For my NYPL oral history projected I looked at a conversation between the interviewer Susan Darcy and Louisiana native Donald Trammel. The purpose of this project is to help us gain experience on how it is like to transcribe an audio recording. Audio recordings are a form of media that is all based on audio, but with the help of transcribing the audio which is to put it into words, it helps us to search a certain part of the dialogue through the words rather than look over the audio recording repeatedly. As I figured out hearing the audio multiple times to transcribe it the painstaking work to put it into words helps. It is also useful to those people who are deaf so they can’t hear the world around them.

I had to find a audio that had little to no amount of work done to it which is why I choose Donald Trammel story. The process itself of transcribing was tedious. The main reason why is mainly due to the functionality of the website.  First of all to play the clip was difficult because it is impossible to pinpoint where exactly where u wanna start in the beginning so it is either you start straignt from the begining at 00:00 or 1:15 nothing in between.  But after that,  you can pick where ever you want to start.

In the section of the site where we type down what we hear I found it difficult becuase I wanted to make sure where exactly the time and the audio synced in. I wanted to make sure everything fits exactly as in the audio. There are sections of the audio that are clear to understand and some that are not as easy. One reason may be due to the recording equipment not being close their mouths or the accents they speak in. Donald clearly has a southern accent and some words to me arn’t audible. One example I can’t point out is what his previous job was. On the site, there is generated transcribtion but some things are not correct. The generater can’t pick up on slang such as reefer I noticed. I am familar with the term so I know what he means, to the generator it may see the word as giberish and fills it in with the closest word.

I would probly do this process again but with better softwear and better headphones to help me hear more clearly.

After I was done reading “Cybernetics and Ghost” I thought about the process of creating a story and presenting it to an audience.  Near the beginning of the semester, everyone in the class had to stand up in front and speak of a story that was never written down. In other words, our chosen story must never be written down but rather spoken orally. Which ties into the article which talks about ways of telling a story. I decide to speak about the story of how I got my jaw locked in place while I was in class back in High school.   picked this personal story because of the shock value it brings to anyone who hears it. The idea of having your jaw locked in place is completely unusual to most people and rarely would anyone go through it. Even when I was in the hospital everyone there who are professionals or professionals in training have never seen or heard of my tempory condition. The story also follows the prompt, I have never written down the story anywhere but I have spread the existence of the story through word of mouth which is one the ways to tell a story.

As I stood up to tell the story I had to put myself in the mindset of a village chief or elder that wants to speak. In the article, the author brings up storytellers in tribes that speak of stories to spread knowledge and stores about hunting creatures in the wild, personal life and family history.

 

http://www.roundhouse.org.uk/about-us/artistic-programme/spoken-word/

For this week reading, I am focusing on “Is Google Making Us Stupid” by Nicholas Carr. Before I even began to read the article, I said to myself is it really  making us stupid? I am on google most of the time researching for school, finding a recipe to cook or bake, looking up things that I need, searching for basically everything and anything. I honestly feel like google is making us stupid and isnt making us stupid.  Google is a major search engine that provides you with tons of information right at your finger tips. Why do you need to think back when you can just research something within seconds. But, then again this is bad. This doesnt help us use our memories to recollect information that we know. Our memories are literally disconnected because of google. I can’t read books through  a kindle or computer, I can’t focus, I get lost, i don’t take it serious because most of the time the computer is used for fun or school. I need to have a hardcopy of a book in order to read and understand and process the information. I kind of miss the times where we had to look up words in a dictionary or read text books in order to get information. Technology is good and bad.

in the article orality and literacy by walter ong,  the author talks about how some technology is actually having a negative effect on us. in my opinion, i believe technology is a double edged sword. on one end its good, on the other its bad. technology has expanded our thinking and development as human beings. our advancements allowed us to live longer, express ourselves differently, and even interact with others differently. technology has advanced the world and connected countries to each other, who would otherwise not be connected. we were given technology in its infant form, from print, telegraphs, and telephones. we affirmed our reliance on the various technology by constantly using and developing our technology. we never questioned how technolgy would affect us in a negative way, but we always highlighted the positives. we began to rely to heavily on our modern technology which lessened the strength of our human nature. for example, people use their phones to schedule their days and important information, which i believe made our memory less powerful as we have our phones. television has made us more lazy as we sit in front of it for hours on end learning nothing in the process. social media has lessen our confidence in ourselves as we explore and envy other peoples lives, while being extremely critical of our own. technology in some forms changed the whole human experience. our dependence on technology in our daily live  is similar to a drug, and if somehow someway technology as we know was magically erased, well see a lot of tech heads suffering from withdrawal. Myself included.

reading Decolonizing The University by Marie Battiste made me reflect on the power of language and how it can be seen as a threat to manipulative takeover. when the Europeans first encountered the indigenous people, they realized the native people had a fully developed language. this was seen as a problem as it made it harder for the Europeans to convert the people to their thinking.  although the indigenous peoples language is less dominate, they could potentially catch on to the Europeans manipulative ways. this article proved to me that someone that is illiterate can be easily manipulated and sabotaged. the power of language translates to a power of freedom. one gains a differenti understanding of life and in this case the Europeans seen this

In this weeks post i will explain my reaction to the claim that technology is an extension of man. i believe this quote is intriguing because to me it seems as if the development of technology is equivalent to the development /evolution of man. written word can be seen as technology as it allowed humans to take their thoughts from their mind and put it on paper or stone for others to see. as humans progressed, technology advanced as well. the radio allowed voice to be transmitted across the country to large masses. this development helped spread live voices to hundreds of people which would typically reach a few amount of people. film allowed man to express their philosophy and imagination in a creative way to the masses. in my opinion this creation helped humans become more mindful and insightful to new ideas. thoughts that people wouldn’t typically have were expressed in film changing perceptions of different topics and concepts. in modern times our smartphones are seen as our daily tracker. our phones keep track of when we wake up(alarms), our schedule, important dates, connects us to those we need. to me smartphones show our social evolution. before phone, man had to manually write down important information, be mindful of our own schedule, and relationships. phones keep track of all of these things easily, making life in a way more convenient. on one hand we are more prepared for our daily lives. But, our reliance of phones to keep track of our affairs is making lazy.

for this weeks post i will talk about  “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” by Walter Benjamin. in this article the author talks about authenticity and art. while reading this article, i began to recall all the museums and art shows i went too, wondering if all the pieces i seen were legit work or just copied. when we are told work is an original piece we rarely think it could be a phony or altered in any way. as i get older i begin to see that claims of authenticity are accepted by those who are naive to art. in my production class i begin to see how ones perception can be manipulated by editors to give viewers a set perspective. although it is presented as authentic, the alterations made to the work make it less than real. we are constantly surrounded by so called authentic work but without proper digging and inspecting of a pieces history, we must stay skeptical to its authenticity.

I went the weekend without a phone. I figured I’d do my blog post on that considering we discuss how technology is our life and the way we utilize it. Not having a phone was actually super refreshing. I didn’t feel like I needed to stay in contact with the world. Although It was also an inconvenience. my money from work was on an APP ! So not having a phone I couldn’t transfer money from the app to my bank account because the website doesn’t allow you to do that. Only through the app. I was broke during the weekend ! That’s the worst. When I was going to work, I needed to see what time the trains came, That was also an inconvenience because I was late to work due to train delays over the weekend. I also needed a map to get to a certain destination over the course of the weekend and because I didn’t have a phone in my hand, I had to figure out other ways to get to where I had to go. The worst part of all, I literally could’t listen to music. That made me the saddest.

 

That’s how my weekend went with out my phone.