constructing the compositions. Simply put, “our ideological location regulates the relationship between what is audible and inaudible, imaginable and unimaginable” (Comstock and Hocks 2).

“illusion of realism” (Comstock and Hocks 3). This is yet another concern with written texts and the ability to transfer our notion of rhetoric from what a student sees on paper to being able to transfer those ideals to other types of media discourse. Students cannot yet (usually) listen to a song, or watch a segment of news, or listen to a speech and decipher reality from illusion (this may be due to the staged reality TV that has become ever so popular). One of the struggles we face as composition instructors is trying to get our students to not only decipher fact from fiction in the research they do (what is a good source to use in a paper) and make that lesson true to life. We can’t just say, “politicians are sneaky, don’t believe them.” or “all news casters are biased and stretch the truth.” We have to somehow get our students thinking about dissecting written, spoken and visual literacies. My philosophy is, if a student can do it, they can recognize it—so I think that teaching multi-media discourse and rhetoric certainly has a place in general education.

My Audio Remix

So in German..."Ich bin haben freunden" means "I have no friends." "Scheize" means "shit"
So the effect I was trying for was a lonely woman that is getting ready to committ suicide...a little dark, yeah, but it was what I was thinking.
NEVERMIND...next blog

Writer Strikes ending and New Media

I saw this article from the 10th of Feb...actually, my student wrote about the BBC and CNN articles for an assignment and the quote they used grabbed my attention. Here is an excerpt from the BBC article followed by my thoughts on it...

"Writers Guild of America (WGA) members discussed the settlement plan at meetings in New York and Los Angeles on Saturday.
"We had a very lively discussion. I'm happy with what happened," said Michael Winship, president of the WGA, East, after the meeting in New York.
Earlier, Mr Winship and his West Coast counterpart, Patric Verrone, told their members the proposed deal was "an agreement that protects a future in which the internet becomes the primary means of both content creation and delivery".
"It creates formulas for revenue-based residuals in new media, provides access to deals and financial data to help us evaluate and enforce those formulas, and establishes the principle that, 'When they get paid, we get paid'." "

This is a debate that has been on the minds of scholars for a long time. Questions of "Who owns the internet?" "How do you police the internet to make sure that copywrighted material is protected, etc." Since everyone, including Hollywood writers are beginning to question this, it validates all the studies and papers and theories we are learning. It validates our field.

I can't really decide if I am happy the strike ended the way it did or not...Don't get me wrong, I'm really glad that Lost and ER and Grey's Anatomy and 24 will continue without interruption...the new seasons are kind of the highlight of my winter. But at the same time, I have to question accessability. Are they now going to make us pay to gain access to movie and television scripts? If that is the case, there are going to be some that cannot afford to pay for them, and the great thing about the internet is having free (for the most part) information at your fingertips. When we start restricting information and charging for it, could it not lead to further class division in this country?

Final draft Photoshop Remix!

Project Report Photoshop Remix

MEMORANDUM

Roma Industries, INC.
Kathie Gossett

Ella Marie Shaffer

ENGL 766 classmates

2/11/2008

Photoshop Remix

The purpose of this memo is to discuss the meaning, choices and processes implemented throughout this project, along with connections made to theories in New Media.

Meanings
“The media is the most powerful entity on earth…because they control the minds of the masses” Malcolm X. This statement for me holds great meaning and echoes earlier leaders dating back to Naro of Rome. He was famous for saying, “If you give the people circus and bread, they will never question you.” Media represents our circus. We are drawn in to being entertained, even during our news casts, and who hasn’t heard of people being, “mesmerized by the boob-tube?” The zombies are meant to represent us…the masses. The news background represents media, but I decided to choose some very different images to represent the newscaster and inlay. The inlay is the “media’s depiction” of the typical gypsy. She is standing over a crystal ball getting ready to reveal some magical outlook about someone’s future. The newscaster however, is actually a picture of a 28 year old Roma woman dressed professionally. If you look closely into her eyes, she (like all us Romani women) does have a very mesmerizing stare. The reason for these images of “Gypsies” for me plays with the concept of how these groups are portrayed in media, stereotypes of dominant culture and the reality of the culture of the Roma people.

Processes
I think that most good writing comes from sudden urges. This being said, once I had chosen the quote for this project, an image appeared in my head of what I kind of wanted the final collage to look like. This actually helped me choose Malcolm X’s quote in the first place. It is kind of hard to describe the organic deeply imbedded desire to create something artful. It is something like a sudden itch that demands to be scratched. I rarely, when composing texts for school, have this urgent, organic desire to create. I usually have to spend a long time thinking about the topic I have chosen, and then can sit at my computer and type furiously as the words often stream out of my head faster than I can type them. I then have to go about correcting the grammar and polishing it.

Much the same way, once I had this set image in my head, I had to find pictures that would work to create something similar to what I originally had in mind. I have to admit; I did get extremely frustrated and ended up changing my original plan due to my own limitations with Photoshop. Once I saw the image in grayscale, I decided that although it was not the image I originally had in my mind, I did like the finished project. I felt like no matter how much more time, or how much more Deke videos I watched, I did not think the picture would get any better. Sometimes it is best to quit when you are ahead.


Choices
I have always had a strong fascination and fear of zombies. They are supposed to be dead, but yet they are walking and grunting; you can’t kill them unless you physically destroy their brain, and they walk around really slowly sort of like they are in a trance. They eat other people, or they bite you and you then turn into a zombie. This is why I chose the background image of zombies. Originally, I wanted just a group of zombies walking, but then I decided that the circle of zombies would be better since I would then have an open space to put the image. The zombies could look like they are then gathering around the media image and are subsequently drawn into the TV screen. The image of Fox News represents media. I chose a Fox News image because it is the least of my favorite news sources and, in my opinion, the most biased propaganda in America.

The other two images that I chose were very personal in nature. The Roma are a group of people originally from India that have over centuries, migrated throughout Europe. My great-grandmother was supposedly Roma and immigrated to this country around 1908. Throughout time, Roma have been persecuted by the dominant culture in which they reside and there are a lot of rumors and myths about their culture and beliefs. They have been labeled gypsies and are still treated as second class citizens in some countries. The image of the female sitting in front of the bookshelf is one of a 28 year old Roma that attended college in Prague. Many times media, myth, and ethnocentrism play a role in depicting Roma as dirty, panhandling, mystical nomads. The reality is most Roma are very superstitious, and they will at times practice such jobs as fortune telling and palm reading. Most Roma do not, however, put much stock in the actual reality of these soothsayer activities. But, in the interest of the project, I felt like I needed to validate that image a little since the quote does have to do with media controlling the minds of the masses…so therefore, I picked an image of a lady gazing into a crystal ball.

I did choose other, more accurate depictions of Roma in everyday life, but thought it best to choose the professional as the anchor (something that you would rarely see, especially in Europe) and the “gypsy” fortune teller as this was the best photograph I found on Google Images. Please refer to the above post for earlier drafts, and the top of this post for the original pictures.

Connections
I definitely see where the use of visual composition is sometimes both much more urgent and thoughtful than classical composition. As I stated earlier, the image I desired as a finished product jumped into my head within a matter of a few seconds. This rarely, if ever, happens in written composition (at least for me). In this way, technology was able to affect my thought processes in that I did not feel the need to “pre-write,” “draft,” “organize,” “research,” “re-draft,” “polish,” etc. in the way you would need to in writing. The steps were much more compacted…brainstorm, research, draft, polish…and in that order too, unlike with the writing process of Flowers and Hayes where the process is circular and fluid. Just as Tristan Tzara and Brion Gysin developed poems and artwork using the cut-up method, this project asks us to use the images we find in order to create something new (NMR 3, 90).

arrg photoshop!!!

I am so frustrated right now...I figured out how to cut some of the selections from the layer I did not want...but I can't figure out how to fix the rest of it...SO...I'm just going to go with my original instinct...yes, you can tell I just put the stuff over the top and changed it to a greyscale image...BUT...it's better than getting an F on an assignment...and yes, I read and did all the selections and even went to Lynda.com...which did not help me at all!!!, but here are some of the pics for this project...

I personally like the black and white pic...although you can tell I meshed the photos on top of one another, I think the black and white pic gives it a little something extra...as in, it hides some of the flaws in layering due to operator error...but also, I feel like it makes a statement alongside the quote...controlling the minds of the masses, media influence, deadening of the senses...etc. So, that is what I am going with...and I'll accept the consequences or rewards.

Quick thoughts before class

So, my first question is going to be...about the line and circle generation section of Sketchpad. I didn't understand the section at all, and to be perfectly honest with you, I didn't try very hard cause Math equasions give me migranes. I mean I get that Sketchpad could be seen as pre-Photoshop...

Also, Burroughs peice discusses the cut up method and how poetry is for everyone...(sort of like the web is for everyone) and can be melded into different site and pages (much like public service offices are constantly growing and changing and disappearing, etc. to meet the needs of the public).

I'm not really sure how Kaprow's peice would fit thematically in with this week's topics. So far I'm seeing things about media and computers and the like being fluid (which he is talking about art being fluid and impermanent like the internet) but he talks a lot about the artist and their impermanence cause once they are noticed and gain popularity they "sell out"...

Anyway, those are the thoughts that I came up with so far for this week.

So this is my revised version of Kenilworth Castle ruins top is the original...I used spot healer and the autos...did some playing around which only messed it up...so had to go back and erase some stuff...

Response to Week three's readings

"Women are the twin halves of men". Over fourteen hundred years ago Islam gave women rights which women in the West have only been given during this century, such as the right to own property, the right to inherit and the right to make a contract in ones own name. Annie Besant, who was writing in the 1930's, observed that, "It is only in the last twenty years that Christian England has recognised the right of woman to property, while Islam has allowed this right from all times. It is a slander to say that Islam preaches that women have no souls". Women are seen as the spiritual and intellectual equals of men, though again this is not the image presented. The hijab (the garment worn by Muslim women to cover the hair), is another issue of contention. The media presents it as being an enforced condition, though for most Muslim women it is a voluntary act which signifies their allegiance to Islam, as well acting as a symbol of their faith. The negative images built up around the Muslim way of life has influenced the ideas of many of my non-Muslim colleagues at University who have implied in conversation that I wear the hijab because I am forced to by my community. Many have been surprised and enlightened when I have spoken about my true reasons, and furthermore that I chose to convert to Islam from another faith. Where the public believes that they are being presented with educational material about Islam from a reputable and reliable source, all that they are being provided with are the confused opinions of individual producers and journalists - many of whom begin their research with preconceived ideas and aims." (http://victorian.fortunecity.com/coldwater/439/muslimwomen_media.htm)

Turing--while writing in 1952, brings up a theological objection as to why machinery can't think...but he has several flaws in this section...the foremost when he says, "how do Christians regard the Moslim view that women have no souls?" (55). This is not an accurate dipiction of Islamic beliefs as we can see from the quote above. also, my officemate is Muslim and would have problems with Turing's statement. Although he says that he does not agree with the statement, "Hence no animal or machine can think." (55), he does not do a good job of shoring up his argument within a theological context.

I think his strongest argument on "if a machine can think" is Lady Lovelace's objection on Pg 59..."[it] has no pretensions to originate anything. it can do whatever we know how to order it to perform" a better theological argument would be that since a computer cannot regenerate itself...or reproduce itself biologically, it cannot think.

What makes man and machine different...at least from my perspective...is the argument of clairvoyance...
A machine would have to use statistics and controls inputted by a human in order to guess a card! Someone that has ESP (like Edgar Cayce or others--possibly Dr. Bush since he can predict the future) can feed off human electrical energies that surround us in order to more accurately guess (statistics help as well) what the value of the card would be.

In man's quest to compete with machine on an intellectual field, we have already taught them how to play board and card games with us...that is why so many of us constantly loose to the game...we play the computer all the time when we are solo (whether it be through Wii, XBox or our PC's and cell phones) so there is no doubt that we can make machines able to respond to us as if they are able to think...are they able to perform higher level thinking processes? Can they think on a theoretical level? That is technology that is still left to be seen.

Still Playing with Photoshop

Still am playing around with photoshop and figured the best thing to do was to get my own pics and play around with it. Photoshop for me right now is kinda hit or miss...I just do stuff till I think it looks better...I can't right now look at something and say, yeah, I need to adjust this that and the other... I don't know what do you think? This is before...above I mean...

and this is after...okay, so apparantly, I can only upload photos at the very freakin' beginning of the blog...anyway, the really dark one is the original and the lighter one at the top is my editing of it...Feedback would be nice. :)

Thanks

So this is not exactly the perfect duplicate of Dr. Gossett's re-done image, but I think it is plenty good for a first start...I may need to get Celeste to help me just fiddle with it this weekend...She is a graphic artist. :)

attempted reading response and history channel shows

So, I'm not going to lie...I think that I'm going to need to go back and read some of the readings again after class. I did rush them a little by not buying the books till yesterday. (This was an attempt at keeping my credit card debt as low as possible). I did however want to make some small comments, particularly on the Murray peice. While he does discuss how technology affects our thought process, and defines the differences between engineers and humanists, what I found most thought provoking was the explaination for "why" we find computers and media such a great tool. On the last page of the article he asks, and then attempts to give a pat ending answer, to "Why do human beingins choose at this time in our cultural history to communicate with one another by making complex artifacts out of electrical impulses?" (11) His answer is that human kind are forward thinkers, constantly looking for a way to improve the way we do things, record history, etc. (Reminds me of a Robert Burns poem..."To a Mouse...")

I will say this though, after dropping almost $300 dollars on books yesterday, my boyfriend treated me to a movie...where we saw a preview for a History Channel special on Life After Humans (which happened to be on TV last night). One of the things that disturbed me so much about the documentary was that many of the technology that we use today would not last very long without electricity or humans to keep the technology in an environmentally safe atmosphere. Basically, within 50 to 100 years after humans disappeared off the planet...all of our photos and books and CD's and DVD's and computers would completely disintegrate. So I've been going through this funk of cognitive dissonance since I'm the one at parties always stealing cameras and taking lots of photos. It seems that we are constantly trying to improve technology and easily preserve documents, memories and our culture for the future. This is all well and good IF and ONLY IF humans are around to preserve the technology. (Barring we don't blow ourselves up with nuclear warheads)

Intro

Well. I have plunged head first into the world of blogging. This will be a new experience for me. But I find great success in having created the blog account without the help of anyone else. :)