Let’s Mix It Up With Some MultiModality

I do have some experience with some form of multimodal composing. Though I’m glad most of my more embarrassing videos I’ve made when I was younger have been erased off the face of this earth. I do still have some recent non class related videos floating around, though I don’t intend to share them. They’re pretty terrible in all honesty.

 

Anyway, I’ve been thinking about what Kress was talking about making meaning through different uses of modes. The blogs are also a good example of how I’ve used images or gifs to invoke that I couldn’t be able to simply describe with words. It’s so interesting to me how, not just words, but in combining images, sounds, and the like, it creates a form of synergy. Like Kress pointed out, each mode must work in conjunction with one another to work in an effective manner. But even in this connected form, there is so much room for flexibility.

As someone who is more of a visual learner, I tend to like projects that allow me to tackle an assignment creatively and visually, not just with my words. Two of the examples I will share come from Professor Laura Sparks rhetoric class. The first one is a music mix that was supposed to be connected to one of our rhetoric readings by Kenneth Burke (The Definition of Man). I can’t remember what the exact details were for assignment but I think it had to do with making or creating something that aligned with the reading. So I took Burke’s ideas about the self and his animal analogies and made music out of those ideas. I don’t think I accomplished what I was actually supposed to do.

Just want to point out that I’m no DJ. It was my first time trying to mix music so I didn’t really know what I was doing but I wanted to challenge myself and see what I could come up with. Listening to it again after so long, not gonna lie it’s not great but I liked the challenge that it had presented at the time. Password: class

(Sorry had to make it a private video because Soundcloud kept deleting it. Same thing for the second one only it was Youtube that kept taking it down щ(ಠ益ಠщ))

The second video here was also for Professor Sparks Rhetoric class. It was our final project and I worked with another classmate to create imagery and visual representation of one of our readings. It was almost similar to the assignment mentioned above. The reading that we had to dissect was one by Gloria Anzaldúa that had a theme of language as well as Chicano/a culture in it. I created the audio and music while my classmate created the art at the beginning of the video. It’s pretty rough video quality wise to the point where it’s kind of embarrassing but it’s not the worst thing I’ve made,which is saying something. Password: class

I’m kind of excited to see where this multi modality project will take us. If anything, it certainly be an interesting challenge.