Karl's Corner

This course had many goals in which it was trying to accomplish, not only in regards to each project but to increase our overall knowledge of writing. Each of these three projects helped better us as writers and creators of content. For example with project one we had to reconsider what it means to tell a story, how to look at things from a different perspective. You encouraged us to try more radical ideas such as narrate the story from the story tellers perspective not necessarily our own, I remember vividly an example of someone’s video being told from their mother’s perspective not their own. This sort of theme is prevalent throughout the entire course, this ability to look at something from a rhetorical perspective. One of the most important themes and abilities this class required was the ability to analyze something in a rhetorical fashion. In project two we had to create a web-text to hold our rhetorical analysis of our majors. This was an incredibly important part of the class as it really tested how well we were able to step back from our majors and get a different perspective. Not only this but we had to present it online in a professional and easy to navigate fashion.

The first two projects were unique in a sense because they were extending our writing experience past just writing simple papers or other generic forms of writing. This class took the writing experience further and challenged what was media can be a supplement of writing, to make it more powerful. Looking back on projects one and two the writing is the heart of the piece but it is presented in a unique medium. For example project one challenged us to look into our past and look for the right story to tell. Once we found this story it was much more about supporting the script and story with the proper digital media. It was a challenge trying to find the correct songs and pictures to properly describe what truly was a life changing conversation I had with my mother. Similarly with project two, the challenge was simply to fill out 4-5 sections as described on the rubric, but a good grade was far more than this dumbed down description. We had to learn ways to present this rhetorical analysis not only in a professional manor, but in a way that engages the audience too.

 

Project three may have been the most interesting and in my opinion my favorite piece of this class. I am by no means a photoshop or WordPress expert, but the experience of going back through my digital imprint and finding a way best to express it visually was incredibly interesting. This was in particularly cool because we got to see if our reflection matched what the reader was seeing, if they could feel the sum of that experience or not. Overall it was not only an artistic challenge but a writing challenge to see if we could support the media we had compiled to represent that subject. Overall every project helped advance my rhetorical knowledge and learn to look at life not only from my communicative lens but to try and look at it from the other side of the glass…

World views are important, they show more than a little personality, they show a way of seeing and viewing the world that has yet to be thought of. The idea of a world view is very simple in many ways, its how we view the people and world around us. For me it is something a bit more complex than that, it goes deeper, to a level of experience that people can only dream of. A world view isn’t just something we have, it is something we show, a way we act that the world can emulate.When it comes to seeing a new culture or country perspective is key, not just where you are, but where you come from, why it makes you feel the way it does. Something is only foreign if we don’t try and picture where it comes from. One of the lasting lessons I was taught while overseas was how to deal with this sort of change, this new place. Everything is foreign, how do you relate? By picturing the world through their eyes, by realizing the only reason this seems strange or off is because my culture doesn’t do it. If there is one thing this class has taught me it is patience and the significance of looking through someone elses eyes, trying to run a mile in their shoes.

This project was amazing for me, a fun creative way of exploring something my mother was so very right about when i was a child. I wanted so badly in this project to create the feelings I was experiencing, the frustrating at my mom and dad for making me move and doing this to me. The perspective I took on this project was specifically supposed to be aimed at how i was thinking and feeling at that moment. As the video progresses you can sort of hear my reasoning, and see myself growing and noticing that life isn’t so black and white. More than anything I wanted this to be personal, not just images of the places I’m taking about in my story, but actual photos, images from my past. I wanted the narrative approach to be simple and straightforward, it needed to feel as close to what I experienced as possible, move after move without a clue where is next or what it will be like there. That feeling of being a piece of debris floating at sea is how I felt, just utterly lost. I considered for a long time the effect of telling the story from my moms shoes, which accomplished its own things, such as provided a sense of calm and understanding from the moment the move is announced. It severely subtracted in my opinion the conclusion of the story to have my mother tell it. This is an important thing to note as well that it wasn’t some big click in my mind and I knew never wasn’t forever, it involved an evolution of thinking, where i started to consider really what it meant to say or think I would never do something again. It’s similar to times as a kid i said a hated my parents, kids don’t know the full impact of words and this is one of those stories.

For the presentation of the visuals i had a very specific look in my mind of how i wanted this video to progress. I wanted to find the line between showing too many photos and showing too few, I was terribly paranoid that i had pushed for too many images in rapid succession. I feel confident however that I found that perfect middle ground to paint as many pictures of my experiences and where I have been. My experiences overseas made me into the man I am today, not only just the act of moving but the learning I did through it, the mental mindset I had traveling as a kid isn’t the same as how a rational adult thinks. Sometimes we are irrational, and sometimes we can’t see an amazing gift when its repeatedly smacking you on the nose. The images of me as a kid are hugely important. there is something special about old photos, the nostalgia can sometimes be seen even when you didn’t experience it. I wanted to truly show the kid who thought never would be a short thing, the kid who still had so much to learn about how lucky he was to live and spend so much time overseas.

Entertainment:

I think this image of the flash is a good one, i honestly want to use more images of pop culture in relation to me but this will fit in later when i post about myself and social circles.

Ruckenstein in 2014 noted

“‘Significantly, data visualizations were interpreted by research participants as more ‘factual’ or ‘credible’ insights into their daily lives than their subjective experiences.  This  intertwines  with  the deeply-rooted  cultural  notion  that ‘seeing’ makes knowledge reliable and trustworthy.’”

This is a great basis for the start of this project 3, as we are starting to look at what our data foot looks like and what it says about who we are. Ruckenstein is suggesting that the idea of data visualization can tell more about you than the actual subjective experience. This is to say that by looking deeper at our reflection we can see the hard facts of how we spend our time, what that data looks like. But how can we be sure we can trust our devices?  Bridle brings up this point in 2011 very eloquently.

“Bridle found that he did not, in fact, remember all the places that the phone had registered him as visiting. The book of maps was not a representation of his experience, Bridle (2011) wrote, it was the experience of the phone itself” 

I can relate to this personally because how many times are you using something like Facebook messenger to talk to someone, and it it also sending your address info too but the address is not where you are but a block down the street. This sort of approximation makes data visualization an interesting topic because there is a chance that some of this data is actually incorrect in a sense, or as Bridle puts it, “the experience of the phone itself.

 

So I guess this is where i make my first post. To start off with i’ll do a brief introduction; My name is Karl Miller, I am a Senior at the University of Colorado Boulder. I am originally from Chicago, both my parents went to University of Illinois, Urbana. Like most Third Culture Kids, I spent my childhood bouncing around living in places such as England, Shanghai, and Hong Kong. Big fan of the Blackhawks and anything Rugby…. Anyway welcome to my blog…