Having spent the past week curating and tailoring our soundscape, I am quite pleased with our groups efforts in Assessment 2 and feel that we all did a good job at pooling our collective talents together and creating a piece that we are all happy with.

 

By dividing our object into 4 and having everyone record their own sound / video to bring into the suites – we were able to decentralise our own individual perceptions on our room to give agency back to the room itself and create an artefact that addresses the locale as an entity. I feel that we employed and integrated the concepts of Bogost within our piece, however I still am unable to fully give in to his philosophies – seeing as these objects and artefacts we create are truely forged from human experience and therefore (potentially inadvertently) privilege the human above other things.

 

This concept is one that I struggle with in this course and I feel that it could be a good starting point to base the ideas and concepts around for the essay on Bogost.

Having read & re-read the prescribed article for this week, I finally started to get my head around the concepts of Object Oriented Ontology and the relationship it has to the things we are learning in this studio.

 

This epiphany (and I don’t believe thats too grandiose a word) coincided with my acceptance into a group to work with for the soundscape and the subsequent film that we will have to produce. This ultimately culminated in a highly productive period of media making and conceptual theorising that allowed me to further understand the concepts outlined in the readings.

 

Having had to excuse myself from classes for the previous 2 weeks due to outside commitments, I sheepishly returned to the classroom full of anxiety and nerves. This feeling soon subsided as I landed in a group that consisted of people I have previously worked with. Although the majority of the group wasn’t there on the Tuesdays class, I managed to learn what the group wanted to focus our soundscape on and the rough trajectory of the narration; this initially helped me curb my media making and tailor it to the groups desires.

 

The evening of Tuesday 21st was spent recording the strange and familiar sounds of my bedroom and then mixing & editing these sounds to emulate the emotions I feel when I enter my room. Having only a 15 sec length to portray these emotions ultimately hindered the end result, however working to a brief and doing the best I could in that time is going to be a common thing in the future of my media career.

 

I am excited for the finished product and can’t wait to collaborate with the group again today.

 

 

Being able to view and critique each individuals work is an integral part to the learning process & having your work screened within this process, fosters growth in both the concepts and techniques employed in your work.

 

…In saying that, coming along to this weeks class & knowing my first piece of media for this subject will be screened to a full class was a daunting feeling.

 

Viewing everyones work highlighted a few things for me:

 

1. The class all seems to have understood the initial concepts of the course and are implementing them into all their works. This resulted in a lot of the videos being somewhat similar in their style.
2. Everyone notices something different – that is equally important.
3. Images & words are never fully able to capture an object & only serve as a portrait of an object – Depicting it as well as possible but never quite reflecting it in its entirety.

Coming out of the critiques I was able to get some positive feedback in relation to my own work & also absorb some more interesting concepts from Adrian. I really liked the way Adrian spoke about how the video itself is an object too and to always keep that in mind & how to use the confines and limitations of the camera in our pieces to better the overall artefact. By incorporating these limitations it ultimately serves to deemphasise and draw attention away from the medium and privilege the object itself in a clearer frame.

 

Having received the feedback and learning these new concepts – If i were to give feedback on my own work, I would focus it on using the camera more effectively and to incorporate greater variation in my work.

Not making media for an extended period makes for a interesting time when you revisit the practice.

 

The low-fi sketch submitted for assessment 1 revolved around the apple® headphones that once sat in my pocket. Centring the piece on this item revealed my reluctancy to relinquish privilege to the human.

 

As I attempted to view the object in and of itself – the further i realised i was viewing it from the position of myself viewing it. I hadn’t disbanded the preordained perspectives I have learned from human conditioning & as such I feel the piece really reflected this.

 

I am not unhappy with the piece, as it shows my capacities at the moment; however I feel that my understanding of noticings can only improve from here.

 

Adhering to schedules and becoming a constructive and creative contributor to both group and class activities are my main aims for Ecologies Of Noticing. In previous semesters I have become slack and my contributions to group tasks failed in comparison to my contemporaries, so to achieve my productive contritions I have set a series of 4 task that will help me achieve this. These tasks will act as the minimum I have to contribute to my media making practices and to the broader classroom as a whole and act as a benchmark upon which to constantly reevaluate my performance against.

 

The 4 Tasks are:

 

1) Complete All Readings

 

2) Communicate & Contribute To Group Activities & Assessments

 

3) Ask Questions

 

4) Create Media Frequently & To A High Standard

Thursdays class required us to ist all the potential connections we have between ourselves and an item or person of interest. I decided to attempt to convey all the relations I have with my partner Sandra. Initially I focused on the obvious, physical connections and relations we share – but as I began to unpack these broad relations, I began to notice the subvert relations – the ones that are not so easily transcribed or noticed upon initial contact.

 

With the aid of Adrian – We, as a class, examined some of the shared connections and soon discovered that no matter how sure you are that you can comprehend all the connections between two forces – you will never truely be able to address them all.

 

By deemphasising and not privileging one side of of the relationship & instead focusing on one pivotal connection and working from that – we were able to better understand the significance and gravitas that accompanies the multifaceted connections between objects. however…

 

THE MORE YOU KNOW – THE MORE YOU DON’T KNOW.

 

Having missed the initial class for the semester due to travel delays – I somewhat sheepishly made my way into the classroom to attend what will be Ecologies Of Noticing for the next 3 months.

 

Startled by the upbeat and enigmatic figure that is Adrian Myles – I found myself a seat and strapped myself in for what seemed only a matter of minutes, but in actuality was a full 3 hour class.

 

Adrian and the class unpacked the ideas of ecologies and the ways in which we can look or notice one… and there appears to be an infinite amount of ways to do this.

 

The thing that resonated most from this first class is the ability and potentiality of noticing an object from a different perspective & how this object – which was only a matte of moments ago – known to you, now seems unfamiliar and novel

Having spent the last 12 weeks learning the nuances of community radio and all the required planning that has to go in to making an hour long segment cohesive and interesting, I feel that I have come out of Room With A View (R.W.A.V) with a stronger enthusiasm and skip set for competently running a radio program.

 

Enrolling in to R.M.I.T University, radio production and feature documentaries were amongst some of the seminal reasons for joining the Media cohort.

 

I am grateful to have been given the opportunity to work with Kyla Brettle (Radio’s New Wave) and Bruce Berryman (R.W.A.V) in order to refine my audio production skills. Having learnt a lot of invaluable experience from these two monitors, I am certain that I have made the right choice in universities and humbled for the lessons they have taught me.

 

R.W.A.V has offered me the experience to pursue a serious passion of mine and has affirmed my dreams of one day presenting on radio at either a local or national level.

 

Learning how to operate a console and program in all the required sponsorship announcements, music and stingers has been one of the highlights of the semester. This experience has allowed me to not only become confident in my skills, but enabled me to grow to now be able to handle multiple microphones, levels and user inputs to broadcast a more complex and engaging show that captivates audiences.

 

Coupling this technical aspect, was the requirement to source and secure interviewees for the programs. This condition of R.W.A.V forced me to break out of my comfort zone and pursue ideas that I not only found engaging, but ones that the listener would find enthralling too. Having to source, secure and flesh out concepts, then send them to the station manager for approval – enabled me to get a better idea of my audience and the type of material that the station liked. It also helped me on a personal level as I was made to become extroverted and confident in my skills as a researcher and presenter to not only connect with the interviewee, but also present a strong piece.

 

Working with Aisha, Amalia, Bek and Laura has been an absolute pleasure and has enabled me to connect with a broad range of people that I normally thought I wouldn’t have. They have been a solid team and have helped me become more confident in my Media skills, whilst also helping me grow as an individual. They have been reliable and trustworthy and have not only pulled their weight, but pushed everyone to strive further and do better.

 

The studio hasn’t been an easy ride though. Having to constantly think of material, script narrations, program consoles, choose appropriate music and edit audio – I haven’t had a chance to relax for the last semester. This isn’t to say it hasn’t been enjoyable! I think that R.W.A.V has given me a great insight into radio.

 

The highlight for the whole Studio was the feature piece that our group worked on. Getting the opportunity to create a piece that we can be proud of is a huge achievement by all. I am personally humbled to have had the opportunity to create a social justice piece that could potentially spark change to an industry that is in dire need of a shake up. I am also emphatically grateful to have had the chance to interview some incredible people that are making a positive influence in the world and that have made me think about greater issues than I normally would have.

The feature piece took a lot of work to complete with countless kilometres traveled to record ambient sounds and interview & then the countless hours scouting music and foley sounds to complement the dialogue. This is only compounded by the time required to mix and edit the whole piece.

I am very happy with everyones efforts and even more pleased with how the piece turned out. I think that we, as a group, worked well on the feature and have an audio piece that we can comfortably hang our hats on.

 

I am grateful for all the experiences and opportunities that R.W.A.V has granted me throughout the semester and cannot wait to get back on air and have another session in the studio – being a part of the community radio secure that helps sculpt melbounre.