Kenya

Tonight, I will embark on a two-week journey in Kenya. I will bring with me the perspectives and frameworks learned from Impact. Though internet connection will be scarce, I will be writing in my notebook and transposing my thoughts into my blog once I return. Ciao!

IlPom

IlPom's performance thoroughly engrossed me. Following my last post, I suppose from another angle everyone has their escape? And media provides an incredibly easy and quick access to whatever escape we want. We are spoiled, I suppose. What does being spoiled imply?

He showed us his process of making a music piece using Ableton Live, or as he calls "a well rounded cake," and his cakes just mesmerize me as does Georgetown cupcake does to many. Instrumental arrangement always fascinates me, as a well rounded arrangement creates a magical experience that transcends many experiences.

I notice that certain acoustical textures really feeds my mind; I especially love sounds that have an immense spatial quality to it. DAW softwares these days make creating reverb and delay so much easier than the past with plates and other experiments. Certain DAW's even have built-in calculations that help the user create the sound they want: how many people in the room, the exact dimensions of the room, etc.

Dr. Thomas MacFarlane has stated his observation of our attraction towards ambience sounds or sounds that create space in the imagination. I wonder if this tendency has something to do with our industrialized lives and our lack of interaction with nature. After all, mother nature never ceases to fascinate me.

Sweets don't create a sensation in my brain anymore, music does. I wonder if this will stay with me throughout my life or like any other drug, become less and less rewarding with time.

Pokemon Going

Amidst the craze over the android and iOs app Pokemon Go, I witnessed for the first time the shock and craze that disappoints and confuses me. As I walked up the stairs to 60th St and 5th Ave, I saw a thick crowd of people taking over the sidewalks of central park, with more swaths of people walking towards the direction with their hands down and back slouched. The image of their slouch is nothing short of this depiction:

And it haunts me yet again. What message does the medium portray? Are people just too bored nowadays to allow an engrossment with a game like this? And why does this happen? Are people just too unhappy and unsatisfied with their lives to devote hours of their week in this game? What do they really get out of it? 

I feel lucky that I am not one of those people. I thought that I should try it out to understand the drive behind the craze but after playing a few games nothing about it addicts me at all. I always found it humorous when I see people on the street looking at their phone and not at their surroundings. What of our surroundings are short of amusement? I like to observe the way the light is reflected on different surfaces, why they do, and what imagery it creates. I like to ponder about things but I also like to be present. I find that staying present often allows the mind to glean into insights that your mind would otherwise be too fatigued to understand. 

This craze, to me, is just another phenomenon which shows human kind's lack of introspection and reckless engrossment with amusement. This phenomenon is purely crazy to me, but then I suppose human kind is never short of craze. 

"Digital Witness"

Today, I watched a video on Australian Design firm Buro North's creation: a spin-off of ground level traffic lights. The video spiraled into popularity this morning as a novelty; however, pedestrian-level traffic lights has been adopted by Augsburg, Germany, as early as April 25th, 2016. The city had caved in to the evolved habits of their citizens, and decided to accommodate this habit. Many find this act hilarious and pathetic; they frown upon our tendency to depend more and more on digital reality rather than staying present with the 'real world." I am one of those people. I fear of future generations' dependency on VSLR and digital reality. It scares me that soon people may program and design digital avatars to interact with however they like and potentially never need to learn to empathize and interact with real people. This leads to many implications. What of the people who never step out of their comfort zone and meet another human being, a potential life partner? Will this mean a continued and significant decrease in generating population? Will this necessitate an increase in digital dependency in all facets of our lifestyles? 

And as I ponder upon my participation in IMPACT, I wonder if i'm encouraging this type of behavior via the items I've made: i.e. interactive instruments through the makey-makey and Kate Stone's interactive physical-digital touch technology. I'd like to think that these instruments could help me create an experience that can ultimately enhance an audience's engagement with the present and offer an opportunity for introspection. At the same time, however, I am depending on these multimedia technologies to create this experience. I wonder if it's necessary to depend on technology to create the effect I want--that is, a certain type of introspection and engagement with the present. In fact, is one type of performance more prestigious than the other? Surely, as of the present many would agree that the more technologically advanced an entertainment production is the more spectacular the show. But at what point does a spectacle become a corrupting mechanism that inhibits introspection and only creates distraction? Does that really matter? 

This stream of thought reminded me of Marshall McLuhan and IMPACTer's discussion of various philosophers at our last meeting; you can read a great summary on McLuhan by Dr. John Gilbert here. I would love to read in detail his works to fully understand his message. The medium is the message, McLuhan said. What does the medium really tell us and can we be alert enough to avoid the negative consequences? 

I will conclude with an insert of St. Vincent's song "Digital Witness," the inspiration for the post title. I think the lyrics are worth noting... "People turn their TV on, it looks just like a window..."