You’ve written three posts this semester. We looked closely at stories, films, and music. Throughout this experience, I have encouraged you to capture and share your responses to creative works that you are experiencing for the first time. As we conclude the semester, I want to give you an opportunity to revisit the creative works you’ve experienced and expand on the discoveries you made through the first three assignments.
Since the start of the semester, our course website has been set to private, meaning that only the students enrolled in the course can see the site. You have chosen between publishing your work (making it visible to your classmates) or keeping it private (so only I can see it). At the end of the semester, I will make our entire website public and you can choose to have your posts included in that public site (visible to anyone who finds our website) or set to private (still only visible to me). You also have the option of setting a password for any posts that you want to be able to share with family and friends only.
Part 1: Collaborate on a Timeline
I want you to take the technologies you identified in the in the first three assignments and prepare them for inclusion in our timeline. We’ll start this work together in class (we’ll be creating our timeline with this tool), but you’ll need to do additional research on the technologies you experienced so you can enter the earliest iteration of that technology on the timeline as well. For each assignment, you will have identified at least one technology of creation and one technology of distribution/access/discovery. For each of these, you’ll create an event on the timeline. I also want you to do research to find the earliest iteration of those technologies and create an event on the timeline for each of these as well. Each of your entries on the timeline should include clear citations to reliable sources. Each entry will ideally be accompanied by an openly licensed featured image (or a copyrighted image that can be included under fair use). We will use a shared google sheet to gather all of the components for this project and I may need to adjust for technical issues as they emerge. All details will be in our doc.
Technologies of Creation: The particular technique used by a creator. Occasionally, the technique you experienced was the first ever use of the technology, but more often the technique will have been used by many artists since its invention. Your task will be to figure out how long that technology has been around and try to find the earliest iteration of it. Here are some examples from our semester:
- Melodrama is a narrative technique that pits a dastardly villain (usually rich) against an underdog (usually not rich) to prompt strong emotions in viewers who identify with the underdog. It is a narrative technique used in approximately one million movies (I jest) and it originated in the eighteenth century.
- The sandbox game is a technique used in creating interactive media that allows players to play in a game world with very few rules or goals. It has been around since the late 1980s.
- The plot twist is a plot technique that is used in many stories (novels, plays, films, games, etc.). It has been around since ancient Greece.
Technologies of Distribution/Access/Discovery: The technology that helped you find or experience a creative work. This can be many different things, but here are some examples from our semester:
- YouTube’s algorithm recommended a video that led you to a game or film or album. This is an Online Video Platform as a technology of discovery. YouTube was not the first to do this, but it was one of the earliest.
- A gaming platform (Steam) made it possible for you to buy a game for your PC. This is digital distribution as a technology of distribution (you also need an Internet-connected device, which is the technology of access).
- I went to a movie theater to see the movie Conclave. The movie theater is a specific kind of auditorium where people gather to experience a creative work together (and usually the building contains multiple auditoriums facing multiple screens). This is simultaneously a technology of distribution and access. This sort of building is distinct from the open-air theaters used in Greek theatrical practices, but in the same tradition.
- The recommendation stickers at Best Video helped you find a movie to watch. This is recommendation stickers in video rental store as a technology of discovery.
- The genre section at Merle’s Record Rack helped you find a movie to watch. This is genre classification as a technology of discovery and it has been around at least since Aristotle.
Part 2
After you’ve contributed to the timeline we’re building together, I want you to create something on your own that you can share with our class or with the general public. This is your chance to dig even deeper into an issue you’ve discovered this semester and share the results of your research with all of us. I have two suggestions on how you can do this, but I’m open to other possibilities!
A physical version of our Timeline for display on the third floor of Harugari Hall (You can create this by hand or I can get a digital file you create printed in color on 11×17 paper).
- Focus on a single decade or some other unit of time (our timeline will cover all of human history 🙂
- Focus on a single type of creative work (music, text, film, game, etc.)
- Focus on a single genre of a single type of creative work (horror film, romance novel, sandbox game, etc.)
- Some other focus!
Two or more of your posts revised for publication on our course website
- All images properly attributed
- Clear list of works cited
- Expanded to include what you’ve learned through research about technologies of creation and distribution/access/discovery.
