Climate Changing Media | Assignment 4
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Climate Changing Media | Prompt 12
Looking back at past prompts, I can see a sense of progress in my interpretation of climate change; how climate change is, could and should be presented on the media; and acquiring new concepts and knowledge on this matter at a more complex level than before. In a way, the sense of progress was shown through each assignment. This was all happening under the difficult and limited circumstances that we, as media practitioners and children of the Earth, are going through due to a global health emergency.
At the start of the course, my mentality on the issue was both reluctant and eager to learn more about it. This started to shift to the more ethical direction as I read the reading Deep Adaptation by Jem Bendell. I have never seen any sort of document that addresses the matter of climate change the same way. In particular, I was struck at sentences like “climate-induced societal collapse is now inevitable in the near term” (p. 2) and “But when I say starvation, destruction, migration, disease and war, I mean in your all life” (p. 13). These are powerful statements that for the first time gave me an artistic approach to climate change in using words. In a way, I use remixed speeches to produce the video in prompt 2. This is a method that I looked to use throughout the course because I found that there are too many good talks and speeches that could be game changers in changing people’s perspective about the matter. Ultimately, I also took this method into my media artefact.
Another reading that inspired me was the one on ecological grief by Cunsolo and Ellis in which they discuss this form of grief “isn’t being publicly or openly acknowledged” (p. 275). I think provoking ecological grief could be a vital way in helping others to acknowledge the matter more, and the fact that it is rather not widely recognised is one that I tried to attempt. My main attempt came via the first part of the final media work in which I tried using human’s suffocation instead of sea creatures in addressing the impact of the plastic crisis. I thought this would be more relatable as even I while producing found it to be quite disturbing. Another important reading that helped me to shape the approach for the final work was Johns-Putra’s A new critical climate in which the scholar discusses different approaches in climate change media.
I ultimately used both factual and artistic approaches in the final work and in my opinion, the two ways sound quite distinct to one another. Even though I was happy with both parts as individual works, I think being together as one media piece ruined them. Both had the role to show the impact of plastic crisis as a whole, but ultimately did not supplement to one another. If I could work on this again, I might have gone fully with the artistic approach as I think that particular part of my podcast was more powerful in provoking a sense of ecological grief.
On the matter of constraints, the project gave me some surprise discoveries. I initially thought that by not allowing myself to use news media, I should look into using music to make the project impactful. But in the end, I worked myself around this most notable constraint by using speeches and different sounds. No music was used to my surprise, and I was quite happy with it. However, I was hoping to use different languages of different people to showcase the plastic crisis as being a global issue. This was a suggestion that I got from the pitch and I really liked it. However, the language of the latter part was only English as I could not find suitable footage to include.
In the end, I think even though it has some flaws, my media work was a powerful piece of climate change media. I think it was able to show the impact of the plastic crisis, while the end of it gives hope with an emphasis that the younger generation – our generation can change the root of the problem. I hope to help anyone who listens to it having a better understanding of the effect of plastic on the global scale and maybe change how they would approach plastic goods from now on, especially when throwing them away.
References
Bendall, J 2018, Deep Adaptation: A Map for Navigating Climate Tragedy, accessed online: <https://jembendell.com/2019/05/15/deep-adaptation-versions/ (Links to an external site.)>.
Cunsolo, A & Ellis, NR, ‘Ecological grief as a mental health response to climate change-related loss (Links to an external site.)‘, Nature Climate Change, vol.8, no.4, p.275-281.
Johns-Putra, A 2013, ‘A New Critical Climate (Links to an external site.)’, Symploke, vol. 21, no.1-2, p. 7-10.
Climate Changing Media | Prompt 11
The pitch session a few weeks ago was the opportunity for me to define my best approach to the media work, which is a podcast that could be seen as a powerful address on the plastic crisis. I was considering between two different approaches: a factual one with speeches that address the nature of the plastic issue, or an artistic one that focuses on the suffering that comes out of the plastic crisis. I gained some valuable feedback from my peers and our guests, but ultimately I could not come up with the best way to use as the foundation of the project. However, after more research and sourcing different materials, I came up with the best way: use both approaches and divide the podcast into two parts.
I started with searching for different sound materials. A very valuable I gained from the speech was to use different types of sound to represent plastic, and the obvious way to go for was to base around the ocean. All audio pieces at this part of the project were sourced via Freesound and were to be used under Creative Commons Zero license. I realised that by using sounds, I could bring a sense of narrative into the whole piece. I thought that I could show the story of a man having a day by the ocean, enjoying a can of soft drink then throwing it directly into the ocean. Some sea creatures would consume this can, and eventually they suffocate as the result.
With that fresh idea in mind, I searched for some sounds of sea waves, and realised that duplicating a few pieces of them would create a suitable background. I have not accessed much using Audition throughout the years but I was not too struggled in mixing these audio pieces together and sourcing them into the order of my liking. I then found pieces of someone drinking, throwing the can away and rolling it into the ocean. I also found some audio files of seagulls and whales, which are two common sea creatures that suffer from plastic waste. After sorting these files together in order, this is what the project looks like at this point:
I then tried to find sound of sea creatures suffering from plastic. But then I realised: wouldn’t it be more impactful if I make it more personal to the people that might listen to this by provoking a sense of ecological grief? I thought that this could certainly be done by a few audio files of people that couldn’t breathe – exactly what sea creatures have to go through by consuming plastic waste. The result looks like this (and I’m not going to lie, this bit sounds quite disturbing but I was prepared to go down this route because I thought it would be more impactful):
I thought this is a good enough stage to move on from the artistic approach. As a constraint I set myself was not to use news audio, I focus on speeches. I have used TED talks in previous projects to base them around, and I still found these to be the most inspiring ways. I found three speeches that were suitable to refine: a talk on why plastic pollution is personal by Natalie Fee; a campaign to ban plastic bags in Bali by two siblings named Melati and Isabel Wijsen; and a conversation on a plan to end plastic waste by Andrew Forrest. In addressing the plastic crisis in South East Asia (which was the whole reason why I looked into plastic as my hyperobject), I luckily found a piece of Malaysian Environmental Minister addressing the issue which was the most convenient piece possible. After sorting them in a suitable order, this is what my final project looks like before exporting:
In the end, I was quite happy with the end result. Of course, there are a few things I thought I could improve, which I will address in the next prompt.
References
Fee, N 2017, Why Plastic Pollution is Personal, YouTube, 19 December, TEDx Talks, viewed 3 June 2020, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJiQt9ASSNg>.
Forrest, A 2019, A radical plan to end plastic waste, YouTube, 1 November, TED, viewed 3 June 2020, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5g9-4fx60A>.
Global News 2019, Malaysia to ship back tonnes of plastic waste to Canada and other nations, YouTube, 29 May, Global News, viewed 3 June 2020, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQHwR6-_bK8>.
Wijsen, I & Wijsen, M 2016, Our campaign to ban plastic bags in Bali, YouTube, 20 February, TED, viewed 3 June 2020, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8GCjrDWWUM>.
Climate Changing Media | Prompt 10
As I mentioned in an earlier blog post, the session of presentations was crucial for me in refining my approach for my media project. The media format I chose is a podcast, and I think my project is the only one that is not video-related. Again, I wanted to challenge myself with a whole new platform to work with, and I am more excited than confused at this stage of the project.
As I was preparing for the pitch, my idea for the media artifact led me to two potential approaches: one is more factual and one is more artistic. In both means, I want to be able to bring in some form of narratives for the work, making it more of a story with an emphasis on the experience of being directly affected by the plastic crisis. I acknowledged that plastic is easier to recreate visually, but the guests made very useful suggestions for me in finding sounds that could represent plastic. One such is the sound of ocean, which is another emphasis that the ocean (itself and the life underneath it) is being heavily affected by plastic. Before the session, I had imagined of producing sounds of wildlife like whales and birds – some typical ocean creatures and put out a statement: “with the way the plastic crisis is going, not just through South East Asia but the whole world. The day we no longer hear the sound of these creatures is closer than ever.” Of course, using human voices are crucial. I got another great suggestion to use voices of people of different language in highlighting that this issue should be a global one. Bringing in a global perspective on this would broaden the scale and impact of the artifact in my opinion.
I also put myself under three constraints: no use of news footage or media, no use of commercialised content and no use footage of humans or animals. As my project is audio-based, the latter ones are rather obvious while the first one will be my main struggle. I will have to be ultra selective in choosing the right content without showing the news when addressing the issue in South East Asia. Even though I am not totally sure how the final product would sound at the moment, I am excited to attempt putting these ideas into practice.
Networked Media | Week 11: Social Media Distributing (Video)
How did you author (the photo or video) you recorded for upload to Instagram?
For the media work of the assignment, I want to explore recording via the Instagram app just like how I took the photo. But for the video, I want to record through the story feature of the app. On my main account, I record stories quite often for my followers to see what goes on in my life on a daily basis. The story feature also has many interesting components like filters. The “Tokyo” filter is a black and white one and is used by me to produce this video. When producing the video, it was a cold night and there was moisture on my window. I thought I could record myself drawing something out of the liquid, and I drew an X. The black and white filter helps the X sign to sort of going into the light source at the back, which I found pretty interesting. The thing with the story video is there is no way to edit them with components like brightness, saturation,… which is a constraint but when posting them, there is always an option to further edit. For the video, I kept it defaulted with the “Tokyo” filter.
How did you publish (the photo or video) you recorded for upload to Instagram?
For this video, I just focused on hashtags that are popular and significant, while are still related to the post to see how it would perform. I want to focus on the faded X sign that I drew, so I chose #X along with #window, #nighttime and #winter. All of them are used in millions of posts. As always, the location is set in Melbourne and the caption is “Colder than my X”, which could have many meanings and I thought this could attract some potential users to like the post.
How did you distribute (the photo or video) you published on Instagram to other social media services?
I again shared to Tumblr and Twitter but as before, I think the significance of the post would rely on its components on Instagram.
Networked Media | Week 11: Social Media Distributing (Photo)
How did you author (the photo or video) you recorded for upload to Instagram?
For the third set of media, I want to explore producing media directly from the Instagram app. For this photo, I decided to take the photo of my ring. As I only allow one source of light in the room, the shadow of the ring looks quite interesting which intrigued me into taking some tests with it for being the media. As I was taking the photo, to my surprise, the app picked the focal point quite well, pretty much the same with taking the first photo via the camera app. As I was going for a few attempts to pick the best angle, I realised that the shadow with the ring would intertwine in together to create an abstract number 8. More significantly, if I rotate the angle horizontally, it would become the infinity sign. This would play in well with the abstract nature that I want to create for this account. I liked this discovery so much that I took it in one shot. It could be seen that the ring and the shadow are not in center of the photo, which is due to me trying not to get my own shadow into photo. The most important thing would be for the infinity sign to work, which it worked to my satisfaction.
Then, I realised I could choose the filter as always before posting. I contemplated between two black and white filters: “Moon” and “Inkwell” but ultimately went with the latter one as I liked its contrast more. Everything else is kept defaulted. One thing I don’t like about the Instagram camera, however, is I could not view the scene in full as there is a space limit to allow for the recording button. To me, it is quite a pointless constraint as the button takes too much space from the recording screen. The end product does not seem to be impacted though.
How did you publish (the photo or video) you recorded for upload to Instagram?
I posted the photo again to the Instagram account, this time with more hashtags than ever: #infinity, #abstract, #blackandwhite, #bnw, #blackandwhitephotography, #ring, #shadow, #phonetography. Some attract millions of posts, while some only have some thousands and hundreds of thousands. Nonetheless, I decided to include all of them as they relate to my photo best. The caption is the famous quote “To infinity, and beyond”, which indicates the significance of me trying to create the infinity symbol with my ring.
How did you distribute (the photo or video) you published on Instagram to other social media services?
I again shared them to both the Twitter and the Tumblr account but I do not expect more viewers to view the post from there with reasons already discussed from the previous media works.
Networked Media | Week 10: Social Media Publication (Video)
How did you author (the photo or video) you recorded for upload to Instagram?
For the second video of the assignment, I decided to fit in with the photo and record via the app Foodie. The idea came into my head as I was taking a walk around where I live and suddenly there was this uproar of wind. I thought this could be interesting to record for the assignment, so I took my phone out. Again, my phone is an iPhone 8Plus and the video is recorded directly through the app Foodie with a black and white filter applied.
I must admit, after posting it, I realised the video was not quite what I expected. I basically saw this tall light and wanted to use it as kind of a focal point of the video – a spark of light at the top. Part of me of that moment thought: well, if this is to go in line with the concept of working under a difficult circumstance of a global health emergency, the light would be my resemblance of hope. But it was probably too bright. I tried to adjust directly from the app but it would only allow me to tone down the filter which would completely ruin the black and white concept. Hence, I kept it the way it was. Another important point of the video is the sound of wind. I wanted to make this the focus, so I allow audio for this video because the sound was quite intriguing and the post would lack half its point if I cut out the audio. The concept for the video was quite simple, so I recorded it in one go.
How did you publish (the photo or video) you recorded for upload to Instagram?
I again posted on the Instagram account that was created exclusively for the assignment. I posted it public with the location of Melbourne to show where the video is produced. I used a number of hashtags such as: #blackandwhite, #bnw, #wind, #windy, #windynight, #winter and #winternight. Most of them came at the top of my head and I wanted to try to include more hashtags to see if it would attract more likes. It is worth noting that some hashtags are appealing than others, even though they mean pretty much the same thing. For this video, I decided to include all of them without considering which one would support the post to reach out the best. The more, the merrier. The caption is put “The wind rises”, which is inspired from a Ghibli Studio animation I watched recently. I just thought it sounds more interesting than just put “Windy night”. I fits in with a sort of poetic, abstractive, artistic nature that I am trying to set with this account along with the main theme of black and white.
How did you distribute (the photo or video) you published on Instagram to other social media services?
I again shared the post to Twitter and Tumblr but as usual, I don’t expect any significant impact from circulating the post there in consideration of attracting more focus to my work. This is due to the fact that the two accounts on these social networking sites are also brand new without a base of follower. How tweets work also play in, as the post would come as a plain tweet that is just not interesting. Hence, focusing on the performance of the post on Instagram might be the most useful way to attract more viewers.
Networked Media | Week 10: Social Media Publication (Photo)
How did you author (the photo or video) you recorded for upload to Instagram?
For the second sets of media of the assignment, I want to make things a bit different from the first posts. Instead of making the content via the phone’s camera app, I will look to produce through a different app. In this case, I chose Foodie which is one of my favourite app to take photos because of its quality filters. Originally, the app aids culinary content, but I have found for a number of years now that it works perfectly with any scenario. You just need to pick a filter that suits the scene and on you go with taking photos. However, I have not taken a black and white theme photo via the app before so I’m not entire sure how the filter would look. I also have never used the video taking feature so this part of the experience would be all new.
To truly taking in how Foodie would work with black and white filter, I chose Food as the theme for the second photo. In particular, a bowl of rice that I ordered is the focus of this photo. To go in line with the whole social distancing circumstances that I am trying to align all these pieces of media together, I have been relying heavily of delivered goods to get on since locking down began. This bowl of rice is a typical example. For the work, I simply chose a black and white filter and took the photo. There is actually only a single black and white filter, so I did not have to pick between any. I did not quite like how the angle looked at first, so it took me a few attempts to get a right angle for the photo. I then adjusted the brightness on a few of them, but ultimately the one with default black and white filter fancied me the most and that is the one I decided to post in the end. The thing I like about Foodie is the camera seems to pick the focal point really well, and I did not have to use flash as the light that I set in the room at that moment really fit in with the black and white theme. Compared to how I took the photo on the camera app, I think the black and white filter of Foodie is much better than the noir one of the phone as the saturation of colour scheme seems to be more distinct but at the same time looks more balanced. In short, this filter is just better. Also, I found editing on the Foodie app simpler than on the camera app as there are less features. And this works in a good way.
How did you publish (the photo or video) you recorded for upload to Instagram?
As mentioned, it took me a few attempts of taking and editing before I came up with the ultimate photo. When posting to the account, I applied the location of Melbourne and a number of hashtags: #foody, #food, #foodporn, #blackandwhite, #bnw, #photography, #rice and #ricebowl. Compared to the first photo, with this one, I put more focus on the hashtags and I found that #foody, #food and #foodporn are the more popular hashtags with millions of posts. I did not really think about this aspect with the first post, although I included a lot of tags. Including these specific tags would be a must in attracting and reaching more potential users with my post. The post is again public, and the caption is “A happy bowl of noir”. I thought this is a simple caption, yet sounds quite interesting and more users might double-tap with this caption.
How did you distribute (the photo or video) you published on Instagram to other social media services?
I again shared them to Twitter and Tumblr. The new accounts did not have any follower base, and I did not follow any account. Hence, I think the posts would not reach anyone. The post on Instagram, however, has more likes compared to the first post in a much shorter period of time. I think focusing on the reaching ability of the hashtags worked really well for this post as it helps more viewers to see my post.
Networked Media | Week 9: Social Media Authoring (Video)
How did you author (the photo or video) you recorded for upload to Instagram?
I want to bring my sets of photo and video align. They might be different slightly but overall the main concept of creating them would be the same. Hence, with the first video, I use the camera feature of my iPhone 8Plus – the same way I used to create the first photo. I decide to record a video of my watch on my hand showing the movement of the watch hands. This idea came as during periods of social distancing, sometimes we could have too much time on our hands but we might not know how to spend them effectively. The process of recording was quite straightforward and the video was recorded in one shot. Same as the photo, I then changed only the filter of the video to noir while keeping everything else defaulted. I thought this is a simple yet interesting way to record something in black and white. I want viewers to focus on the movement of the watch hands, hence I muted the audio but there was pretty much no sound in the original video anyway apart from my breathing. It is worth noticing that my hand was quite shaky because of the cold temperature in my room, which could be a constraint of holding the phone to record the video without a help of a, say, selfie stick.
How did you publish (the photo or video) you recorded for upload to Instagram?
As mentioned, I recorded the video in one go so I did not have to choose from different videos. When posting, I also set the location to Melbourne as it is where the video is recorded. I used hashtags #time, #watch, #blackandwhite and #bnw in hopes of attracting more users to my post. The caption is “rolling”, indicating the main focus of the post in the movement of the watch hands. I notice that the video automatically replays after it comes to an end, which is quite interesting as I do not post many videos up. I reckon this is a feature implying for all videos from Instagram as there was not any option to whether or not I would like the video to automatically replay when I posted. The post is public so more users can view my work.
How did you distribute (the photo or video) you published on Instagram to other social media services?
Same as the photo, this video is shared to both my new Tumblr and Twitter account with the same features as the photo. It is interesting to note that the video does not play automatically on Tumblr as I have to touch on the playing button in order for it to play out. The link on Tumblr is also not a hyperlink but rather a line that I have to copy and paste out if I want to visit the post. However, there is an option to view my Instagram profile, which would take users directly to the Instagram app. After the video plays out once, it does not replay automatically. Choosing to play again will take users straight to the post on the Instagram app. On Twitter, the link is a hyperlink but will take users to a webpage of the post rather than the Instagram app.
Networked Media | Week 9: Social Media Authoring (Photo)
How did you author (the photo or video) you recorded for upload to Instagram?
For the photos and videos to be produced for this assignment, I want to explore and in a way experiment with some concepts that I normally do not try on my main Instagram account, especially considering the fact that I have created a fresh account for the course of the assignment. I have two Instagram accounts prior to this task. My main account is one that I use in everyday life, updating my daily routine and just whatever I want to post to people that know and follow me. Another one is a private account that I strictly limit my number of followers as it is more personal and I only use this account to communicate with a few people in my extreme inner circle. With both accounts, I don’t normally follow any particular theme like vibrant colour schemes or noir, although black and white photos always attract me. I have always wanted a platform to give this a go and this assignment seems to be the perfect opportunity.
I also want to bring the connection of how we as mediators are facing certain constraints during this difficult time of a global health emergency. Hence, the first photo that I took is one that is related to my health issue. I have been suffering from a stomach ache for weeks due to a prior illness, and had been reluctant to visit a clinic due to an inner fear of going out at the moment. Hence, I had been relying on some turmeric droplets to numb down the pain. This photo records moment after the droplets diffuse into the water. For the first photo, I wanted to keep it simple and took it using the camera of my iPhone 8Plus. After that, I edited it via the photo and just changed the filter to noir. I thought it looks interesting in black and white already and did not make any further changes. From this first photo, black and white will be the main theme of my assignment. I found the iPhone’s camera easy to take photos and edit and for this particular one, there was no constraint at all. The focal point was easy to adjust. Editing wise, it would also be easy to adjust brightness or contrast, but I just kept it default with the filter because I already liked the way it looks with the filter applied. When taking it, I brought the camera close to the water level of the mug just so the focus would be on point to the way I fancy. I did not use flash as I thought this would ruin the whole black and white them of the photo.
How did you publish (the photo or video) you recorded for upload to Instagram?
It actually took me a few attempts to get the photo I like that was posted as I had to adjust the angle a few times for the final result to fit in with my liking. Then, I just compared all of them after applying the noir filter and picked the one that I liked the most, although to be honest, there were not many differences to separate them as I turned all the lights off par from a bed side lamp to aid with the aspect of the black and white theme. When posting it to the account @kn_nm2020 that I made exclusively for the task, I applied the location of Melbourne as this is where the photo is taken. I also added some hashtags to make the photo attracting and reaching more users, which were #blackandwhite, #bnw, #photography, #phonetography, #abstract and #painkiller. #painkiller was used to fit in with the caption of the photo: “Painkiller”. The post is public so it could reach as many users as possible.
How did you distribute (the photo or video) you published on Instagram to other social media services?
As mentioned, I used a number of hashtags as well as a location to help the post reaching as many users as possible. I choose to share the photo to Twitter and Tumblr, which will be the two social networking sites that I will choose for all posts. With Twitter, I have used it for a number of years but only to follow other users, not producing and posting anything there until now. For Tumblr, I have never used this site so this is a whole new experience with a new app for me. For both sites, I created two new accounts just like with the Instagram account that I use for this assignment. I choose to share it via the Instagram app which I found to be very convenient. It is interesting to note how different the two sites present the shared content. For Twitter, the post comes in the form of a tweet without any visual content but include all hashtags, the location and a link to my Instagram post. Meanwhile, the Tumblr post includes all features, with the visual content of my photo. I think then, Tumblr would be a more appealing site for potential enthusiasts of my content to visit the Instagram post, because the visual content would be the most important feature. A plain post on Twitter would not be as effective.
