Sampling and Repurposing

Hello Everyone!
I have recently finished my final paper for Digital Humanities. This paper is on music production and how sampling is a key part to, not only the music industry, but to communities and human culture as a whole. By building musical communities, people will learn more about music production and what goes on behind the scenes. Maybe this paper will inspire people to look into digital music production because, who knows, music might be a calling.

The Use of Bots in Society

Enclosed in the link below is the link to my final paper, on how bots can be used to benefit society.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wvT1R1hzKSOOd2oqETyCjXtBCCo1DdtWmz7syS6RN70/edit?usp=sharing

The paper outlines a basic definition of bots, and a few real life examples. They show how bots can be used not only for entertainment, but to also show that they can be used in a practical sense too. The interaction of humans and technology has already benefited from the use of bots, and as the technology increases, we can only assume that the bridge between humans and bots will be gapped even more.

Final Exhibits

During the week of exhibits, the students displayed their final projects for everyone to see. While they were all noteworthy, there were two that stuck out in my mind.

With Bailyn's building blocks of Digital Humanities, she outlined the entire course from start to finish. While it not only reviewed the topics we discussed in class, it also served as a reminder for how much we really did this semester and how much we really learned. She started from the very beginning, and worked up until the very end of the class, following the class schedule and assigned readings. While she mainly focused on hyperlinks, the prezi was able to show so much more than them. It was nice to see all of the work that was put in to the entire year, all wrapped up in a single presentation.

Morgan's presentation of the technology of how doctor's can see the body was a very eye-opening experience. It showed how with increasing technology, doctors can now operate and direct surgeries without even looking at their patient. They are accurate enough to reproduce the images of

the body and present them as a sort of hologram. While scans and x-rays can produce images of the body now, they are only 2-D images. With this new technology, bodies are now able to be presented in a 3-D atmosphere, with all of the defects included.

Social Media's Effects on its Users

The final project for digital humanities consisted of a brief presentation that summarized what I wanted to write about. For this part of the project, I created a Prezi because of its user-friendly and interactive nature. My project is essentially about social media and how it affects its users.

Every day, millions of people use outlets such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Different demographics are a part of this, but I really tried to focus on comparing and contrasting younger people with older age groups to show the differences in effects.

Older demographics are drawn more towards Facebook because it is so user-friendly, and because of this, the younger demographic on Twitter and Instagram is much larger. Twitter, an immediate news-sharing website, and Instagram, a photo and video-sharing website, draw in younger groups because of their instantaneous media sharing. Here is a link to my project.



-Alex

Bailyn's Final

My final paper is about how important hyperlinks are for this class and everyday life.  Throughout the paper, the history, examples, and future of hyperlinks will be addressed.  Hyperlinks are something that we used a lot in this class, and they stood out as a very important aspect to take away from this class.  My original work of electronic literature relates to the importance of hyperlinks by presenting the 14 weeks with their hyperlinks and materials from the course.  The 14 weeks are represented as the building blocks of digital humanities.  As one explores the Prezi, they will gain a recap of the important topics of this class, and an analysis of what I took away from each week.  After creating and displaying my multimedia component in class, I walked around to view the work of my classmates.  

During the last couple days of Digital Humanities, we spent the time in class collaborating our ideas and viewing each other's multimedia components.  All of the pieces that I looked at were very interesting. However, the two that I was most interested in were actually two of my tribe members.  The first one related to a bot, and it showed how bots are becoming more present in today's society.

 The example on the Prezi was how bots can be used to automatically fill in important information from emergency responder calls.  The bots will act as documentation assistance for the busy first responders who put their lives on the line each and every day.  The second multimedia component that I viewed focused on sampling and repurposing.  They took multiple different parts of a jazz songs and merged them together to create a whole new work of art.  In class we talked about this and the question of who owns the new work??  I was confused about this question until I saw it first hand, and now it is clear that the new author is the one who should be given ownership of work.  The individual told me about all of the time and effort they put into working on this piece, and after hearing the original piece versus the second, you cold tell it was a completely different song.  This is actually something we hear everyday on the radio.  Artists are always taking sections of other songs and working it into their own work, and it wasn't until this class that I got to see the repurposing being done first hand.

Final Project Exhibit

In preparation for the final project in digital humanities, the class viewed each others' final project ideas in attempt to peer-review and receive feedback before the final due date of the essay. During this exhibit, members of the class walked around as owners of the project presented a brief description of their projects on computers as the viewers critiqued the projects.

I presented via use of a Prezi, making sure to just skim over the most important points of my essay. The projects that I was able to view were similar in presentation; Prezi was used frequently because of its user-friendly layout and interactive components.

One essay presentation focused on the merging of social media and politics as well as younger generations' use of social media and its impact on their political awareness. Within this essay, the influence of Twitter bots, the sharing of articles, and the influence news sources have on social media users.

Similarly, another project I viewed was all about bots and whether or not meaning can be made from the material they produce. The bots that were included in this presentation primarily consisted of Twitter bots. The final project I viewed was about hypertext media. Within this project, the author was creating a project about the importance of hyperlinks and their history as well as their influence on digital culture.

The Swiss Army Knife of the Digital World

As humans and society evolves, technology follows in tow. With the progression of technology, producers are creating products that are multi-functional yet incapable of performing all tasks that are desired or required by their consumers. We are not incapable of producing technology that cannot perform, or converge, all of our tasks; the companies that create these products make them in such a way that renders society dependent on needing more, thus buying more.

Henry Jenkins

Convergence, in Layman's terms, is when different forms of media, or mediums, come together into one singular medium. Henry Jenkins explains convergence in his article "Convergence Culture" without necessarily defining convergence; Jenkins offers multiple examples of convergence within modern culture, allowing his readers to better understand the idea more personally. In his article, Jenkins discusses his coined term "black box," or the all-encompassing term for technology that is literally a black box-- the TV, DVD player, gaming systems, or technology of the sort. These black boxes are being converged, or combined, into simpler devices to make life more efficient and less cluttered for its users. It is theorized, however, that there will not be one singular black box to perform all tasks.

"We can see the proliferation of black boxes as symptomatic of a moment of convergence: because no one is sure what kinds of functions should be combined, we are forced to buy a range of specialized and compatible devices," this is directly from Jenkins's article in his discussion about his idea of the black box. Furthermore, if a company such as Apple created a singular black box, it would eliminate the necessity for other products or even other technology companies. Until then, however, we are left with all of our unnecessary black boxes left to converge over other various media such as, the television, Internet, and any form of technology that requires advancement. 

Always Growing and Always Learning

My latest endeavor in the world of the digital humanities was confusing but also really fun after I got started. This is an original work of electronic literature, and more specifically,it is a hypertext narrative. I hope you are able to follow the narrative and can get something from my sort of story/sort of insight on growing.

-Alex 

Original E-Lit

Hey guys,

Feel free to take a look at my original work of E-lit, "The Job You Hate to Love." It's about some significant moments during the journey of my career in the fire service to date. It starts at my first day and highlights some events chronologically, with the last event being less than a week old.

View it here.

Dreams of Death: King Heroin

Hey, Guys! Please check out my original Google Maps Essay called "Dreams of Death: King Heroin". It is about a dream I once had based off of a Heroin Epidemic back home in Harrisburg, PA.
Thank You!

Click here for Dreams of Death: King Heroin

Archiving Drugs

    For centuries, people all over the world have chased an alternate dimension, or a different state of mental capabilities through the access of drugs.  They seek another state of mind and personality to explore, no matter how detrimental to their health or well-being.  Not to mention, illegal possessions which have greater repercussions.  Essentially, only one thing has changed over all of these years, and that is the method of how drugs are prepared and used.

    Something that would be eye-opening and most likely beneficial to society is to have an archive of some of the different paraphernalia used with the drugs. It would be a great way to see not only all of the differences but also some of the similarities from the early days of drug usage to today. Some of the archaic instruments that they may have used in the early 18^th century may not even be around nowadays for people to view.

Think of it as almost the same deal as a car: in the beginning, everything was very primitive-- there was nothing fancy about anything, it was made to simply do one job and one job only. The

same can be said about drug paraphernalia. It was most likely made to be used with drugs, and throughout the years, it has been modified to look like an everyday object because of the degree of police coverage and experience with drugs. Especially with the epidemic that our country is facing these days, it would be able to help people identify possible dangerous situations and maybe even help them save someone’s life.

    The way to go about creating a drug archive would be to first obtain a domain name on the internet.  From there, find some of the older paraphernalia dating back to the 18^th century and photograph it, making the pictures appear chronologically. It could start with the original devices and show the modifications made throughout the centuries and decades leading up to present day items used in drug abuse. Not only would it open up knowledge to the types of use, but it could also serve as a reminder that it is a very real situation that occurs more than most people think.  This archive would be beneficial to everyone, but most importantly to the future of our children and the safety of our country.

December Weekend in NYC

December Weekend in NYC

Please check out my original work of electronic literature.  This is a detailed description of a weekend I spent in NYC in December of 2014.

Data Mining Our Blogs

As we make our way through digital humanities, we are learning many different tools that allow us to view our work of electronic literature in many abstract ways.  This week, we are learning about data mining.  Data mining allows us to read behind the lines of our electronic words, which reveals the frequency of our text, redundancy, etc.  The two main tools that we used were Voyant and Google Ngram Viewer, which were offered to us from Dr. Justus.  Voyant allows users to enter text into the program, where it then pulls the most frequently used words and creates a collage of words.  There are many different tools built into this program, one of which allows the viewer to watch the program draw a map of the words.  Google Ngram Viewer is a tool that shows the timeline of words within any given time frame.  This program is unique in the way that it shows how words such as 'virtual' and 'identity' have a direct correlation as well as their frequency of usage. While researching, using our first blog posts, "What is Digital Humanities?" we found some surprising information.

Based off of what we found from the results on Voyant, the Ngram tool has provided us with some insight on how some of the most popular terms have been used and have correlated historically. According to Ngram, the terms humanities and DH have peaked very little, if not at all. With DH being very situation dependent, there is no surprise there. there is only some activity on it around 1980. Human and culture, on the other hand, have shared a bit of popularity over the years. They both experienced a spike in use around the 1960's, which is around the hippy movement, when everyone really started to focus on the human movement. As humanity started to progress into the 2000's, both of the words have risen simultaneously, sharing almost the same slope for both of them.

My Relevance in Social Media

Life is tough as a young adult placed in a social setting; further worsening the situation, digitize said social setting and you have a world made up of multiple social media platforms where people from all over the world can interact. As a young adult and a user of five different social media platforms, I can say with full confidence that the "self" I portray on each website is different but also similar in some ways. 

In the article "The Self in Selfie: Identity in the Age of Social Media," the author explains how social media users portray themselves differently than they do in real life. Take a celebrity, Kim Kardashian, as an example and look at how she portrays her life on Instagram-- in every photo, everyone is always posed perfectly, their skin is always smooth with no stretch or wrinkle, and even when she is "bare-faced," she still looks perfect. 

A contrasting example of this idea is my personal Twitter account. Although two completely different platforms of social media, my Twitter account contrasts with Kim Kardashian's Instagram. My tweets are more honest and tend to be stream of consciousness that fit within a certain sarcastic narrative. In person I am quiet and I don't share my opinions unless I feel comfortable to do so. On Twitter, I share my opinions freely with my followers as well as anything that is relevant to social media culture. This starkly contrasts with Kim K's use of her social media because she filters what her followers take in while I tweet statements that directly reflect my thoughts. 

Tim Virtual Identity

I feel as though my virtual reality mirrors my actual self fairly well. I like to think that I'm a fairly straight forward person, and content enough with who I am to share with others. Some people, I have noticed, try to bolster their appearance on social media to maybe make themselves seem more impressive. The question I always ask is who are you trying to impress? My pages are me. The sarcasm that I share on my pages and the sick and sometimes sadistic humor that make an appearance on my page are the same things that I enjoy in real life. Of course, I use the term "enjoy" very loosely. Personally, I use social media for a form of entertainment. When I log into Facebook or Instagram, I like to look a posts and pages that make me feel happy, or leave me laughing. With that, I like to try and instill the same feeling amongst those that may be viewing my page or seeing what I post. I don’t want to be characterized as one of those people that are always complaining about every minute detail about their life to their Facebook friends instead of hitting the problem head-on to mitigate it. In the same token, with today’s electronic society, the last thing that I want is for a future employer to look at my page(s) and see nothing but vulgarity and negativity. If I were an employer and see nothing but complaining and whining on someone’s page, that screams to me that the person is not proactive. They would rather sit back and ride the wave, rather than swim through it and fight the resistance. With that being said, if my personal page is nothing but unprofessional, what will that look like to someone that is looking in to hiring me as a part of their company? They say that first impressions can mean the world. What more is social media than one giant first impression? Wouldn’t you want it to be the best that it possibly can?

Bailyn's Virtual Identity

What is a Virtual Identity?

A virtual identity is a profile that an individual makes on social medias such as Facebook, Instagram, or even videogames.  Those who create the accounts are completely free to manage the account however they please, selectively choosing what information other viewers get to see.  According to CNN.com, “In a virtual world, online identity is potentially much more flexible than real identity, allowing easily changes in race, class, gender, age, socio-economic background, and even species.”  Virtual identities are sometimes an escape for people, where there are able to perceive their lives differently than the real world.  Actually- as I am writing this blog I keep singing Brad Paisley’s song, Online…it is directly related to this topic!  Not all online profiles fake information to make an individual look more impressive, they can also show more personal information to the public that isn’t necessarily known.  Take LinkedIn for instance, it allows professionals to talk about their business success, certificates received, and to connect with potential employers near and far.  For this type of account, it is crucial for the account information to be correct and up to date.  In all aspects, virtual identity offers more for others to see than a driver’s license, or personal image in the real world.

My Virtual Identity

With the internet becoming more modern, it is common for everyone to have online accounts.  I have accounts on Ingram, Facebook, Pinterest, etc.  I feel like my virtual identity is very true to who I am in real life as well.  I don’t have any fake accounts, I don’t post stuff that I don’t believe in, and I am constantly updating information as it becomes known.  We talked as a class about whether or not we actually exist in a virtual reality, or if it is just our conscious.  I believe that a little bit of everyone’s conscious resides in every online account they create.  When we are making those profiles as a snapshot into our lives, we are very tedious, accurate, and judgmental of ourselves.  We want to look perfect in the eyes of others, therefore we are always worried about what they are seeing, thinking, and reading.  The days of technology advancing, our conscious is only going to become more submerged in online identities as the years go on.

Is Human Intelligence Natural?

I believe that Human Intelligence is natural, and that we were placed on this earth in order to learn and develop our brains and knowledge over time.  It all starts in pre-school where we learn the basics and it gets harder over time as we seek higher education and challenging degrees.  We all have different abilities which shape the way in which we learn, but in one way or another, every person on this earth is learning something or demonstrating something they have learned, every single day.  There are some instances where natural human intelligence needs to be controlled, just to maintain appropriateness for example.  There is a quote I read online that is perfect for this paragraph, because it explains how human intelligence is natural, endless, and enhancing our future.  “Human Intelligence and ingenuity have consistently and repeatedly unlocked technological and scientific advances that have raised the standard of living each generation compared to its predecessor, while increasing the ability of human society to support larger numbers of people and increasing the carrying capacity of the planet.”  This quote ties us into the next section, about natural intelligence in terms of technology, where it is argued that intelligence in terms of technology is not natural, but instead programmed.

Is Technology Intelligence Natural?

I do not believe that computer intelligence is natural.  Just because technology is able to respond to us when we ask certain questions or select certain buttons, it was not able to do that without prior help.  I argue this opinion because somewhere, behind the scenes, there is someone who had to program the technology to be capable for responding intelligently.  A computer by itself is not smart, and has no prior knowledge of its own.  Take Siri for instance, if you do not ask her questions in a specific sequence, she is not helpful at all.  Siri would probably be able to pass the Turing test, but it is not something thought of to have natural intelligence.  Think about it, Siri is programmed in English, so what happens if you want to use a different language…will it work??  On the supporting side, some argue that because our suggestions on Facebook for ‘people you may know’ are 90% correct that we know that person, it does classify as natural intelligence.  Wrong.  Facebook is able to recommend stuff to us, based on a program that gives feedback based on the links you click on.  We, the users, and giving the programmers information that they are relaying back to us through the computer software. 

Video Game Memes

Video Games - Related Statement

Video Games Can be Respected as Literature???

Video Games Can Improve my Life?

Video Games in Education...what's the point?

In the grand scheme of things, I think we can all agree on the fact that video games now contribute an integral part in to our everyday lives. Many use them as an activity of leisure, some use it to take out pent up aggression, and others have even found a way to incorporate it into sport. Whatever the platform that they are used, there is a notion to be discussed of whether or not video games deserve to be placed into a category of literature.

When we think video games, no one should be surprised that they share many of these same characteristics. Just as the reader moves systematically through a book or some other work of literature, the player of a video game is forced to systematically move through the game, starting from the beginning and moving through the middle to the end.

When talking about literature, what are some of the main components to point out? Throughout grade school, we are taught that literature and stories have a beginning, middle, and end. They have characters, they have a setting, and they have a plot line. These characteristics should have a familiar ring to them.

Often times, video game can also be based directly off of movies, which can be the result of a novel. This forces the video game to follow the exact plot and use the exact same characters in the exact same setting that the book did. The only difference is that instead of flipping through pages to navigate the plot, now the player controls the character as they move through the story and can manipulate them however they please. Essentially, they are still subjected to the same plot line and setting, but depending on the circumstances, they can now draw out their own route through the storyline.  Video games also have the ability to tell stories, such as the piece That Dragon, Cancer.  This tells a story through a video game, which is a huge area for opportunity for those students that are not good readers in the original format.  This may even offer more more to the viewer, who will be able to take away more than they would have originally.

I think we can learn that sometimes we view content so objectively we fail to examine the innards of what our activity really portrays. In the onset of video games, and even still today, they are thought of as something that is distracting and disruptive to society. People try to associate the growing violence rate of society to the growing violence rate in video games and often try to associate some types of games as a sort of taboo. Many people can benefit from learning about the engagement that it takes to operate a video game and the amount of brain power that some games may take to navigate through. For example, in Zork, the path way for the player to take to navigate the woods or the house is not necessarily written in black and white. It takes a considerable amount of trial and error to obtain items and work your way through the game, whether it be entering the house, or even the dungeon.

With regards to classrooms, video games should absolutely be studied, especially in a high school setting. Today’s youth is more and more inclined to be using these devices, which creates an interest for them. By discussing what they are interested in, they are more likely to listen, learn, and ultimately gain more from their educational experience.  Instead of thinking of literature as simply stories written decades ago on pen and paper, if the stories can be translated into something that the students can relate to, they can excel in their studies and ultimately have a completely different outlook on school altogether.

What the fuck is going on here?

In week 6 of digital humanities, we have been

focusing on the concept of “uncreative writing.”  Uncreative writing is taking some form of original text, whether it is a song, book, or an article, and transforming it into another form of art.  Most of the time, the text is converted into some type of poem, as we saw in a previous tribe’s blog post.  The only downfall to uncreative writing are the many hard to answer questions of meaning and authorship.  First of all, meaning does not have to be black and white.  For example, those who do not know how this poem was generated could argue that it has meaning.  Just like any other poem, there is rhyming, repetition, stanzas, and hidden messages.  Even though it is not your typical poem about love, life, or friendship, it is has potential to be meaningful to any given reader that can find a relation to it.  Second, who actually owns the final art work – the author of the original text, the publisher, or the author of the newly creative piece??  To help us answer these questions we have read articles by Kenneth Goldsmith and Mark L. Sample, who both support and encourage uncreative writing, for it is not plagiarism.  In Goldsmith’s article, he supports using others' work by stating:

Kenneth Goldsmith

“Is this writing or is it mere transcription? It depends on who you ask…to an uncreative writer – one who finds unexpected linguistic, narrative, and emotional richness by subtly shifting frames of reference in words they themselves didn’t write – it’s art.” 

Sample also shows support for uncreative writing by telling his students their work is meaningful.  Samples argues:

“I strive to instill in my students the sense that what they think and what they say and what they write matters—to me; to them; to their classmates; and, through open access blogs and wikis, to the world.” 

Both authors go into more detail in their full articles with examples of how this uncreative writing is truly a new form of art.  As we discuss our work of uncreative writing below, we can refer back to Goldsmith and Sample’s articles to help determine who has ownership of our artwork.

In support of both of these articles, we were encouraged to make our own piece of uncreative writing.  We did this by watching multiple YouTube videos portraying a Donald Trump and Game of Thrones remix, the Badass Honey Badger, best clips from Ellen, Mr. Rogers, and Kanye West.  As we watched about 30 seconds of the video clips, our tribe typed what we heard in Google Hangouts so all of the tribe members could contribute at the same time.  We then copied all our responses and composed the lines into a poem.  The end result was a hilarious outcome of repetition and catchy phrases.  Our tribe’s poem gained its name from a line added by an absent tribe member who had no idea what we were composing at the time.  The blog can be found by clicking on the following link: What the fuck is going on here?

Let's Break Stuff

Broken Image

Self-generating Text

As discussed in prior blog posts, the realm of digital humanities is broad and ever-expanding. A small facet within this realm lies within self-generating text. Self-generating text is essentially text that is entered into a software program and then the text is rearranged by the computer that runs the software to make new sentences and phrases. This has created problems within the art world in terms of authorship; who gets what credit and where is a gray area full of split hairs.

Camel Tail

A prime example of problematic authorship in self-generating text can be found in Sonny Rae Tempest’s “Camel Tail”-- a piece where author Sonny Rae Tempest takes lyrics from Metallica songs, and works them through software developed by Nick Montfort. The question readers and DHers alike have found themselves facing is “who truly owns ‘Camel Tail?’” Considering all this, is the computer itself an artist having brought Sonny Rae Tempest’s idea to life?

If Ownership was a Pie Chart, Who Would Get the Biggest Slice?

Credits: Yellow- Metallica, Red- Sonny Rae Tempest,
Blue- Computer

Metallica wrote the words and their original placement, Nick Montfort synthesized the software that arranges the words, and Sonny Rae Tempest came up with the raw pulp of the art where the idea of the art lies. Assigning ownership to a singular artist of a multi-layered piece like this is, as aforementioned, getting down to the nitty gritty of hair splitting. Sonny Rae Tempest obviously owns the piece because it was his idea to compile these works and create the self-generating poem “Camel Tail.” Metallica, however, still owns the words and phrases that may or may not get mish-mashed together because the piece mentions directly that the lyrics are pulled from the band’s works. Nick Montfort, similar to Metallica, authors “Camel Tail” indirectly; by creating the coding that creates the patterns Metallica’s lyrics follow, he has a hand in writing the poetry. Because he had no knowledgeable intention of being able to make meaning for his readers at the time of creation of his software, he has no real connection with “Camel Tail’s” readers as Sonny Rae Tempest does.

Which Slices Have the Most Filling?

Since Metallica’s lyrics are chopped up and used one word at a time, their ownership, and thus artistic intentions and connections with the readers are less meaningful. Similarly, Nick Montfort created his software with intentions to make self-generating poetry; out of his artistic context, his inten meaning is lost and substituted with Sonny Rae Tempest’s. Meaning within the self-generated poem is given in two parts: the first is through the maker’s creative intentions and the second is through the readers’ interpretations of the poetry created.

The Ouroboros of the Digital Humanities World

The meaning that gives “Camel Tail” its meaning lies within the work’s readers; to put it plainly, an artist’s audience is diverse and because of this, every member of that audience is going to interpret the piece a little bit differently. Self-generating text has no true, definite meaning, but its readers give the pieces they view meaning by applying what their personal background knowledge. 

Tailspin

A Look into Tailspin

     Christine Wilks brings the Internet and all its users an interactive piece of electronic literature. This piece, named Tailspin, can come off as quite odd to the viewers. Without the description on the home page, one may find himself lost in this crafted digital realm confused by the distorted cartoons and overly amplified music and sound effects. The lack of color throughout the piece creates a space of dark emotions and pushes these effects upon the audience.

     Even though all this media takes place all at once, it is quite necessary to focus on the work's purpose. The piece focuses on a former air plane mechanic from World War II with a hearing impairment. Due to his hearing loss, or tinnitus, he tends to get angry with his grandchildren easily. Frequent miscommunication leads his grandchildren to be confused by his anger. The way the author created this piece allows the audience to understand how life plays out from the grandfather's perspective. The portrayal of obnoxious and over-amplified tones of scratching forks, chuckles, and video game tones are enough to irritate some readers. It can be implied that the old man's loss of hearing started dating back to the war or is a result of fighting in the war.
     Living with the grandfather seems to be quite fearsome to the children. They do not talk at dinner because they have learned it is best to just let him do the talking at the family meals because they do not want to trigger their grandfather. The piece focuses and plays with the idea of shame. The feeling of shame is present when the old man is addressed about using a hearing aid or even just listening about new studies on tinnitus. The former army mechanic may be feeling this shame because his hearing loss can be a sign of his old age which leads him to deny that he has a problem. His daughter has adapted to his stubborn choice of not seeking aid by keeping quiet and not raising voices or shrieking. The kids also learned to follow in their mother's footsteps when dealing with their grandfather. The mother has adapted to be passive with her father since he won't listen, and realize it is best to leave him alone when he is angry.

Written by Chase 
Edited by Bailyn
Hyperlinks by Alex
Media by Tim 

my body — a Wunderkammer

Main Page of My Body

Summary 

The digital humanity selection, “My Body – A Wunderkammer,” by Shelley Jackson, illustrates a young woman's thoughts, feelings, and memories as she discovers her changing body.  Through hypertext interaction the viewer is able to explore the young girl’s body, both internally and externally.  One may start exploring wherever they please.  No matter where the exploration begins, the viewer will enjoy a narrative of the body and explore different body parts.  

Significance/Message
The main point of the artwork is to show the reader how all of the body parts are interrelated.  One memory can be linked to another through body parts and shared emotions.  The author describes the body as a cabinet that preserves memories in all of its parts, each to be opened and accessed when a certain memory is provoked.  This text also exemplifies that a woman's external identity is often very visible to the public eye, based on historical events and femininity; however, this piece further reveals internal or personal identity--  meaning that even though we are given public identities, it is often for individuals to have personal identities based on our past events and memories.

Relation to the Reader and Ideas it Portrays

Within the text of "My Body-- A Wunderkammer," Jackson takes the reader through a graphic portrayal of growing up and coming of age through the usage of hyperlinks, sketches, and prose. By clicking on each hyperlink within the story, the reader is lead to different parts of the story. Seemingly disjointed at first, "My Body-- A Wunderkammer" is merely a composition of memories that, as the reader makes his or her way through the story, realizes that the author has no true order to the story. Because of the story's lack of order, the author forces the reader into interpreting the story however he or she best relates. 

"My Body-- A Wunderkammer" best shows its readers raw, honest memories and associations made by the human mind during adolescence. Its honesty connects almost directly to the reader in some way surrounding growing up regarding sexuality, way of thinking, or even common emotional connection to the human psyche. Throughout the story, the author portrays her sexuality in such a way that is graphic yet starkly honest that it corners the reader into witnessing Jackson's memories muddled by creative liberties. The word "wunderkammer" literally translates to a cabinet where rarities are kept; when Jackson tells of the graphic sexual memories she has of experimenting with her body, it is like she holds these memories, or rarities, within her. This is also relevant to the other memories Jackson narrates for her readers. 

Relation to the Reader and Ideas it Portrays - Alex Douglas

Hyperlinks - Tim

Summary and Significance/Message - Bailyn Yost

Media - Chase Vazquez 

What is Digital Humanities?

Digital Humanities is an evolving area of study that is continuously editing and changing its definition and name. Making a debut as early as 1950, Digital Humanities has gone through several names, but still deals with study of human culture and history. Humanities itself was the study of human cultures through the realm of literature, art, music, and philosophy. Now adding the digital aspects allow scholars to digitize the old study and allows new cultural operations to happen. DH broadens the spectrum in which scholars and communities can collaborate to create new ways of learning and reading, and also make the old information more accessible. As stated earlier, DH is always evolving, and that is due to the always evolving internet/technology allowing it to be easier for those interested in the study to learn together and create together. Nowadays, technology and the internet are key in society. Social media is a rising platform, which is beneficial by effortlessly creating communities. With growing environments and tools, the simplest of creations can be created from a handheld device such as iPhones or other smartphones and shared onto social media. 

Tim Meyers DH Definition

Digital Humanities, or DH, is ultimately the combination of the study of the interactions of humans and how different types of technology incorporate themselves into these interactions. Whereas in the past, technology has simply been viewed as a type of media to exchange information from point A to point B, it has now embedded itself in the everyday lives of human beings. Technology, which is also digital, meaning zeros and ones in the binary code, can produce vast arrays of forms of art or different methods or modes of communication. Not only does it encompass the method of how we, as humans, interact with one another, but it also uncovers a sort of evolution of the way that society passes ideas. Different cultures may adopt new ideas or improve on their methods, for example, because of something that they saw through a digital medium. Whereas in the past, come cultures or ways of life may have been isolated and separated from the rest of the world, they now have a broad spectrum of opportunities to either adopt some of the characteristics of some other culture from across the globe, or they may also immerse themselves in the way of life of some other sort of culture, completely abandoning their entire way of life. With Digital Humanities, we, as a human race, now have the opportunity to expand our horizons in such a way that just from a simple work of literature that may be posted online, we can influence the way that other humans interact from tens of thousands of miles away.

What is Digital Humanities?

Digital humanities is an all-encompassing term used to describe the ever-evolving world of the arts in modern day society. The term can be broken down into two parts-- digital and humanities. "Humanities," before it became digital, held the key parts of human culture such as visual arts, writing, linguistics, music, theater, reading, history, anthropology, and even philosophy. To put it simply, the humanities are the divisions that hold the interpretations and studies of human culture. As time progressed into the "digital" era-- 1950s and forward-- the humanities started to evolve into something even broader just as human culture evolved. With technological advances, come cultural advances which leads to the eventual recognizing of the digital humanities. In order to describe the digital humanities, one must have an understanding of the evolution of human culture and the strong technological influence over the culture. When combining the digital world with the humanities, culture and human knowledge expand almost infinitely-- or at least as far as the technological world will allow. This umbrella-like idea holds now the digital humanities as well as the original humanities. Digital humanities holds media that can be found online, stored on a computerized facility, or any sort of art form expressed through technology. Similar to the original subject of humanities, digital humanities is merely an expansion of the term-- stretched to better fit the technological and human artistic advances of modern times.

-Alex

BY's Definition of DH

Digital humanities is a fairly new area of study that will eventually overtake the humanities department, due to its lack of uniform and openness to creativity.  Daisy Abbott once stated that DH is, "opening up new knowledge and new ways of learning through the application of digital technologies to any humanities subject." As we learned in class, DH was discovered around 1950, and since then it has changed names, definitions, and understandings of what it has to offer to universities, businesses and individuals.  It is an area of study that will continuously change because it's dependent on technology which is never consistent in this day of age.  The uniqueness of DH allows all of the individuals who utilize it, to perceive it in their own personal way instead of using a template or a format that has been laid out and used time and time again.  Research, trial and error, and creativity are the backbone of digital humanities.  Some may utilize it for literature, and others will utilize it for art.  DH enables narrators to bring their stories to life by making their pieces less text centered and more design driven, and it allows artists to take something from its primary source to its digitalized form.  DH has a permanent atmosphere, meaning that once something enters the digital format, it is permanent.  This specific characteristic of digital humanities is beneficial to all who utilize it because their work will always be preserved and accessible.