Author: Jingyi Zhu

The map I created is a map of my last week’s online messaging. It maps what I used online message for, relative lengths of time I spent on messaging every day, the dates when I messaged each contact and the frequencies of previous online and offline contacts with these people. The representations can be read according to the explanation below.

The data is visualized in this linear way to represent the length of a week. The black line represents the week with seven sections representing each day. Size and width are intuitive in representing time lengths and frequencies. Colors can separate different types of messaging clearly. The density of the ending points of the lines in each day shows the time spent on online messaging in that day.  The map shows not only how I use online messaging as a device of communication, but also various kinds of relationships between me and my contacts.

One set of data shown by the lines is about online messaging in the last week. The icons of contacts are placed in the order of their first message exchange with me during last week. This map shows that I used online messaging more on weekdays than on weekends, but more casual chatting towards weekends. Also, the map show that my need for online messaging is mainly based on chatting with friends, keeping track of my work, making appointments and study.

I included another set of data about the frequencies of previous online and offline contacts of these people to find out interesting facts about different online and offline connection patterns with different people. It is intriguing to see that some people who I meet in person frequently do not often communicate with me online. Online messages exchanged with these people are mostly about work and study. Other people that I often chat with but meet in person less frequently have a more personal connection with me in spite of geographical distance.

“Ainu Ceremonial Music and Dance” by Renner studies the Ainu music and dance performance at the Ainu Culture Festival. He thinks that the “text-like formality of music” (Renner 226) enables Ainu traditional music and dance to be re-performed, re-contextualized and reinterpreted in different historical periods. He studies how the Team Nikaop combined on-stage performance and media and finds that slight adjustments made to the ancestors’ performance conveyed a message of Ainu people’s indigenous identity, rights and freedom, while in last century, videos of Ainu performances were used to negatively show their primitivity. This article is helpful in enhancing our understanding of Ainu ceremonial performance as well as its culture in the modern context.I recall a less successful Naxi ancient music performance by indigenous people in Yunan as a tourist attraction. The performance also took a serious form with adjustments to this ancient music style, but it didn’t restore the context of ancient rituals for audience to understand its root. It is especially interesting that the Ainu Culture Festival not only engages non-Ainu Japanese in enjoying Ainu music and dance, but successfully evokes appreciation instead of turning the performance into a tourist attraction. This approach shows us what to seek for and what to avoid in our project development.

“WCS Informational Sheets” provides a brief introduction to WCS’s missions and goals. WCS’s focuses of environmental protection range from marine animals to education and ethics, connecting animals, humans and habitats. Every individual subject is related to other subjects even though there might seem to be no connections. For example river connectivity can threat local marine animals. I think data is important for both research and educational purposes, and different kinds of presentation of data can be used to serve different purposes. I think it might also be helpful to look for connections between different categories of data.

“A Four-Century Retrospective of Marine Fauna and Fisheries Around New York City” by Hall and Camhi provides a detailed insight into the situation of marine animals around New York City. I am amazed at the richness of marine biodiversity around New York. This article gives detailed studies on data of human consumption trends and marine lives. It is interesting that humans’ food preferences can influence fishing industry and thus greatly impact populations of species as well as the habitats. It strikes me that these “invisible” marine lives are closely linked to human activities but are likely to escape public awareness. 

A link to my Communications Lab final project: https://imanas.shanghai.nyu.edu/~jz2915/commlab/in-a-grove/home/index.html