Participatory Mode Activity - Interview with an Exmormom

For this project, I interviewed my friend Jake. Jake was born and raised in the church, but has since left it. He is also gay. Anything spoken by me (Jeff) is in bold. Anything spoken by Jake is in regular text.

When did you first know you were gay?

I didn’t accept that I was gay until I was 19 years old. But all throughout my teenage years I fought my sexuality subconsciously, basically. But I wasn’t recognizing it or accepting it for what it was. After I accepted it when I was 19 years old, I was able to look back and see from—even when I was a child I could identify that it had always been there. But it wasn’t something that I knew and accepted till I was 19.

To use the same phrasing, when did you first know you were Mormon? In other words, when did you first feel like you personally believed in the LDS Church as a religion?

Probably in ninth or tenth grade when I started seminary. That was probably when my belief was at its strongest, and when I wanted to go to every possible meeting and activity and do the things that I was supposed to do.

What do you think made you want to do the things you were supposed to do?

I think because that time of my life—and through seminary classes—it was the first experience I had with actually trying to dissect certain scriptures or parts of the gospel. And I started to realize that it was more than this thing that I just did every Sunday. I realized that I wanted the scriptures to be more than just words I read every day. I wanted to understand it as something bigger and more complex and true. So I set out to do that.

When did you first know or feel that you didn’t believe in the church?

The first major doubts that I had—where I questioned if I had been right my whole life—was when I went through the temple the first time. It really unsettled me and it didn’t feel right. So that was the first time, I think, that there was something that I was supposed to love about the church and I didn’t’ like it at all. And I wanted it to not exist.

And then as far as when I first knew that I didn’t believe in the church—in a more assertive sense—was summer 2014, when I was turning 21 years old. That one wasn’t as much a moment as much as it was just a process that whole summer. I just started thinking more about that temple experience and thinking about other things that I’d heard or that I’d read about or thought about on my own that seemed to not match up with what I always wanted the church to be. So I started to look more into those issues. To explore those feelings or thoughts. It was toward the end of that summer that I came to the conclusion that I didn’t believe the church was true.

If I’m understanding right, some of those things that you heard or saw or read would sometimes be called Anti-Mormon literature, right?

Yeah.

How do you feel about that term? Do you feel like that kind of stuff is discussed fairly?

I think it is discussed extremely unfairly. I think that 95% of what members of the church consider to be Anti-Mormon is not what I would consider to be Anti-Mormon. I think things that should be considered Anti-Mormon are things that are making things up, or things that have an extremely hateful or biased attitude towards the church.

But what I learned throughout my questioning and research was that a lot of things that are labeled as Anti-Mormon by members of the church—really all they’re doing is exploring historical events and the documents and journals that we have as proof of those events or things like that. They’re just people who want to discuss what actually happened. They’re not these angry, bitter people who want to tear the church apart. They just want to find the truth, and they just want to share what they have determined to be the truth with other people.

So some people say the truth is Anti-Mormon because the truth doesn’t match up with what the church teaches. So I could see that viewpoint in some ways. But I don’t think that what most of what people consider to be Anti-Mormon is Anti-Mormon. Most of the stuff that I have an issue with is stuff that the church has addressed in their own materials. They might just emphasize different aspects of it to make it seem a little different or less heavy than it happened or might have happened.

What do you think of Mormons who have never encountered this kind of information?

Well, what I think of them is that they’re still great people, of course. I mean, that position would have described me for the first 20 years of my life. So I definitely don’t feel any kind of disdain or anger towards people who stand up strongly for their beliefs, especially if they haven’t encountered that kind of information. And even if they have, they still have the right to stand up for what they believe. So, I mean, my opinion is that many people—if they did encounter that information they would reconsider their beliefs, basically. But there’s just such a strong stigma of reading anything that’s not officially put out by the church that no one ever goes near any of that and they assume that it’s all Anti-Mormon.

Do you feel that your sexual orientation played any kind of a role between your doubt and belief during that period of time?

Yeah, it did. I realized one major issue that kind of consumed me was that I couldn’t believe I was part of an organization whose teachings had made me feel suicidal or ashamed—basically all my life. So, yeah, I would say my sexual orientation played a part in that way.

Also, anything that had ever been taught to me about my sexual orientation in the church just did not resonate with me at all. I could not understand how any of it could be possible, it didn’t feel right. So it did play a part in it in that aspect. But I wouldn’t say that I lost my belief in it or that I left the church because I’m gay. That was definitely not a driving factor.

Obviously this is not a very fair question because it’s speculation. But if you hadn’t encountered any of the other issues in the church, and if it had only been your sexual orientation, do you think that you would have stayed in the church? Or do you think there still would have been big enough issues between reconciling the two that it would have—you know—what do you think your actions would have been?

One big way that my sexual orientation did play a part in things was it tore me apart so much about what I should do with my life that it brought me to this place of, “Okay, if I’m going to commit to this gospel and be alone for the rest of my life, I want to address all these doubts that I have and make sure it’s true.” Or vice versa, you know, “If I’m gonna damn my soul by having relationships with men, I wanna address these doubts first and not leave it hanging.”

But if I would still be in the church if I hadn’t encountered that information—yeah, I think I would. It’s  a hard question to answer because I know I would be so miserable that, maybe that on its own would be enough to make me start searching for more answers which would maybe eventually lead me to encounter the same information. So it’s just hard to imagine. But without encountering that information I do believe that, yeah, I would still be in the church.

Lastly, I’ll just ask—what are your religious beliefs now, or what’s your religious stance?

Very agnostic. I have no sense of spirituality or believing in any kind of higher power or energy. I just believe that things are what they are. I feel it’s unfair to claim absolute knowledge of anything. That’s why I don’t consider myself an atheist. Because I think that just because there’s no evidence of a god—that’s no proof that there is no god. If that makes sense. So, I try to be open to any kind of religious idea that might resonate with me. But none of them have at this point in time because I just can’t find myself wanting or feeling that there’s any kind of higher power.

Okay, thank you!

Fireside Chat

As I started working on this assignment, the idea of just giving an oral presentation never crossed my mind. I’m sure it was just some latent part of my personality, but I felt like I had to give a performance. So, as I thought and thought about different beliefs I held and different ways I could perform them, I finally remembered this poem I had written for a creative writing class a semester ago:

I woke up God

at three in the morning

to ask him if he was real.

I apologized for inconveniencing him,

of course,

but that was only a cordiality—

in fact I felt justified

because my question seemed very pressing

at the time.

“Maybe,” he said—

and I could hear the groggy impatience in his voice—

“but for all intents and purposes not right now.

Now go back to sleep.”

I cried

but then I went to bed

as that seemed like a reasonable answer

for three in the morning.

That was the first idea I had of something that I could perform.

I actually like the poem better than my performance—I think because it is more open ended—but I also value the performance I gave because it is more personal to me and my beliefs.

After I gave my performance, I feel like I received mixed reactions from the class about it. Specifically, Jared told me, “It was good, but surprising.” I didn’t know what to make of that at first, but as I thought about it, I realized that my fireside chat may have come across as less positive and hopeful than I intended for it to. In the church, we often hear things like, “Doubt your doubts before you doubt your beliefs” and “Focus on what you do know, not what you don’t.” As I made my presentation, I felt that it did that, but I realize it also exposed a doubtful side to my beliefs. However, for me, my main belief I wanted to share was that no matter who or what God is, if he exists, I believe that he will be willing to see us for who we are and what we are trying to do, not for any other beliefs we may or may not have. I realize that my presentation exposed some doubts I may have about religion and God as well—but for me, the main thing was the hope I have that everything will be alright in the end.

Anyway, outside of myself, I thought the Fireside Chat was incredible. I loved every single presentation given, and I loved the response the class gave to everyone. Everyone was willing to make some part of themselves vulnerable to share what they believe with the class, and that’s something that I find especially valuable. Everyone else reminded me of other things I believe, and the whole night pretty much just brought me a lot of peace.

Concerned Citizen: Artsy

While making this assignment, we decided to show a lot of Greg’s actual art in the two restaurants. This was able to show the ambiance that his art created in the restaurants. We also wanted to show exactly what kinds of things Greg was doing, instead of just having him sit and tell us. Instead of taking his word for it, we could see for ourselves the effect that he was having on the community. We were luckily able to get easy access to the restaurants that he worked with.   

This assignment brought Lizzie Velàsquez to mind. Lizzie is a motivational speaker and author that was labeled the ugliest woman in 2012. Lizzie suffers from a horrible disorder that prevents her from gaining body fat. She is blind in one eye and has a very weak immune system. She is also only 26 years old. After having two very offensive YouTube videos released about her, she became a motivational speaker against bullying. Lizzie now has a large following of supporters that have her back. This is so inspirational because Lizzie reaches beyond her community to help other people. She performs an exemplary service by being a role model for youth and an advocate against bullying. What Greg does is very inspiring because he tries to encourage goodness through his art. If we had more people like Greg and Lizzie that serve the people around them, this world would be awesome.

In, From Datastan to Storyland, Arlene Goldberg explains the ways that providing a personal, human story helps people connect to issues and causes in ways that mere data and planning cannot. For instance, she points out that, although President Obama and his administration have tried to address various social problems, Goldberg points out that although politicians often create programs to do so, they are often unable to get the support and acknowledgement they need to bring about significant change. However, this type of change is more likely to come about when we learn about these problems and their solutions when they are rooted in personal stories that connect people to culture. Greg and his colleagues’ work addresses problems of lack of culture and exposure in the Provo/Orem area. By presenting his story as an extension of himself, our documentary may help others to see the change, excitement, and bonding that can come about when we bring playful art into our community.

Greg explained that he chose to help with this work because he grew up in Provo, and he feels like the community he grew up in influences his current work. He chose to give back to that community by sharing his work in a permanent way with a variety of members of the community. His work reflects the simple, suburban life that was central to his childhood, and by choosing to work on these projects, he gave some of himself back to that community.

Game for Change: Calm - An Autism Spectrum Story

Play the game: http://twinery.org/2/#stories/07162a92-38af-40e8-6348-6acb808a14ad/play

Recently, I watched Dan Gilroy’s Nightcrawler. I have a family member with Asperger’s Syndrome, and this film made me think about mediated representations of social neurodevelopmental disorders more critically. Jake Gyllenhaal’s character in the film reminded me a lot (like, disturbingly well) of my family member with Asperger’s, so at first I was excited to see the representation. I hoped it would help people be sympathetic towards people who do not understand social norms in the same ways that they do. However, by the end of the film, the character seemed to be written off as just a psychopath, which seemed completely unhealthy to me. He is often treated poorly in the film—just like people in real life with high-functioning autism—but I didn’t feel like the film did anything to make that conversation healthier. As such, I wanted to focus my game on this topic.

In my research, I skimmed a few scholarly articles about these types of disorders. They pointed out key aspects of people with these disorders to me, such as the ability to empathize just as well as neurotypical people, as long as the need for empathy is clearly stated (Hirvelä and Hirkama, “Empathy, morality, values, and Asperger’s Syndrome). I also read a lot about the diagnosis of from the Mayo clinic’s website. These sources revealed scientific aspects of the disorder to me, which are helpful. However, I gained the most valuable information from Tony Attwood’s The Complete Guide to Asperger’s. This book goes over real examples of how people with Asperger’s function. It revealed a lot of concrete ways that these types of disorders work, and which I was able to understand from interacting with people in my own life.

I tried to incorporate as much of this information as possible into my game, which I think turned out to be a bad idea. Although there are similarities among people with Asperger’s and other forms of high-functioning autism, no two people experience it in the same way. My game tried to tell multiple stories, which really didn’t accomplish much. I think it would have been stronger if I had only focused on one or two aspects of the disorder (such as an inability to perceive nonverbal cues or obsessive hobbies), rather than trying to incorporate all the elements I am aware of. Additionally, I found myself including personal, emotional nuances that are true of myself but probably not true of people with high-functioning autism. As such, I am quite confident my game is a poor representation of the disorder. But at least it tries to be sympathetic.

Fortunately, as part of my research, I also came across some much better mediated depictions of these types of disorders than Nightcrawler. Namely, this episode of the children’s TV show Arthur—https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsmjwHW40ps—(seriously, watch it, it’s really good). Other good representations come from people who have Asperger’s or high-functioning autism themselves. These discussions can be found all over YouTube, and they're really great and eye-opening.

Worldbuilding: Pop Fiction Reality

For our world building concept, we choose a world in which the most popular fictitious books became reality.  This concept opened up a lot of hypotheticals and allowed us to examine the ethical, governmental, and societal repercussions.  We took a timeline approach to examining this world, beginning with a “Eureka” moment of discovery focused Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None which is one of the best-selling books in history, and then we went on to examine how government agencies would control and experiment with the power, and how pop culture would react when the power when it became known.

Bleecker’s concept of Design Fiction thematically focuses on the implications of creating an imaginary world and considering its implications through narrative. From there, these narratives can be used to think about the way objects and ideas work in the real world. Interestingly, our world focused on the ability to imagine a new aspect of the world and to have it eventually literally come to life.

As a design fiction, our world brings into focus several topics, such as the significance of popularity in bringing about change, free will versus destiny, going to extreme measures to stop others from going to extreme measures, the power of collaborative efforts, the effects of prescriptive rules versus scientific approaches to learning about the world, and several others. Our world was probably a little too complex to dig very deeply into any of these topics, but it at least called all of them into question.

World building is a requirement in most television shows, films, and videogames today. Viewers seek to be fully immersed in the universe of the story. The Legend of Zelda video game series is strongly developed playable world. The series has 3 major components reincarnation and worship, land of Hyrule, and diversity in mystical races. The more generalized categories for these the components are beliefs, setting, and characters. World building is founded on similar principles as the structuring of plot. The world of Hyrule shares the effect of the endless battle between good and evil.

The world we created was a clever and expansive world. We gave humanity the power to create anything through words. The one rule that restricts this god-like power is the quantity of readership. But even with this requirement, the world had incredibly difficult possibilities to present. The major issue that would rear its head in society was the politics of readership and authorship. This allowed for a timeline of events that channeled the possible political struggle. On the other hand, what the people would wear, eat, or even use in everyday was difficult to specify.

It’s a frightening concept that popularity can alter history, but it’s also a real concept.  Our unique slant allows us to examine the repercussions of an extreme example, and re-examine how our world functions today as a result.  We are all so intriguing that we are eager to continue exploring this alternate reality and and sharing it with the world.

Discovery Journal Entries

Governmental Experiment

Webspinna Battle: Late 80s vs. Now

The assignment:

"Students will work in pairs to perform a 4-5 minute battle of audio collected from the Internet. Think of it as Girl Talk meets Street Fighter II, but with streaming songs/sounds as fireballs (“HADOUKEN!!!”). Students are to create individual personas, with corresponding sonic styles (and maybe even special moves). They are to rehearse this battle to become comfortable with their performance and work out any potential technical problems. Students will meet at an undetermined location at an undetermined (probably night-) time and perform the Webspinna battle. Students will be asked to bring food, friends and family to enjoy the evening. Prizes for the best character design, cosplay, battle, etc. will be awarded."

Here are the links to our audio clips for performance (those in magenta represent the late 80s; those in cyan represent the present):

Dialup https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gU4Fys95uFc

Mac Volume http://youtu.be/sePOrPtiCms?t=32s

Turn Down For What https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMUDVMiITOU

Did I Do That http://youtu.be/xz3ZOoYSMuw?t=30s

The Way You Make Me Feel http://youtu.be/4ru6XlZKZDg?t=17s

Ain’t Nobody Got Time For That http://youtu.be/zGxwbhkDjZM?t=25s

Mail Sound https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XW-dpT0jEcQ

You’ve Got Mail https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFBLiHpkcOk

Rick Roll https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ

Imma Let You Finish http://youtu.be/3K21rLBEfeM?t=1s

Wayne’s World http://www.wayneandgarth.com/mp3/tiredofholding.wav

That’s What She Said http://youtu.be/aIWrFNDKQ6o?t=17s

#LOL http://youtu.be/57dzaMaouXA?t=30s

What Is your Damage? http://movie-sounds.org/teen-films-sounds/sound-clips-from-heathers-1988-page-76/what-is-your-damage-heather

I am Groot https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ph_l7Pp_1mk&feature=youtu.be&t=29s

Inigo Montoya http://www.soundboard.com/sb/Princess_Bride_sounds

Let It Go http://youtu.be/L0MK7qz13bU?t=1m5s

Eat My Shorts http://www.soundboard.com/sb/The_Breakfast_Club

Everything Is Awesome http://youtu.be/StTqXEQ2l-Y?t=4s

Mario Hurry Up https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SV-8Zh-uED0

Everything Is Awesome Fast https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=deaRuwgElEg

Back To The Future http://youtu.be/TkyLnWm1iCs?t=11s

It’s 2015 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnRxk0gHJSY&feature=youtu.be&t=1m19s

Breakfast Club https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bXzphW86tM&feature=youtu.be&t=2m13s

Ferris Bueller https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRJ38y4Jn6k&feature=youtu.be&t=14s

The process of creating our performance was really interesting, and surprisingly difficult. We decided to focus on making the piece have a clear conversation--or at least we tried to--because we found it more engaging and coherent than trying to make it just a fight between two sides. As such, although we started out looking for soundbytes that clearly completed/contrasted with each other (and we did use some of these, such as the dialup sound and the sound of volume increasing on a Mac), we ended up focusing more on having a coherent flow of ideas, such as interrupting the sounds from the the 80s with Kanye saying he’d let Taylor finish.

The product ended up feeling better than I thought we’d be able to piece together. I think we included a few really interesting ideas, such as Britany’s persona (present) trying to Rick Roll my persona (from the 80s) but it failing because that song was current and popular at the time. We ran into a few technical difficulties with the computers, but fortunately Britany was able to improvise and take over on a couple of series of clips after mine stopped cooperating. Other than that, I think at least most of the flow of ideas could be followed.

While doing this project, I thought a lot about one of my favorite youtube videos called Harry Potter VS Star Wars (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9N5KyjM5v0c&index=108&list=LLu2SA60FNRY84Fspt9B8X-A) The video info reads "Its Jedi Knight VS Wizard!! Generation VS Generation ... who will win? Magic or the force? Saber or the wand?” In the video, they use sound bits from the films while taking on personas from the universes. It is similar to what we were tasked to do.

It was interesting to see what people chose to represent their topics. During the battles I noticed some of the same clips being used in different battles even though no one’s battle topics were quite the same. For example, “Let it go” was used for Disney, cold and modern pop culture. Like Jonathan Lethem said in The Ecstasy of Influence, "The demarcation between various possible uses is beautifully graded and hard to define, the more so as artifacts distill into and repercuss through the realm of culture into which they’ve been entered, the more so as they engage the receptive minds for whom they were presumably intended."

Textual Poaching: The Homosexuals: 1967-2015

The assignment:

"Each student will choose an existing, mediated representation of the culture, race, ethnicity, gender, nationality, religion, etc. with which he/she identifies. The representation may be in any medium—film, photograph, visual art, poetry, literature, advertisement, news article, song, music video, etc.—but it should be older than the student. Students will remix the representation so that their new creation demonstrates their negotiation of this aspect of their identity and how it has been historically represented in media. Artist statements should include a discussion of the correlations and contradictions between his/her ‘self ’ (perspectives, practices, etc.) and this historical representation of this aspect of his/her identity."

There were several aspects of my identity I considered exploring for this assignment. Some felt too obvious (e.g., whiteness, maleness) while others probably would have been too obscure to explore in a remixed mediated representation (e.g., nostalgia, aesthetic appreciation). Fortunately, I'm gay, which is an aspect of my identity I can always explore within the largely Mormon culture I'm familiar with.

One aspect of belonging to the queer community that has always been interesting to me is the contrast between what people think it's like to belong to a sexual minority and what it's actually like. Before coming out publicly, I had a lot of fears and anxieties about my sexuality being public knowledge. I expected to be treated poorly or looked down on by people in with specific backgrounds. I myself had fairly negative feelings toward homosexuality earlier in my life, and it took me a while to accept and embrace my own sexuality. As such, I didn't expect other people to be sympathetic to my experience.

When I finally started to come out, my expectations could not have been further from the truth. I was met with nothing but acceptance and sympathy--especially from church members. Later, when I posted about it on Facebook, my parents expressed to me that they had the same concerns that I had had earlier. In my experience up to this point, however, their fears were misplaced, as I have literally received no negative reactions in regards to my sexual orientation. In 2015, it seems, most people within my social circles are simply fine with these kinds of things.

I decided to base my assignment on the contrast between past and modern opinions of homosexuality. I found "The Homosexuals" (1967) while randomly browsing YouTube one day. I thought it was kind of appalling, but I also realized that I haven't experienced those kinds of opinions in my own life. I thought it would be interesting to juxtapose the opinions of people back then with my own experience with peoples' opinions today. I did so by simply filming myself doing something mundane (eating cereal) to show that these outdated opinions simply don't affect me in the way one might expect.

I also wanted to include the final audio clip from Seinfeld as another way of interacting with past views on homosexuality. The recurring gag "Not that there's anything wrong with that," is an iconic element from the show, and it reflects some interesting aspects of the way people feel the need to discuss sexuality. Some people feel the need to be totally politically correct when discussing sexuality with me, and they go out of their way to make sure I'm not uncomfortable (which ironically makes the conversation more uncomfortable). I think the Seinfeld joke is really funny, and it definitely doesn't offend me, but it's a great point to discuss. I interact with this audio in the video, because this is a viewpoint that I have had to interact with in my life--unlike the audio from the 1967 documentary.

Considering my experience with "The Homosexuals," Jenkins' "How Texts Become Real" is very relevant. This program would have been interesting and insightful to me out of the context of my own experiences, but as an artifact from the past that I do not relate with, it gave me lot more insight. I would not have considered my own experiences as I did without the context of the opinions presented in this program.

Here is the original program from which most of my audio was taken:

And the original ending to the Seinfeld episode from which my other audio was taken:

Medium Specificity: Wax Blessing

The assignment:

"Each student will choose an artistic medium (film, photography, drawing, painting, medium, dance, performance, graphic design, poetry, literary narrative, etc.) and produce a work which explores the specific elements unique to that medium--like Brakhage or Daren’s films, Pollock’s paintings, Warhol’s prints, Cage’s music, etc. Artist statements should include a discussion of how this particular work functions as a celebration, commentary or critique of their chosen medium."

Wax Blessing

16 brief poems by Jeffrey Hein

beach

   beach death

   beach windbreaker

   beach skin

   beach cardtable

   nebraska beach

   beach girl

   beach screen



warehouse

   warehouse udder

   warehouse whistle

   warehouse chick

   warehouse bologna

   warehouse birdhouse

   warehouse coolness

   warehouse idiots

   warehouse dust

   warehouse candy



pillow

   pillow table

   pillow cat

   pillow allegiance

   pillows shatter when I rub them



miilk

   milk gold

   milk apartment

   milk silver

   milk silk

   milk polyester

   milk coral

   milk mucus



lip

   lip breath

   lip membrane

   lip informalness

   lip blood

   lip cockroach

   lip sand

   lip mustard

   lip mustache

   Americo

   lip sex

   lip bandaid

   lip Asia



hotel

   hotel ballroom

   hotel gypsy

   hotel amethyst

   hotel gravy

   hotel cockroach

   hotel dumpster

   hotel jellyfish

   hotel fluorescent

   motel pool



Artist's Statement

            When I approached this project, I knew that I wanted to create something that explored the effects of the written word. I love language, and I love the vague tangibility of it when it is written down rather than expressed verbally.

            I was originally inspired by several Twitter accounts. I don’t love everything about Twitter, but I love when writers make the most of it by using it for posts that could not carry the same meaning in the same way on any other platform. Accounts such as @dril and @NotTildaSwinton take advantage of Twitter by tweeting with intentional typos or intentionally obscure formatting.

.DAEHDOG
— Tilda Swinton (@NotTildaSwinton) May 24, 2012

awfully bold of you to fly the Good Year blimp on a year that has been extremely bad thus far
— wint (@dril) July 19, 2014

             Tweets such as this use the textual platform in a remarkable way. They would not have the same effect if someone merely stated “Godhead backwards" or recited @dril’s tweet (his breaking up of Goodyear into two words is not possible in the spoken word).

            As such, a few aspects of these poems reflect unusual formatting, such as the misspelling of milk as miilk in its subheading. However, I wanted to approach text in a way that I had not seen explored elsewhere, so, among other things, I focused my poems on the ways that two separate words can come together and create new images, ideas, feelings, and even meanings. Originally, I approached this project with a focus on connotation, and as such, some of the words I chose are rich with connotative meaning—at least to me (e.g., beach, cockroach, sex). I also used with little connotative meaning (e.g., allegiance, screen). I wanted to have some poems in which the two words are easily associable. For instance, “beach windbreaker” creates a very clear image in my mind of visiting a rocky beach on a cool, windy day. I was interested in how concrete this and other images could become from the mere juxtaposition of two words, even when they say nothing about each other. I also wanted to see what would happen when I connected two very disparate words, such as “milk coral,” which takes two vivid words and causes them to lose a lot of connotative meaning, also as a result of their juxtaposition.

            Although I tried to explore several other aspects of meaning, the final one I want to address is the subversion of expectation. Language is supposed to feel completely true and natural, and when it doesn’t, we can react quite drastically. One way I did this was through flat out lies—such as the subtitle. I intended for each pair of words to be its own poem; with that context, there are clearly more than sixteen poems here. I realized that language is the only way to lie in such a way—visuals and pure sound cannot so easily and completely falsify meaning. I also tried to subvert expectations with non sequiturs, such as “Americo.”

            I realize that this work is perhaps less self-reflexive than McClould’s comic, and, unlike his work, it is more of an exploration than an argument. However, I hope that these poems can be similarly valuable. In creating them, I found humor, delight, disgust, and even new emotional experiences. I hope readers can also find these things, although even if they don't, I am satisfied that it was a valuable process thanks to my own experience.

Historical Story: Jordan Hall

The assignment:

"Students will work in pairs to write a 4-6 page film script that takes place around some historical event (which took place before the students were born), and focuses on a character(s) who is either based on someone they know OR of their own creation (BUT is NOT a famous historical figure). Scripts are to utilize standard screenplay formatting. Artist statements should include a discussion of the dynamic between character (attitude, belief, behavior, etc.) and context (cultural practices, political climate, etc.). Students must reference at least 2 legitimate historical sources in their artists’ statement, discussing how the information they gathered in their research informed the creation of their script (including dialogue, scene descriptions, etc.)"

Read Jordan Hall by Brenna Empey and Jeffrey Hein

http://hostingmusic.tumblr.com/post/110602695270

http://hostingmusic.tumblr.com/post/110602580215

Philip Zimbardo’s infamous Stanford Prison Experiment has been reimagined and documented in countless ways throughout the past forty years, most recently in the form of a historical fiction film by director Kyle Patrick Alvarez – a film Brenna had the opportunity to see at the Sundance Film Festival. A day later, she was twenty pages deep in Zimbardo’s book The Lucifer Effect, and would later come across clips from the documentary Quiet Rage: The Stanford Prison Experiment with me. These somewhat morbid discoveries of ours led to a screenplay that closely follows the actual events of the experiment. In writing this screenplay, we thought it was particularly important that the dialogue and action feel as raw and natural as possible, because we are dealing with a historical event notorious for its disturbing truths. Although our writing includes events that did not happen, every line of contrived dialogue was intended to be an artistic representation of this history. To give the screenplay as much impact as possible, we hoped that keeping most situations authentic would allow the experience to be engaging and compelling without subtracting from what happened during these six days in the windowless basement of Jordan Hall.

“My biggest mistake was that there was no one supervising me. We [the professors] became part of the experiment and there was no one stopping us,” says Zimbardo in Quiet Rage. We thought that one of the most compelling ways of telling this story would be through one character, perhaps a “supervising” character, but also a character that does not fit the demographic of the white males propelling the story. Rather than fake or dramatize the experiences of real individuals, we used Lucie as an outside observer and a polar opposite of Zimbardo, Haney, and all the test subjects. As we are readers of history, Lucie mirrors our experience as people learning about this event — she barely sees anything, only hearing unnerving snippets of what is actually going on. Everything she hears while in the basement of Jordan Hall was taken directly from the prisoners’ real screams and pleas, which were transcribed by Zimbardo in The Lucifer Effect. This restricted sort of experience reflects the way almost all historical events are perceived. Perhaps the most important aspect of Lucie’s polarity, in this context, is that she is an inherently good person confronted with an experiment literally intended to study the human capacity for evil. Although neither Zimbardo nor his test subjects were “evil,” per say, Lucie’s presence as a good person throws off the balance of the experiment, and incites questions about the actions and intentions of its participants. This screenplay is an intentional discussion of what would’ve happened if the “evil” Zimbardo studied in that summer of ’71 was interrupted by unanticipated “good.”

Process Piece: Deaf Cheerleading

The assignment:

"Students will work in pairs to produce a 1-2 minute audio piece documenting some type of process. In this case, a process is an act of human labor with a beginning, middle and an end. Artist statements should should include a discussion of both form and content in their creations, as well as both the process and the product of their own creative efforts."

For our process piece, we had planned on recording a deaf basketball game. This opportunity came up because Jeff’s sister is taking an ASL class and was required to attend various events as part of her grade. We thought this would be interesting because it was a process similar to one that nearly everyone is familiar with (basketball), but different enough that it would bring a new experience to everyone.

In the process of recording this process, we talked with Jeff's sister and her friends about ASL and about the deaf community. Something we learned was that deaf people don’t think of themselves as being disabled—they just see being deaf as a different way of perceiving.

As such, we wanted that mode of thought to be reflected in our documentary. In other words, we wanted the experience of listening to our piece to reflect the mindset of “experiencing something differently, rather than through a limited lens.” Thus, our piece is simply an unmediated piece of audio, rather than being several sounds edited together. It also has no narration and no explanation—just a different way of experiencing the process (having no visuals).

We decided that the clearest process we could show in 1-2 minutes in this fashion was the halftime show, put on by one of the teams’ cheerleading squad (all of its members were also deaf), so that’s what our piece documents. We moved the final buzzer closer to the end of the routine to keep the piece brief, but other than that the process is reflected completely without interference.

In this piece, the sound that is most prominent is the sound of one of the cheerleaders playing a bass drum. You can also hear the swishing of pom-poms, the sound of shoes on the gym floor, clapping, and a little bit of ambient speech. However, without having the visuals of something that we would normally perceive as mainly visual gives it a strange, detached feeling. It ended up being a really interesting way to experience something that we normally would not give a second thought to.