Blog post #3 Week 4

This video is of a cellist who used actual data in the process of composing a piece that reflects global warming throughout the years. The first part of the video goes through his process: how and why he chose to use data to present his protest. He converts global temperature records from the year 1880 to present day: a note for every five years. Climate change is shown throughout the piece, since the data results in him needing to play in a large range of three octaves. His piece showcases how the use of data can be extremely compelling in protest music, as factual information presented in an artistic form can serve as a call to action.


This song by Neil Young is an angry call to action focused on climate change. Lyrically, the track points fingers at those who are blind to what's happening in the world (a theme our group touched on). And although the lyrics are blunt and unapologetic, Young is also hopeful, claiming "When I look at the future/I see hope for you and me". Although it's not typically thought of as constructive in protest music, I think that expressing a sense of hope for the future generations is important.

Ariel Vidrio Week #4

"The Star Spangled Banner" Whitney Houston (Super Bowl 1991)

Whitney Houston's performance of "The Star Spangled Banner" in 1991 is considered one of the best of all time in popular music. She was inspired by Marvin Gaye's soulful rendition at 1983 NBA All-Star Game.  This was a noteworthy performance as Gaye took a song that was written by a (racist) white man and made it soulful (reminiscent of black music).  "He was just free" as Rickey Minor recounted in the 2018 documentary "Whitney."  Played in 4/4 instead of the waltz 3/4, Whitney had the freedom to hold out the notes and add gospel and jazz flavorings.  This was a shocking change, some even called the arrangement sacrilegious. This was a powerful moment for the black community.  "The Star Spangled Banner" is a song about war.  For the black community, acts of state violence have just often have been used against them as it has been used against the country's enemies abroad.  Even though this song was essentially written to about "the land of the freed," Whitney really highlighted that concept in this performance. Some would say, it was the kind of performance that could convert an atheist to believe in Jesus Christ. It was emotional and stirred something in the hearts of the people.

I thought this was cool.  Although climate change is a controversial topic,  it makes the issue a  human problem that everyone will collectively experience. There is a timer set for the human race's existence here on this earth and it is either shortened or lengthened depending on if we decide to act and change the policies that degrade our world's health.

Blog Post Week #4

Our group is doing a piece that speaks to the issues rising in our world surrounding climate change. I found this piece that takes two sounds, a tone and a pluck,  and uses data from carbon emissions to turn the sounds into pitches.  The intensity of the pitches increases with each year which you can view on the counter at the bottom. I found this interesting because our group is trying to make a similar statement about the alarming status of our earth right now, and I found this piece very effective in doing so.

I really like this example because the song that is featured, "gasoline" by Halsey, features very descriptive ambient sounds that are reflective of space and ambience. I found the dancer's interpretation of these small inflections very moving because sometimes, the dancer moved to cues that I would not normally be listening for. Our group has been discussing composing and improvising the piece alongside our dancer so that it is more collaborative in the moment rather than rehearsed.

Blog Post Week 4 [Aislinn Bailie]

Hi all-

As a group, we have been discussing the idea of universal love, and by comparison, it's anti - fear. Fear and hate resonate in a multitude of ways in our world today, but we want to focus on a particular group and discuss how the group's particular hate manifests, and how to combat it, challenge it, in more of a centering way. When I think of art combatting a gross use of power, and through that power spreading this hate, I always think about Pussy Riot and their views particularly on issues that are heavily present in Russia and America. Something I admire about their presence is their appeal to atmosphere, and obvious focus on image and aesthetic. I think it draws the audience in even further, and keeps them engaged with the issues they protest as a group. Their approach of protest may not exactly align with the universal love concept we have been exploring, but there aspects of their protest that could help influence how we go about our source of protest.


For the second video, I would like to only draw focus towards about 3:35 to 10:00 minutes, because Kanye is specifically talking about his fews on Love vs. Fear. It's funny to have come across this interview after the fact because we actually talked about Kanye as an example that can be quite polarizing when discussing the views of the conservative right. Regardless of my own beliefs, I think that Kanye has a compelling point that is worth discussion. He does not shy away from questioning from the public, and he wants to ask similarly tough questions that we had been discussing, except we were all come from a more liberal-minded basis.

Blog #3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZ_QdRlT0Dg

This first video isn't so much aesthetically what we're going for but ideologically it resonates with messages we seek to convey. Idles seeks to raise awareness of issues of toxic masculinity and hate not by simply waving a finger at the problem but by taking it one step further with a loving and inclusive solution. This very much aligns with our idea of presenting universal love to a matter of the alt-right not to sympathize with it by any means but to break the cycle of fighting fire with fire.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJKzsSM6MBg

This next video is the antithesis of what our group has been talking about but is also something that we go back and forth on. This video depicts Richard Spencer, a real-life neo-nazi getting punched in the face by an anonymous man. This is something that is immediately very satisfying and almost justified to me. I struggle with the idea of violent protest because on one hand it is absolutely called for but on the other hand it just perpetuates a more extreme back and forth between two apparent sides. It gives the neo-nazis a way to consider themselves somehow oppressed and makes the other side look desperate and "in the wrong". I don't have a proper solution I just know that violence in some situations is not the answer.

Blog Week 4 (Tessa Fornari)

(Article)

Riot Grrl Movement:

I knew of this movement but not much about it in depth. Found a lot of good articles and documentaries
about the movement because I wanted to find something I could draw from a little bit in terms of energy
after we started talking about themes we could use in our performance.  

Glass Armonica: 

Also I was looking up some instruments after our discussion shifting to environmental issues and I
found videos of someone playing the glass armonica when looking for instruments that included the
use of water when played (but I guess we couldn’t do this in Davis due to the liquid rules).

Blog Week 4: Two New Videos (Steve Klingbiel)

"Planetary Bands, Warming World," utilizes pitch as a medium to output recorded temperatures since 1880. Each note in this piece represents a year, and in this case; each member of the string quartet represents a region in the Northern Hemisphere. On top of that each instrument is tuned to the average temperature of their respective regions. In relation to our group project we have been primarily using rhythm and timbre as an emotional appeal to the content. 

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/this-song-composed-from-133-years-climate-change-data-180956225/

"Dead Reckoning" is a dance piece that uses the kinesthetic movement as well as color to evoke an emotional connection to climate change. The choreography is meant to show how we have interacted with the Earth; and that our actions will have consequences. I honestly wanted to watch and research dance pieces to see how I as a musician can communicate better with dancers for collaboration. 

 

Week 4 (Sky Christoph)

This first collection of pieces relates more to how we want to approach our concept, specifically with the ideas of layering and burying info among other info until it's all distorted into something we can't understand. This video has some interesting ways that that could be done, and is a great example of losing the body in lots more information.


This next video isn't thematically related to our issues regarding environmentalism, but the way that ideas were communicated with layers of projections and highlighting certain layers is related to what we are discussing. Included is a diagram explaining how it was set up. It won't let me embed the video, but I've linked it. The poem was written and performed by Thylias Moth, from the point of view of a young slave girl who has been taught to read and sees a specific page of a book in her master's room relating to moths. She uses the moth as a metaphor in a very interesting way.
https://vimeo.com/7797154


Also, not a video, but related to rising sea levels and things (in this case, cities and populated areas) being buried, this article has some visualizations for what could happen to some areas around the world by 2050 if sea levels continue to rise.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/10/29/climate/coastal-cities-underwater.html

Week 4- Hannah M

My group is interested in exploring a sonic build that begins with natural, atmospheric sounds and morphs into something more artificial, synthetic-sounding. We're looking at climate change and humans' exploitation of the environment. An image we're thinking about are glaciers melting and the cracking of ice, which will potentially uncover a dirtier/glassier sound further along in our piece. This track is pretty open and reflects how we may set the space up.

I think much of my group's approach is to make people feel a bit unsettled and uncomfortable. Part of this will come through in our deliberate staging and spatial configurations of the audience. We think putting people in the round will force everyone to see each other, which will in a way increase discomfort by emphasizing an accountability factor. We're also interested in bringing about this uneasy feeling through a constant rumble that becomes more noticeable and enveloping as time goes on. This piece between the 9.5 min and 14.5 min mark demonstrates something along those lines.

Art and the Alt-Right [Nicolas Hopkin]

We've decided to focus our energy against the Alt-Right, a complicated and multifaceted identity based in hate, ignorance, and fragile entitlement. At our current point in time we're focusing on how their rhetoric polarizes the right and left even more, making progress more and more difficult.

Both of the examples of art revolving around similar subjects I've found here take a very grunge-punk aesthetic, as well as ridiculing their leaders/symbols. I think this informs our process as the goal we're seeking is to not continue to push the alt right deeper into their dens of hate. We're trying to find a way to make a piece that doesn't forgive or sympathize with alt-right ideas, but that asks the question of how can we change their mind, and if we can't then how do we address the spread of their message? We know that's a bit of a large ask, but we're continually refining our ideas. I suppose its the rehabilitate over punishment method of thinking we're trying to foster.