Week 2 | Transgression | 2016
Week 2 in the Transgression studio was a whirlwind journey: it took us from an early 20th Century piece about murder and deceit, through to the contemporary long format noir style of audio pieces that are beginning to popularise the scene & firmly dumping us out at with budding ideas for future works.
https://serialpodcast.org/season-one/1/the-alibi
WED 27TH JULY
Prior to the commencement of the class, students were required to have listened to (at least) the first episode of SERIAL – a long format serial podcast centred around the murder of Hae Min Lee and the potential mistrial of Adnan Syed – to be able to participate in the discussion lead by Patrick Hills & Samantha Antoine.
The familiar shaky / nervous start to the class greeted everyone as they made their way into their groups to begin discussions about Project Brief 1 that was now due in only a matter of days. But before anyone had a chance to get started, Catherine ushered the class forward to begin discussions and presentations about the final works in which we all aim to complete this semester.
The presentations transgressed and yielded both confident & strong ideas for subjects that students wished to broach this semester. These subjects included Hazing/Rape Culture, Taro Readings, Abortion, Fairytales, Infidelity and numerous other ideas.
Each student put forth their ideas to the class, receiving feedback pertaining to the strength of their idea as well as useful links to videos, audio pieces, texts etc. that would help them to complete their desired piece with a greater sense of proficiency and knowledge.
Following the conclusion of the class’ presentations on their ideas – we delved straight in to unpicking serial in a discussion lead by Patrick (with the help from Catherine).
Expecting the discussion to last only a matter of minutes, it ended up running for approximately 1/2 Hour, much to the delight of Catherine.
The discussion centred around the ideas behind the noir detective, the use of style employed by the podcasts director, the use of tone and intertextuality of the finished series. The consensus of the class was that although we all enjoyed the podcast, it appeared once you (Sarah Koenig – creator of SERIAL) have made a piece that becomes universally successful, it can become quite easy to undermine your work by ‘selling out’ and playing to the crowd.
The class finished with the cohort breaking up into their respective groups and working on Assessment 1 that was due on Friday.
FRI 29TH JULY
The class commenced with the presentations from the groups pertaining to what they had been researching throughout the previous week. The two topics that were being explored were:
- The Killing of Qandeel Baloch
- Raymond Chandler’s – Goldfish
The pieces all took different avenues with groups pursuing the literal, the lateral and the imagined. Generating content that focused on the mindset of a killer, the mindset of being killed and the sonic development of a textual piece.
This was followed by a lecture from the infamous Brian Morris on ‘The Carnival’ and its historic links to transgression; this all happened before the class plunged into a discussion about Pokemon and Native Australian rights.
GOTTA CATCH THEM ALL.
– Patrick Hills