Journal 10

Journal 10 : Respond to/review/compare & contrast three student pieces presented in our final class meeting (12/10); one of these pieces may be yours, if you choose.

Keep in mind that to complete this assignment, you must access these projects online and listen to/watch the full pieces, not just the excerpts presented in class.

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[FIRST PIECE]

"Artificial Insurgents" - Ryan Little

I really enjoyed this piece, from beginning to end. I thought it was brilliant to use computerized, text to speech voices. It's a simple technique, but the script and how it was strung together made such a powerful, eerie, epic audio piece. By having so many voices, it creates the feeling that there is a whole army of rebellious pieces of technology. The conversations that the different technologies have with each other made the piece so much more real. I especially enjoyed the part where the stream was interrupted with a human coming into the room, hushing the technologies. The "restart" moment when things were played backwards and sped up was also a wonderful way to end and tie the piece together, creating this sense of urgency, or almost action to start the "tech rebellion". Such simple techniques, like text to speech, reverse, and minimal layers, but put together wonderfully and brilliantly, creating such an impactful and imaginative piece. 

[SECOND PIECE]

"Psychosis: I Hear Voices" - Michael Nguyen 

The fact that this was inspired (and I could clearly tell) by "Donnie Darko" made me already ready to like this piece. Once I heard it, I could clearly tell the influence by this film. The simplicity of the techniques and layers were minimal, yet it created such a strong, powerful narrative and sense of paranoia. The portrayal and representation of paranoia and anxiety was successfully executed through the clever use of several layers of voices playing at the same time. The added effect of these layered voices with lowered pitch and grainy quality really helped orient me in distinguishing between internal characters and external characters. The script was also created successfully in making me feel as anxious and nervous for the roommate character and the main character's well-being. 

[THIRD PIECE]

"Sine A Light (Chopped and Screwed)" - Azad Mukujian

I greatly appreciated the intent and motivation for this piece, not just because it was dedicated for a friend but also for the fact of making it known that a world-renowned band was problematic in their music because of cultural appropriation. I thought that the literal chopping and screwing of the pieces of the song was effective in reclaiming the song back from the Rolling Stones. The deterioration of the quality of the song was a successful way of protesting against such cultural appropriation, which is still a huge issue in today's music.