Friday, September 14, 2012

When Boundaries Dissolve...


Donna Haraway wrote that “we are all chimeras, theorized and fabricated hybrids of machine and organism; in short, we are cyborgs.”  In these past few days I've realized how true this is, and I think it's kinda cool. If you think about how dependent we are on technology it can be somewhat overwhelming at first. Eyeglasses, pencils, cell phones, computers, radios, air conditioning, lights....the list goes on and on! Name one business man that is not attached to some type of electronic that tells him what's happening here and now. New media, whether we like it or not, is at the core of boundary-dissolution.  In fact, new media can also act as a catalyst in this dissolving process.

However, privacy and copyright laws have trouble staying up to speed with changes in new media.  Personal privacy has not completely become a thing of the past, but the lack of privacy on the internet in this day and age is appalling. People have the ability to post practically anything on websites. It’s almost becoming expected for privacy to be overlooked.  I do think there's still some hope though.  With social media sites such as Facebook or Google+, people can choose their privacy settings, therefore this privacy issue can be a decision. I think that most people simply overlook the settings because they want to go ahead and get to the fun stuff (uploading pics, chatting, etc). So in saying this, I think that privacy in this new media age is possible and really does matter, but it will be a conscious choice, rather than a common expectation.

Anyway you look at it, when boundaries disappear or shift, they are not gone forever.  New ones are bound to take their place (pardon the pun) simply because that is how order is kept.  If boundaries were to dissolve completely, what would we be left with besides a jumbled mess of misunderstandings?

Being required to work in sound this week was something of a challenge for me.  I’m not usually one to willingly mix and remix songs in my free time, and finding two that worked together was quite difficult.  I cannot count the number of songs I layered in attempt to find something that worked with pitch and tempo.  I even went as far as to try mixing the Imperial March from Star Wars with Come Together by the Beatles.  (And if you’re wondering, no, it didn’t work.  At all.)  I knew I wanted to try to mix songs that were polar opposites, so I started with numerous piano melodies by Michele McLaughlin only to find that none of the upbeat songs I had would match up.  After multiple fails, I finally decided to try layering Vivaldi’s The Storm with an upbeat song I had from a drill team camp.  To my surprise, it fit perfectly with only a few alterations to the beginning.  It was my ideal translation of a cyborg through music - the classical music representing us as humans and the upbeat music representing the technology that consumes us.



Overall, it turned out better than I expected, and I must say that I am proud of my newfound amateur DJ skills.  I might even decide to play around with music mixing more in the future.  

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