Fireside Chat

My Video:

(just for fun)

Artist's Statement:

I chose to do my fireside chat on my belief that it’s absolutely essential that children grow up reading, watching, and listening to fairytales. Although my performance did not go as well as my rehearsals, I think I was able to execute the presentation aspect of my project fairly well. I chose this belief because of my own childhood experience and love for stories, make believe, and fairy tales. As a kids, my sisters and I were always imagining new creatures, alphabets, and, most importantly, stories. Those hundreds upon thousands of hours reading books, playing make believe, and discussing stories had a huge impact on my personality and world view. I believe I can attribute my open-mindedness, empathy, and creativity almost completely to the fact that I enjoyed fairy tales.

I chose some popular and not-so-popular cinematic moments for my presentation in order to shed light on the important life lessons or skills they teach to the children who watch them. If I had more than 4 minutes, I would’ve included lessons from children’s and young adult novels as well. I think often children’s films, books, and music is side lined and not given the importance or attention it deserves.

For my outside source, I drew upon two videos—one, linked here, is a simple compilation of Disney clips. This video has such a powerful emotional effect on me, not only because it’s my childhood, but because these films continue to be so dear to me because of the lessons they taught me. The other is any TED video in general—I love the presentation style of these talks and tried to capture that. From the reading, I loved the line “Beautifying is one classic operation of the camera, and it tends to bleach out a moral response to what is shown,” from “Regarding the Pain of Others.” Strangely, this perfectly applies to my belief. Fairy tales have the ability to “beautify” hard situations and lessons—like expressing grief and dealing with loss, sacrifice, etc.—without losing the integrity of the moral being expressed. Children latch on to behavior extremely quickly, so fairy tales (which I realize I’m using a very broad definition) and essential to shaping and rounding out a child’s emotional and empathetic experience.

I believe in this so strongly, that I felt like closing my presentations like a religious testimony. Fiction has such a powerful effect on everyone, but especially children, that robbing your child of fairy tales because “escapism is dangerous” is a crime.

Concerned Citizen



I really enjoyed making this project, mostly because of my discovery that one of my close friends is actually a “concerned citizen.” Finding someone to document was intimidating and proving difficult, until my friend, Kate, told me just got back from adjudicating a children’s string festival (unfortunately, she didn’t mention this before she went, otherwise we could’ve documented part of the actual process). Being an elementary education major, her cause in the community is children’s music education and giving every child the opportunity to experience creating music. She’s also volunteered in kindergarten class rooms and plans to incorporate music and rhythm into her future classroom. Although she is still busy with college, she finds little ways to contribute to children’s music education, like with the Suzuki competition.

Being naturally musical herself, our video focuses on Kate’s passion for music which has translated into her other passion—teaching children. To avoid a sit-down interview video, we included many cut-aways of her singing and playing (also, we missed the actual Suzuki competition, so decided to film her performing instead). In retrospect, we wish we had asked her what her opinion is of current public school music education and if she would like to change anything in the curriculum or program.

Our outside source of inspiration came from the experience of watching many interview-type videos through many different sources, but for me I particularly drew upon the “I am a Mormon” videos. These videos are able to both gather information about the subject’s opinion and capture their personality, allowing the viewer a glance into their life. By connecting with the subject on a personal level, you’re more likely to be sympathetic to whatever cause they are pushing for. For Alexis, she drew upon a film she saw at Sundance called Private Violence and the way it incorporated voice over elements.

I personally am very passionate about this subject, which is partially why we decided to interview Kate. Every child should be exposed to music, both in study and creation, just as much as drawing and other forms of art. As Arlene Goldbard’s article states, “Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.” Not only is it beneficial for children to learn musically, but it is our responsibility as the older generation to bring opportunities to participate in culture to the younger generation. The arts, including music, teach sympathy for others and tighten the bonds of communal identification as they express the human condition. “Artists expand social imagination, helping us envision the transformations we hope to bring about, stimulating our thoughts and feelings toward the new attitudes and ideas that will drive recovery” (Goldbard 22).

Game for Change

My Game! -- http://www.sploder.com/?s=d00422nm

My Social Issue: Treating deafness as a disease or disability, and mis-educating deaf children.

“At least ninety percent of deaf and hard of hearing children are born to hearing parents who usually want their children to be like themselves, to understand sound, to use their voices and verbally express their thoughts through spoken language, and to hear the voices and spoken language of those around them” (National Association of the Deaf). Because most hearing parents don’t know how to react when they’re told that their child is deaf or hard or hearing, they follow the advice of their hearing doctors and attempt to integrate them into hearing society, with little or no education in sign language. The enemy isn’t the parents, or even the doctors (although as professionals they should be better informed), it’s the ignorance of their deaf child’s needs. Despite how you feel about it, your deaf child’s first language is NOT English, it’s sign language. They’re whole world is visual, and therefore need a visual language to properly develop cognitively, socially, and emotionally. Deafness is not a disability or a disease to be cured medically or by modern technology, and although hearing aids and cochlear implants can help some hard of hearing situations, they are not replacements for ASL and Deaf adult role models.  “Advocates for inclusion will throw out the usual but it’s a hearing world argument and insist this is for the better good… I’ve heard so many stories of deaf kids in the mainstream who don’t make the basketball team, don’t run for class president, and so on” (Mark Drolsbaugh).

My game represents the struggle that mainstreaming (integrating into hearing public schools) poses to Deaf children. The residential school route is obviously easier, quicker, and provides more benefits to the child, while mainstreaming is full of learning impediments and social obstacles to overcome. However, it is still possible to win going this route. I especially wanted to emphasize the fact that much of the time it is the parents naively handicapping their children by trying to fit them into a “normal” mold. The child wishes to belong to their native culture and language (the tunnel leading up to the surface), but the parents prevent them in an attempt to make them fit their definition of normal.

If I had the time and resources, I believe a very powerful role-playing game could be made that simulates a Deaf child’s situation in a mainstream school. However, I am pretty proud of my little one level game, and believe that it conveys my point, even if it is a bit on the nose.

Here is a video of a Deaf man’s testimonial of how a residential school changed his life as a child. Being part of a community, culture, and natural language made a huge difference in his life and education. (6:47 – 12:43).

http://youtu.be/60lzVhXW_0U?t=6m47s

The popular videos of babies and adults hearing their loved ones for the first time through cochlear implants is touching, but represent only the few cases that the implants significantly improve their hearing and ability to integrate fully into hearing society. Both sides of the story need to be told, just as Chimamanda Adiche explained in her TED Talk.

 

 

 

Sources:

"Cochlear Implants." National Association for the Deaf website. 2008. Web.

          http://www.nad.org/issues/technology/assistive-listening/cochlear-implants

Drolsbaugh, Mark. "Mainstreaming vs Deaf School." Deaf Culture Online. 2014. Web.

        http://www.deaf-culture-online.com/mainstreaming-vs-deaf.html

(see above YouTube video, "What is it like to be DEAF?")

Webspinna Battle Artist's Statement

After a bit of a process, we decided to theme our Webspinna Battle with the age old question: which is better, a pirate or a ninja? Since this is a pop culture, modern project taking place on the internet, we wanted to have an “in-the-moment” theme. We started by gathering hallmarks of martial arts and pirate film and music, and then added in more generic sounds, (such as the ocean, traditional Japanese music, and various sound effects) to create the proper background atmosphere. It was incredibly fun to create a dialogue between our two personas using only sound clips, music, and sound effects. Especially in the middle of our performance, we tried to have a more literal exchange with different movie and TV show dialogue cut to sound like they were replying to each other. The ending of our battle was very deliberate, even if it wasn’t perfect in execution. The sounds of our battling personas were to build up loudly, and then suddenly cut off together while the single line, “Stop fighting, and let it flow,” ended our feud. This was to mirror the fact that neither a ninja nor a pirate is “better” and so there can’t be a winner.

This project perfectly echoed what Jonathan Lethem discussed in his article, “The Ecstasy of Influence: A Plagiarism.” He stated that “literature has been in a plundered, fragmentary state for a long time,” and that authors, subconsciously or not, take lines, wordings, and themes from works they encounter and recut them into their own writing. He also talks about how we live in an “‘open source’ culture” where pre-existing fragments of art are available to inspire or lend themselves to new meaning in a fresh piece of art. This was, at a lower level, essentially what we tried to do. We took pre-existing sounds, “plagiarized” them, and reworked them into a completely new dialogue which shed new meaning on them.

Another piece of art work that influenced me during this project was Pixar’s short “Day & Night.” It’s the story of two characters who can only speak through either sounds found during the day or during the night, and show off what cool things they have in a day vs. night showdown. In the end, they discover that they create the most beautiful sights and sounds together. Our battle has a similar back-and-forth element and ended much in the same way.

It was really interesting to create a project in the limited (and at the same time, limitless) venue of the internet and work with pre-existing and pre-uploaded sounds. Hopefully, our live performance was able to reflect the preparation we put into gathering and rehearsing the sounds.

Webspinna Battle - PIRATE vs. NINJA

Gong
Everybody is Kung Fu Fighting
Punching SFX
Martial Arts cries
Japanese Music 
"Wax on, wax off"
Inner Peace
TMNT slap
Batman Jujitsu
Kung Fu Panda music
"Who am I?!"
Batman Begins training
Jackie Chan fighting
TMNT theme song

World Building - Nikola Tesla

Link to the PDF (so you can make it bigger to read it):

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9LCiAd7yWtsc2didkJoMlJfSkk/edit?usp=sharing

 

Artist's Statement

For our project we decided to build a world that had Nikola Tesla triumph over Thomas Edison. Tesla was the leading inventor of electricity, which means that towers, copper receivers, and wireless energy are the main influences of design and lifestyle. We also decided to set our “present” in 1984, showing that technology advanced faster and in different ways through Tesla’s inventions. Having such a volatile energy source also creates a world that is balancing on the edge of self-destruction with radical factions and anti-Tesla militant factions. We wrote a newspaper spread because we thought it would give the best range of politics, environment, and advertisements to showcase our world. We put a terrorist threat piece, an environmental impact piece, a human interest piece, and tastes of business advertisements and other stories in the issue.

I thought changing this fact in history would be interesting because it would completely change how technology and the modern world developed, since electricity is the center point for all technological advances. We really drew upon this aspect of the reading, “Throw out the disciplinary constraints one assumes under the regime of fact and explore possible fictional logics and assumptions in order to reconsider the present.” (Bleeker 6) We wanted to change a fact in history but keep a line of logic through our alternate timeline. As much as we could we kept to real science facts but took some liberties and made exaggerations with our unstable world. It was fun to explore and experiment and settle on a world that is feasible and links “imagination to its material form” (Bleeker 4) but still fantastic.

For an inspiration for world building, I really admire Brandon Sandersen’s ability to effortlessly create a complex world that is easy to understand. Especially in his Mistborn series, he creates a very intricate magic system and political narrative that is still somehow easy for the reader to dive into and understand. He’s an expert at creating atmosphere which is something we wanted to achieve with our newspaper spread. We also drew upon an article “Tesla’s Tower of Power” by Alan Bellows, which outlines the history of Tesla’s experiments and his eventual bankruptcy.

This project was really fun to do. I love thinking about the possible politics and design of different worlds, and I’ve always been a fan of science fiction. However, it was challenging and I now have even more respect for authors and filmmakers, because so much backstory and research goes into design that will never be read or seen.

Textual Poaching

Project:
http://youtu.be/239nt_djIM0

100%

Artist's Statement:

Though this assignment didn’t come as easily to me, in the end it was a lot of fun to put together. As it says in the description of the video, I decided to combine Rush’s “The Spirit of the Radio” with clips of Mozart conducting from Amadeus (1984). I did this for many reasons: first, because Mozart was much like a rock star in his own day. He was radical, used drugs, and wrote emotional, sometimes dark music. Secondly, I listened to Mozart and other classical composers at a time in my life when I should’ve been listening to pop or rock music. Mozart and his operas and symphonies were my rocking out music—to me they were attention grabbing and toe-tapping. By combing Mozart and classic rock, I enhanced the history of Amadeus and reflected my own experience and personality in Mozart’s compositions. I’ve revised an excerpt from Jenkins’ “How Texts Become Real” to reflect my own experience: “[My] investment in [Mozart’s music] will give it a meaning that was unanticipated by the [composer], a meaning that comes not from its intrinsic merits or economic value but rather from the significance the [I] bestow upon the commodity through its use” (51).

This video reflects my identity as a musician. I come from a very musical family and grew up listening to classical music and small-time children’s bands. Classical music could never be boring to me, and I view it almost as others view rock music. A piece of outside art that influenced my project, besides of course the fabulous movie Amadeus and its portrayal of Mozart, is an album called “Hooked on Classics” by Louis Clark, which is a CD of classical songs remixed with a drum set underneath them. As a young child it changed my perspective of classical music and made it accessible to me. I am also (more recently) a huge fan of 70’s and 80’s rock, hence the Rush song and the emphasis on electric guitar and drums.

This assignment emphasizes how personal a piece of art becomes once it is consumed by someone other than the author. “Fans draw texts close to the realm of their lived experience” (53), and by doing so take the authorship from the creator and make it their own. A piece of art is never viewed or valued the same by two people, simply because we all loan unique experiences and perspectives to the art when we consume it.

 

Medium Specificity - Poetry

A Rose by Any Other Name

It is a truth universally acknowledged

That all that is gold does not glitter,

Not all those who wander are lost,

That brevity is the soul of wit.

It was the best of times…

The boy who lived,

The odds ever in your favor.

What are men compared to

Rocks and mountains?

That is the question.

It was the worst of times.

I solemnly swear that I am

Up to no good,

To dwell on dreams and

Forget to live.

There is a monster at the

End of this book.

Real or not real?

We are all in the gutter,

Seen hell and it’s white,

It’s snow white.

But some of us are looking at

The stars.

To live will be an

Awfully big adventure.

I don’t play accurately—

Anyone can play accurately—

But I play with wonderful expression.

Oh, the cleverness of me!

Artist's Statement

Let me first explain my project—I’ve taken well-known lines from classic and popular literature and reworked them into a stand-alone poem. Every word is taken directly from another book, even the conjunctions and articles.  The medium I’m expressing is poetry with a focus on phrasing and words. I began by gathering some of my favorite lines from Shakespeare, Harry Potter, Peter Pan, Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, The Hunger Games, Pride and Prejudice, A Tale of Two Cities, North and South, Oscar Wilde, and one of my favorite children’s books, “The Monster at the End of this Book.” My aim was to keep the quotations as intact and recognizable as possible to emphasize that even though individual letter, words, and phrases can be common and unexceptional, profound and unique meaning can still be expressed by simply arranging them in a certain order.

Literature and the written word in general is extremely unique because there are only 26 letters available to artists. Every possible (correct) word in the English language has already been invented and has already written down, used, and understood. Even certain phrases, such as these famous quotes, have been rendered unusable due to their ubiquity. But my project highlights poetry’s power of creating new meaning and emotion through the juxtaposition of certain words and, in this case, certain phrases. Even though in their own context these quotes already have individual meaning assigned to them by author, reader, and popular culture, by placing them in a new order in a new context they are able to generate fresh meaning and insights.

The Scott McCloud reading had multiple similarities to what I was trying to achieve with my poem. McCloud states, “In time, most modern writing would come to represent sound only and lose any lingering resemblance to the visible world.” In many ways, this is how I felt about popular, border-line-cliché lines from famous literature, both old and new. Though these quotes and the contextual meaning they have in their own works and in popular culture are greatly admired, their ability to create new meaning has been limited—they are just sound with no new color. But through poetry and juxtaposition, these quotes are able to create new images, emotions, and meaning in addition to the history of meaning they bring with them.

The main outside inspiration for this poem was T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land. Though he does use some of his own wording, large portions of his poem are direct or corrupted quotations and allusions. He mainly draws upon the hallmarks of literature, but also includes children’s rhymes and other low-brow literature. Eliot’s aim was to trivialize their worth by irreverently juxtaposing respected works of literature with children’s songs. Though I in no way aim to trivialize the quotes I use, I did try and emulate Eliot’s ability to generate a new perspective in his readers through juxtaposition.

Historical Story

ROANOKE

by Brittany Vance & Amanda Barwick

Artist's Statement:

Well, as far as my approach to this project, I mainly focused on collaboration and contribution of new ideas since it was Brittany’s fabulous script idea that we went with. It was easier than I thought to collaborate on a script. One of us outlined the story while the other researched some sources about Roanoke, and then we switched, approved or edited each other’s work, and jointly wrote the script one section at a time. Our writing styles meshed pretty well, and it helped that we had outlined the plot beforehand and both knew where the story was going.

I enjoyed how the readings of this week made a historical story into a narrative that was less concerned with historical fact than it was with character emotion. In “Vivian, Fort Barnwell,” Ethan Canin writes about a memory that he’d unknowingly fabricated about his mother based on a picture he’d seen years ago. Whether his recollection was misplaced in time or completely imaginary, the story he created is integral in expressing his attitude towards his childhood and his mother. We tried to tie down certain facts in our own story to history, but mostly left the story loose to accommodate for fictionalization.

As for outside sources, we read up on the archaeological, anthropological, and historical studies done on the lost colony of Roanoke. The recently discovered map of the shoreline near the colony made by John White in the 1580’s is the reason Tristan is trying to find the island based off a map. White was also the man to describe the wooden post (or tree, depending on the source) with the word “Croatoan” carved into it (The Telegraph). There was also a gold signet ring dug up at a site near the island, which he fictionally assigned to be Tristan’s wedding band. The rocks with the names on them are a reference to the Dare Stones, a series of stones in the late 1930’s that hold the names and story of the colonists. The stones are most likely frauds, but it added to the mysterious and sinister mood to our script. The map, the ring, and the stones are the concrete historical facts tied to Roanoke that we let our story elaborate and grow out of. We also felt that it couldn’t have a happy ending because of the unknown fate of the settlers there. Our story revolves around the mystery surrounding the missing colony and the island they settled on where "provisions [were] dwindling" (Horn). Our script is a blend of modern horror storytelling and historical fact.

Sources:
"Ancient map gives clues to fate of 'Lost Colony'." The Telegraph. 4 May 2012         
          http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/9244947/Ancient-map-gives-clue-to-fate-of-Lost-Colony.html

Horn, James. "Roanoke's Lost Colony Found?." American Heritage 60.1 (2010): 60-65. World 

          History Collection. Web. 10 Feb. 2014.

          https://www-lib-byu-edu.erl.lib.byu.edu/cgi-bin/remoteauth.pl?url=http://search.ebscohost.com.erl.lib.byu.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=wdh&AN=48559237&site=ehost-live&scope=site  

Process Piece

WRITING A PAPER

 

Artist's Statement:

Recording the sounds for this audio documentary was actually really fun. We both decided that we wanted to document a simple, everyday process rather than a fictional or large scale one. Most of the sounds we used are literal, as you would hear them naturally in real life, but some of them we enhanced by using different materials. For the writing/pencil-on-paper noises, we set the paper on top of a tin lunch box to get a richer sound and to get a louder, clearer recording. Also, to get the squeaks for the erasing we selected an old, dried-out eraser and erased on a wood surface instead of paper. We initially thought we were going to cut down the printing clip, but then we realized that we could really play up the emotions of having to wait for something to print. Hopefully, this comes across as comical and relatable, especially since we layered the mouth-popping and the sighing into the middle of the sequence. We wanted to emphasize the frustration of brainstorming and beginning a paper, the confidence and backspacing of typing it, the impatience of waiting for it to print, and the satisfaction of stapling it together.

For me, Mercadante’s “Routines” had a big influence on how I wanted to approach this project. I really enjoyed how intimate his recordings sounded and how simple they were. He takes a very up-close, stylized approach to representing actions through sound, which we tried to replicate. His videos also take a closer look at simple, often-repeated processes we do and expose them through intimate sound recordings. I also drew heavily upon my own experience as a writer and sitting in quiet places like the library, where the only thing you can hear is typing and the occasional eraser. Scenes from several different movies (for example A&E’s Pride and Prejudice or The Young Victoria) where the character goes through several drafts of a letter, crumpling up each rejected draft and tossing it, also influenced our recording style and the frustrated beginning to the story. Because composing an essay or writing a piece of fiction is almost an exclusively internal process, documenting it through only sound captures the spirit of the process better than a video would. Hearing the sounds but not being distracted by a picture brings emotions to mind rather than actions. It was fun and surprisingly satisfying to externalize such an internal process through the use of sound.

Round Robin

First, the stories:

Mine:

Today is the most important day of Harold's life.

Today he found out that he is fact one of the

prickliest hedgehogs and not an incredibly

dull-pointed porcupine.

 

Malori:
Harold nervously prepared for his date with Thistle by carefully brushing his spikes.
On his way to her house he gathered as many delicious berries as he could. 

 

Wes's:



 

Emily's:

Harold and Thistle could not pay off their debt to Marty the Porcupine.

The hedgehogs were suddenly regretting their gambling habit.

 

Drew's:

 

 

 

 

Artist's Statement:

This is by far one of the more interesting assignments I’ve ever had to do. I’ve tried to do collaborative pieces before and I’ve always been frustrated by the lack of control I have over the end result. Through the frustration didn’t completely disappear for Round Robin, it was greatly lessened and I really enjoyed seeing how other people interpreted and added to my story.

With my stories, I always tried to incorporate either some kind of twist or a thoughtful element to make the story stick a little bit. “Very Short Story” on Twitter was very inspiring because he was able to create such three dimensional stories in such a short space through humor and irony. Some tweets that particularly influenced my work were, “Darla’s beauty was staggering…literally. When men saw her, they staggered, and fell down. Lonely, she resorted to dating blind men,” and “Climbing into the dirigible, we embraced, thrilled to elope. Everything was perfect. “Uh-oh” said David, “one of us has to cast off.” These particularly shaped my story for Emily’s series, which features a princess who locks herself in a tower with a dragon rather than being sentenced there. I tried to avoid making a direct sequel to the story I received for the sake of retaining the assignment’s similarity to the exquisite corpse pictures. They would go together, but not exactly continue the story/picture, just as I continued one theme or character of the story, but tried and avoid a direct copy of it.

As for my drawings, I also tried to have them expand the story rather than just represent it. The test scores for a hedgehog and a porcupine (mine), the screaming kid in the bed (Drew’s series), the smile on the dragon’s face (Emily’s), the yellow background versus the blue shirt for the sad man (Malori’s), and the speech bubble of the ninja (Wes’s) all attempt to add a new element to the story, however small, or simply emphasize an emotion or element in the story. I found it interesting that the characters in my story were featured in each story of the series, and that Harold went from discovering his true identity to joining a circus after a failed date and running from a bookie. The general, overarching theme is one of defining self-identity, getting past mistakes, and living with no regret.

I drew upon one outside source in particular—the book Sorcery & Cecelia or the Enchanted Chocolate Pot by Patricia C. Wrede and Caroline Stevermer. This book was a collaboration, written as a series of letters they initially sent back and forth to each other as a writing exercise. They wrote from the perspectives of two cousins and although the stories exchange characters and events seamlessly, they never planned out the story ahead of time. They would only give hints as to the direction of their next letter, much like we were able to see only one story of the whole series.

Music Mosaic

           My collection of photos attempts to capture the nostalgia and tender memories of being young. The precise delicateness of the piano in the song evoked images of innocence and the pure life children see and experience. I drew heavily upon my own childhood memories of music and family. As a child, as hopefully as an adult as well, your family is your whole world and their influence defines how to understand life and what it should be like. For me, I was constantly surrounded by music, by my mom playing the piano or violin and by recordings and movies. Annie Dillard in her essay “Seeing” noted how we are each specialist seers, that the geologist will see fossils where we just see gray rock, and I believe that children are a kind of specialist. Not only do they have the innocent ability to see “color-patches” of a simpler, flatter world, but they also can focus in on one element and give it all their attention. One note on the piano can fascinate a toddler for minutes on end (an eternity in their world), as they marvel at the fact that pushing one key down can create such a large sound.

            This is why many of my photos have a close frame, as children turn all their attention on one detail at a time. I chose warm reds, oranges, and yellows to reflect the brightness and thoughtfulness of the song and in turn the natural optimism of children. In my selection of photos, I tried to capture both the perspective and emotion of childhood. Hand drawings and block magnetic letters reflect the colorful imagination of a child and the simplicity of their world view, just as the song begins with a simple melodic line. Intricate details such as depth of field and spelling aren’t important to understanding the concept of a sunrise or family.

            Other photos reflect the feeling of closeness, family, and places of safety. As the song adds more layers of percussion, strings, and melody, the scope of the pictures expand from the perspective of the child to include family and environment. Many of my feelings of family and home are rooted in the music room. Musical instruments and singing has always brought my family together and is a place of light, warmth, and magic. Sisterhood and a place to keep all your stuffed animals define childhood belonging.

            In the movie, You’ve Got Mail, Kathleen Kelly says, “When you read a book as a child, it becomes part of your identity in a way that no other reading in your life does.” I believe the same is true for music and the impressions of family. A child’s view of the world may be “color-patches” but these unsophisticated impressions of shape and color serve as the foundation for their ability to “see” as an adult.

Music: http://youtu.be/oVHyvXUQZ30 -- Long Long Ago, Jon Schmidt

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Halo" and American Military Culture

          Video games, today more than ever before, are influencing mainstream culture at the same level of the film industry. The ubiquity of game consoles, the extensive variety of games and online membership, and the natural intersecting of other media around gaming makes video games powerful agents of cultural change. The Halo series by Bungie Studios is the flagship of Microsoft’s Xbox, and is an incredible example of the influence interactive gaming holds over American culture. The Halo series is intimately connected with the US’s recent military and war culture by both reflecting it and shaping the public’s view.

            The current events from pre-9/11 to present day are intimately connected with the story of the Halo games, particularly in the second game, Halo 2. The first game, Halo: Combat Evolved was released on Nov. 15, 2001, only two months after 9/11. Though the creators could have in no way anticipated the rise of military/army culture in the United States that the terrorist attack created, it did serve as a media outlet to partially vent frustration at an inability to retaliate to the attacks, and introduced a way to participate in the new righteous-war culture. Also, “the power of the first-person shooter in presenting and constructing a specific identity and morality has not been lost on the US Army, which has funded a number of military shooters in a drive to improve recruitment” (Sykes), and Halo is part of, if not the reason, for the dramatic rise in first-person shooters, and therefore in recruitment, although less influentially. Halo supported the righteous violence mentality that the 9/11 terrorist attack inspired in the majority of Americans as it featured a man of violence saving the world. It also fed the flare of patriotism and the American glorification of our military through the heroism of Master Chief, the main character, and an America-dominant future world government.

The second game, released on Nov. 4, 2004, had ample time to incorporate and interpret current events into the story and game play as a way of mediating between the reality of war and terrorism and the fantasy of epic heroism. The game begins with Master Chief and other UNSC leaders receiving medals for their actions in the first game, while the commander of the alien forces being forcibly brought before their leader, branded as a heretic with the sign of a coward, tortured for failing in the first game. The aliens, known as the Covenant, are theocracy lead by militant prophets who claim that the righteous will be saved while the universe is cleansed of all others. Shortly after, the Covenant make an unexpected attack on the human’s home planet, Earth. Without going into the intricacies of the game’s story, the Covenant closely resemble the extremist practices and teachings of groups such as the Al Qaeda. Even at the end of the game, a speech is given that could have just as easily been given at Ground Zero:

“For us the storm has passed; the war is over. But let us never forget those who journeyed into the howling dark and did not return. For their decision required courage beyond measure, sacrifice and the unshakeable conviction that their fight—our fight—was elsewhere. As we start to rebuild, this hillside will remain barren; a memorial to heroes fallen. They ennoble all of us and they shall not be forgotten.” (Halo 2)

            Though many would argue that Halo games, Halo 2 in this instance, contribute to the violent delinquencies of adolescents, the story does not paint all of the Covenant in black and all the humans in white (though the glorification of violence cannot be denied). In fact, a significant amount of the game is played as the aforementioned Covenant commander, recognized by the other, less militant religious leaders as not a heretic and is given the role of Arbiter in order to regain his honor through a redemptive self-sacrifice. Eventually, Master Chief and the Arbiter settle their differences and work together to stop the Prophets from blindly eradicating the universe of all life. Racial stereotypes are pointedly broken and understanding is formed between this avidly religious alien and the thoroughly militarized hero.

            I’ve been playing these games since they first came out in 2001, and I can personally attest to their effect on my outlook on the military and the nature of war. Growing up, I considered joining the army and most of that motivation came from playing these games. The emotional effect of the incredibly iconic music, the classic, hero’s journey archetypal story, and the interactive element had and continues to have a profound impact on me, allowing it to shape my perceptions. Without getting into the ethics of first-person shooters and violent video games, the Halo franchise helped shape an entire generation’s perception of the US armed forces to be heroic, glory-filled, and violent, but worthwhile.

 

 

Works Cited

Halo 2. Bungie Studios, Microsoft Game Studios. November 9^th 2004

Sykes, David. “9/11, the War on Terror, and ‘Halo’.” E-International Relations. 18 May 2010.