A bit of back story- when deciding courses it was between doing a study with Alec or taking a writing course. Both would have been beneficial, but when it came down to what I needed the most- it was this course. This review will look at my personal project, but also address the overall course.
My pending degree is an MFA: Interdisciplinary Studies - Theatre & Creative Technology. I am exploring autoethnographic performance in spoken word and performing arts, and looking at the parallel between live performance and how we perform ourselves online. What I needed was a course that would help me articulate the social media/online component of the project. This course has accomplished that and so much more. What I'm really interested in is the way that we create space for ourselves to voice our stories- because too many people are marginalized in what I'm discovering for myself to be an extremely oppressive, subversively oppressive state. I am so incredibly priviledged to be Canadian, and live in North America- but at the same time, I know that my priviledge will not likely ever be at the same level of priviledge as many of my peers. At least not in my lifetime, and without devaluing the moments where we make strides forward to a more egalitarian society, we are continually inundated with stories of people who do not speak, are afraid to speak, or are silenced.
Cutting to the chase- what I learned from EC&I 831- that empathy is not working, and trying to convince members of a priviledged class who remain ignorant through empathy is not working. The results are that alienated/lonely people feel more isolated. The solution- the best way I can now articulate is: we need to create and recognize and teach those of us who are marginalized that we are a part of a collective identity. We need to move past victim shaming, and move towards victim recognition- a validation of experience- a showing that we see what's happening, we're listening, and "we" includes the person that we are speaking to. When one of us is oppressed, we are all oppressed, when one of us is bullied, we are all bullied. We can not sit behind the fear of unfamiliarity and avoid the spaces that have been colonized or invaded.
In our last lecture, the room full of amazing teachers who opened up about the challenges of digital citizenship, access, bandwidth/technology, and online interaction was so refreshing and eye opening. Things turned serious when we talked about existing online, bullying, and problems our students were facing. We talked about the alienation of technology, the barriers between familiarity and vocabulary. This is something I actually was very familiar with. Discussions talked about how most students now are born with tablets/laptops/smart phones as part of their reality. Infants are learning to use devices at an alarming rate. Most young people know how to type before they know how to write.
When I was growing up, I was raised learning 4 languages at the same time. My English was fluent by grade school, I was part of a generation of Canadians who lived in a cross section of language and the associated barriers. My parents- though 'fluent' in theory, experienced many language barriers- from the ability to process information at the same rate as their tenacious young son, to racism from people who were immediately resistant to their Vietnamese/Cantonese English accent. I once apologized for their language barrier... I still remember the punishment I received. My parents who worked so hard to get to Canada, were surrounded by an unfamiliar language, and faced the fear of trying to race me in this world- everyday.
The same can be said for technology. There is still, and perhaps will always be, a steep differential between the level of comfort parents have with technology vs. the comfort their children experience. I made the bantered allusion that the current "tech talk" parents have with youths is akin to the "sex talk" Because of fear, resistance, or assumptions of comfort- these discussions do not happen to the depth that they need to. It becomes more difficult- like an online playground with no supervision where students have to navigate harassment, abuse, bullying, and learning new forms of managing relationships online. Tons of questions of privacy, and ethical behavior is always brought up. One classmate discussed how a teacher posed as a fake student with fictitious profile to infiltrate the student community to address bullying issues that arise. The only argument in this teacher's defense was that, they were able to address the bullying because they at least could find out about it.
The majority of the response was that this was UNETHICAL. And to me- this is why- and this is how it relates to my work. I've learned more and more that it's more than just the action/content- its the methodology. Like MacLuhan said, "the media is the message" I say, the "methodology is the method" because we learn more from how things are done and why things are done, than what is done. Students are now exposed to the reality that in order to "protect" them, it's suddenly OK to lie, create fake profiles, friend strangers. If found out- then any trust that was formed is broken. It also normalizes this type of behavior which makes us disregard this behavior in the future.
One teacher mentioned that 44% of students claimed that they had been bullied online, but 90% of those students felt safe at school. To me, this reads as, students have normalized teasing online- disregarding the implications of the impact of bullying, which actually feeds the stigma that those who come forward about bullying are "weak" and should just get "over it." What's worse, is that, too many people in authourity offer the solution of "get offline." All this is victim shaming. The Victims are NOT the problem, the aggressors are. Praise be to Audrey Watters, and her incredible work.
This course- fundamentally changed the way I write spoken word. I am known as a Queer Asian Artist who writes Queer Asian and Activist work, however, everything that I have written thus far has been very specific to the relationships- this comes from my background in theatre. Over the course of this term, researching thousands of videos and performances- I've been able to articulate the methodology of spoken word artists who are activists. In our work, we either speak to the aggressor, to each other, or to the masses. The course alone did not change my writing though- with all the recent news about Mike Brown, Eric Garner, and any number of other Black men who have died because of Police brutality, and the media storm that is finally recognizing the disparate level of priviledge and oppression in North America- I rediscovered my voice in a new way.
To show this difference, here is a video of a performance I had in Montreal last year. It was one of my most popular pieces- inspired by queer couples who were not able to be recognized by the law and by their families in the event that one passed away.
and then- my piece that I wrote from this course, that I performed at our last lecture:
One of the most important videos I filmed as part of Poets in the Kitchen:
My project Poets in the Kitchen has been an incredibly fun experience. I've really loved it. Unfortunately I was away for 2 weeks this term, and then when I returned from Victoria, I faced an infestation at my home, which left me unable to cook for 3 weeks, and without cooking, I could not do my project to a level of success.
That said, a lot of things went wrong, but then again- a lot of things went right. Full disclosure- before I came to the University of Regina- I was a communications specialist at the University of Waterloo. I spent my time developing a social media strategy to the entire student body. I worked within student life, and then with residence, and then within the alumni office. I studied strategies and peak release times, etc. I legitimately tried to develop a release timeline and wanted to have a couple episodes ready to launch so that I could be consistent with my postings. That is the greatest set back, and most important practice that I know I dropped- being consistent with posts and in a timely manner. I've had lots of time management issues this term.
But that was not my focus. My goals this term was to break down the methodology of making videos and cooking videos, and figure out how to articulate this in my research. The bonus was seeing how I could incorporate the aspects of my research around autoethnographic performance, autobiographical performance, and how we engage online.
This course, more than any course, helped me build the bridge between my otherwise disparate disciplines. I have been told again and again that there was a continual gap/disconnect between my use of theatre/spoken word/music/technology/community engaged art/devised work/improvisation... it's a lot. But it all fits :)
If I apply the constraint/focus on citizenship- how we take agency, and perform ourselves concurrently in a mixed reality environment, and recognize that when we are pushed to exist in multiple realities- that our means of coping is to find ourselves in these spaces by building communities. We seek validation and recognition, and create these defining features by showing what we associate with and what we distance ourselves from. Upon recognizing this- then, the discussion point I mentioned earlier about creating communal identities is a possibility.
Allan Levine's work on story telling helped to build a methodology in... how we tell stories- but perhaps more important- it showed me how OTHER people create stories- and which stories work. Readings for Danah Boyd, and discussions on disclosure- the reversal of public vs private and how we then post information that is insecure and accessible/replicable/spreadable (i.e. Alec's experiences with having his visage and content hijacked by online predators), helped me to articulate the dangers of engaging- the dangers of speaking- specifically- the risks that oppressed people have to face when they risk speaking.
ON a very personal note- this is what I'm facing. I'm a performer. I live online. I am very open- but when it comes to this type of work- I've never felt so much anxiety- not because of time management, but because I care about this so much- it was a major step for me to make videos at all- let alone- public videos. I come from a history of bullying and abuse, that I am still coping with.
Alec's lectures and our lectures on how we exist as co-creators in a network where we are ALL authours, and have the ability to broadcast ourselves to the entire network or with individuals or subgroups, and how that has changed since this work began is a historical mirroring of how the audiences I am engaging with (the spoken word artists- many of whom identified as oppressed) have had to learn and develop their own networks and simultaneously discover the networks they were born into, put into, and that they did not develop.
I've had such a hard time staying on top of the assignments. Extenuating circumstances aside, even tonight- as I write this learning summary- it's the last few hours before our deadline. I've watched, and read for days now, and unable to post. I can't yet explain the fear/resistance- but can only recognize that I am not motivated by the marks so much as I am trying to process and develop what I've learned thus far.
Referring to the network that we, the class, officially formed- I originally felt quite distant from the class. I didn't consider myself a school teacher. It wasn't until one day, a saturday, where I teach theatre to young people from ages 9-19, that I realized- these people may be in my colleagues classes.
It happened when during an improvisation- I proposed to the students that they recreate Youtube viral videos. After we developed and showed the scenes, we had a very intense discussion about them getting permission from their parents to see if we could make actual youtube videos- and we talked about why. Then I asked their feedback on the scenes they had created and one aggressively astute student had an AHA! moment. He said, "So... our comments right now... are like the comments we see online!"
It was this moment that I experienced how connected they were... and from there... I learned that a disproportionately large percentage of my students were facing SERIOUS bullying an abuse online. It only furthered my need to explore this work, and try to DO something.
On a slightly nostalgic... romantic note- I have taught/facilitated hundreds of sessions on social media and how young people engage online to parents, teachers, academics, etc. Each group seems so... resistant to the topic, and engaging online. I've worked hard to talk about the change in emotional intelligence, and how current users- even young ones- can extrapolate deeper meaning in the communications they send back and forth. I, in my hypocrisy, was about to write off these 'adults' and educators. But this course has renewed my trust by being in a room of elders and teachers who 'get it'.
In reflection of Poets in the Kitchen- I'm going to keep making videos. I've got 2 that will be posted within the week. I think that not feeling the pressure of time and grades will only help it grow. I think that as a concept it could really fly, but one thing I DID not successfully do- but I don't think I could have done- was hone in on a specific audience. I think the type of content that is 'Poets in the Kitchen' is one where I need to either create a series of recipes that people like, condense the videos into 1 video/episode, and then create accessible poetry that will also draw an audience. My goal was to exemplify the cross over between being online and spoken word/art, that didn't entirely happen- but there were some real successes too.
I feel great moving into my final term of this degree, and am grateful for what I learned in this class.
Thanks for reading y'all!
No comments:
Post a Comment