hkg245 – Page 3 – IMA Documentation

April 1, 2019April 1, 2019

Week 07- Audio Project – Hannah Kasak

http://imanas.shanghai.nyu.edu/~hkg245/audioproject/

Description

Our sound project is displayed as a 1945 newspaper, in which sounds corresponding to words in the articles are played when moused over. The idea is the make the intensity and horror of violent events (in this case a US attack on Japan in WWII) more striking. Meanwhile, the article on the attack is neighbored by a fashion article. Despite there being grave events happening around the world, the consumers attention is too often drawn to mundane media. The sounds that emerge from mousing over one side of the newspaper (war, violence) to the other (comfortable, every-day sounds) is meant to create a striking contrast. At first we also wanted to make words appear in bold when moused over, so that the user would see which words they were listening to, but then we felt that the experience of the project is more realistic with ambiguity so that the user feels they are listening to the articles rather than listening to individual words.

Process

Both of the articles in our newspaper were real articles published in the 40s, as were the photos. We created the format of the newspaper with the help of a template and spent most of the time selecting and editing sound files and inserting them in the proper text. We tried several methods of making sound play when mousing over the word, which included trying to make words buttons, trying to make words belong to one “soundword” class. In the end it worked best to use:

<a style=”text-decoration:none” onmouseenter=”playAudio21()”>dormitory corridors</a>

in HTML and load the audio above the <body>.

In script.js we defined each playAudio() function as the following.

For sound files I used snippets from various freesound tracks such as apples being cut, washing machines, cloth being rustled, ball games, and people talking in halls. I then used audacity to cut out just the sound we wanted to use and then combine and adjust or taper volumes. For example the sound played when mousing over “apple” (describing the apple print outfit) is a combination of apples being cut and cloth being moved. Other sounds, like the washing machine, were trimmed to makes each the spin-pause sequence shorter and the machine quieter. Some sounds are longer than others so that they are sustained after the user mouses over and blend with new audio the user encounters. Other sounds are short and end briefly after being moused over. This is meant to give a multifaceted experience of the articles.

Another interesting effect we found file making this project is when the user mouses from the war article to the fashion articles and the sounds crossover. As a resulted the sustained sounds of war have to compete for attention with small everyday sounds of a comfortable college life, like laundry and hallways.

March 29, 2019

Week6: Response to Theft and Artistry (Moon) – Hannah Kasak

“Theft and Artistry” discusses issues of cultural appropriation which, similarly to the past two articles we’ve read, has to do with ownership and right to an idea or style. Unlike mere copyright issues though, cultural appropriation includes a social justice dimension and can do significant damage to the status and wellbeing of particular groups. As Nitasha Tamar Sharma says, “When we’re presented with caricatures of other cultures, she says, it’s easier for people to view them as sub-human. It’s easier to pass unfair economic policies, for example, or even to start a war.” The issue is difficult to navigate because, as we have frequently explored in this course, influence comes from everywhere and is unavoidable. There are however many places in which artists have very clearly crosses a line from being influenced to taking advantage of. The issues isn’t just that they’ve borrowed something, the issue is that they’ve borrowed something and exploit the “exotic”-ness or it or put it in a context that is disrespectful to the culture itself. After watching the Coldplay/Beyonce and Taylor Swift videos mentioned in the article, I felt that a key feature was exotification of the setting. In Taylor Swift’s video, Africa is rendered a fantasy land of “wildest dreams” with herds of animals and waterfalls but not a single person, building or city. Meanwhile in “Hymn for the Weekend” nearly every shot of India was an exotified depiction of people or of religion. Instead of accurately depicting a setting or respectfully featuring Indian artistry, the video makes India into a divinity circus in which Beyonce is worshipped.

March 28, 2019

Week 06 – Ecstasy of Influence – Hannah Kasak

The Ecstasy of Influence elaborates on the limitations of idea-ownership and explores the nuanced ways in which all creative work is inevitably inspired by another. To what degree can a work be influenced before it is an infringement on the rights of the previous artist? And what if the inspired piece adds value to the original piece? Jonathan Lethem also points out the impossibility of tracing the origins of ideas or restricting sources of inspiration. He writes that “I’m not alone in having been born backward into an incoherent realm of texts, products, and images, the commercial and cultural environment with which we’ve both supplemented and blotted out our natural world.” Because we are, as he puts it, born backwards into an incoherent world, the idea that we ought to synthesize “original” work is an unattainable, theoretical standard. In the same way that we cannot imagine colors that we’ve never seen, we cannot create something entirely without influence of previous works. Lethem discusses “the commons” as a way to conceive the sharing of ideas. Just as a road is created for everyone’s use, an idea or concept when put into the world because a foundation upon which others will also build. Aside from this being somewhat inevitable, it is also a beneficial mindset. Why not encourage the continuation of an idea into future pieces?

March 26, 2019

Week 06 – On the Rights of Molotov Man – Hannah Kasak

So far this may have been one of my favorite pieces we have read. It dives fully into the complexity of intended meaning, understood meaning, and the right to an idea versus an image. What struck me most while reading On the Rights of Molotov Man was that a long and sustained debate went on overseas about the right to his image. Initially it was suggested that the photographer was wronged in the remaking of the image, as the image was hers when she captured it on camera. But really the image was created by the man himself, who existed and acted in that particular time and place. The issue of context as argued by the photographer also added an interesting dimension to the debate. If an image is to have contextual meaning, then is it “right” to place it into another and ultimately change the meaning. At the same time, what if this decontextualization is not out of carelessness but rather to allude to the significance of the original image. When Molotov man was painted, he was taken out of the context of the photo, but when Molotov man appeared in countless other art pieces these were references to the painting and the copyright controversy. I understand the photographers desire for her image to remain in its context as that is the intent of journalism, however the recreation of the images in other forms does not erase her contribution. Her image now is just as available to be viewed in context as it would be if it had never been borrowed.

March 20, 2019

Week 6: Pockets Podcast – Hannah Kasak

99% Invisible’s episode on “Pockets” begins with a dialogue of a humorous narrative surrounding gender and clothing and segues into a discussion of the history and significance of pockets being featured or not featured in women’s clothing. The title, despite being short and simple, allows room for the significance of the pocket to be explored on a number of axes. The audio includes the narrators interviewing experts from a variety of fields and settings. Natural discussion and intentional description allow the listener to visualize the different forms and purposes of pockets worn throughout history and how these transitions shaped and were shaped by social and even political phenomena. Although I was not presented any photograph, I feel I have a very strong visual impression of the pockets worn by women in the middle ages and the small “reticula” purses popularized after the French revolution. I’ve always felt that visual learning is the more impactful and allows me to retain information best. Interestingly, I feel that this podcast, despite being entirely audio format, was able to provide me with a strong visualization of the subject. Maybe in some ways, the imagined visuals of a subject matter are even more powerful than presented ones.