The quotation shown above was pulled directly from the first page of our syllabus. What a way to start a class, huh? In the Spring Quarter of my sophomore year of college, I enrolled in this upper-level CHID class taught by professor Phillip Thurtle. The course was primarily discussion-based and culminated in an open ended and self-directed project. I had absolutely zero idea what I was getting myself into, but had heard that taking a class with Professor Thurtle promised to be an experience. So, having no clue what the topic of the class was I registered for this course. 

 

On the first day of the class, when we received our list of readings, I realized that I was in over my head. The readings were incredibly dense philosophical texts that covered everything from phenomenology to speculative fiction novels. It was the first time I had been in a class where the only thing on our agenda each day was to discuss the readings we did. There was little to no lecture, and our professor spoke rarely and when he did it was to suggest another insight that we had not covered. Professor Thurtle did not police the conversation, nor did he provide more than a general skeleton for things to talk about. He allowed us to self-direct the flow of discussion: sometimes we stuck closely to passages from the readings, sometimes we let ourselves wander into things tangentially related, sometimes we drew on personal anecdotes or readings outside of class that we had done previously. Essentially, because our professor played such a minor role in explicating, summarizing, or outlining the readings we did, the quality of the discussion relied heavily on our own ability to collectively sustain conversation and connect ideas. I found myself listening very intently to the discussions in this class because when I worked through the readings alone, oftentimes they confounded me, but when they were open for a collaborative discussion, they became easier to grasp. I needed the support and perspectives of my peers to fully understand the significance of our material and, to that end, the larger project of the class as a whole. 

 

This group mentality also helped us develop relationships with each other. We created a class chemistry that I have not quite captured since that time. The open and flexible classroom climate that we were able to build allowed the kinds of conversations we had to grow over the quarter, and, when it came time to work on our final projects, the spirit of curiosity and mutual support made room for amazing work to be done. 

 

This course provided me with one of my most robust and creative experiences with philosophy and theory, in one of the most unique class atmospheres I have ever experienced. 

 

 

Below is the link to my final project as well as the accompanying artist's statement/reflection.

 

Link to my final project Sound Cloud: https://soundcloud.com/emeliahope

 

(6/1/2012)

Final Reflection

Or: Ohhh, so that’s what we’ve been doing 

 

Who knew there was such a thing as transduction? Ten weeks ago, I had never heard the term, nor even knew it existed. Now? I’ve investigated, practiced and familiarized myself with the concept in an intimate, self-directed experiment with noise. Throughout the course of this project, I’ve encountered some interesting things and come to some inspiring pseudo-conclusions (after all, does anything ever really conclusively conclude?).

 

First of all, I’ve learned that learning via a project (i.e. learning that is never quite finished) is a successful methodology for inquiry. So rarely in academia do professors offer the opportunity, or even allow students, to embark on their own project. Projects demand creativity, flexibility and initiative, which are all difficult things to grade. Most of the time, students are merely asked to offer original insight in the form of a thesis bolstered by other peoples’ work. By assigning an open-ended project that is informed by the student’s understanding of class themes and challenging the student to stretch their comfort zone, the student is engaging in synthesis, reflection, and action. Amazing.

 

So, I set out to propose a project that dealt with transduction to complicate its definition and to see how it turned out in “real life” actualities. I also introduced a new term in my project: friction. I wanted to test the theoretical function of transduction to see if information could change medium with gain rather than a loss, as in translation. My project was heavily influenced by media theory where noise, silence, stutters and mispronunciations are considered to be communication, rather than the stuff that interferes with communication. Initially, I suspected that people would read through the piece with little difficulty, perhaps pausing here and there or stumbling over a word or two. But it turned out to be more complicated and interesting than I had anticipated.

 

Things that surprised me about my project? When I asked people if they would be willing to volunteer for my project I was met with enthusiasm. When I followed up with an explanation of my project entailed, people suddenly got a little nervous. Most volunteers were intimidated by the thought of sight-reading a piece of text with no markers, clues, or built-in hints. Some people asked me to leave the room so that they wouldn’t be so self-conscious while they were recording. Many felt the need to insert a disclaimer before recording: “Uh, it’s going to be really bad, but, uh…” There was such a strong sense of discomfort and embarrassment even before they had started recording. I had not anticipated that my volunteers would have been so anxious to participate. I assured people that they couldn’t read anything wrong; anything they read “correctly” or “incorrectly” would be part of the piece itself. There was no pressure to read perfectly.

 

When I asked people afterwards how they felt, most were still a little sheepish. They reported that it was harder than they thought it would be, even those who were confident going in. It was difficult for the readers to orient themselves within the text because they had no punctuation, capitalization or line breaks with which to navigate. One of my readers told me that they thought it was a great thought exercise in how to approach something unexpected and to remove oneself from trying to anticipate the progression of words. Normally, when we read aloud, we scan ahead and try to finish phrases in our minds before our mouths catch up. But my project foiled these attempts because I included specific vocabulary that people outside of our class were most likely not familiar with. Also, my piece did not read fluently or obviously like a novel or article might. There was a much lower degree of predictability in my poem.

 

When I went back and listened to the recordings a couple of things struck me. One, each recording all sounded very different. Even though the same words were being used by each reader, every person exaggerated different syllables, stumbled over different words, left out different words, and paused for a breath at different times. Two, it appears that I was able to design a field of immanence wherein possibility and potential arose from relatively few rules and very basic material that each reader had to interact with candidly. Much came from little. Huge variety came from sameness. Ah, emergence! Three, the human voice and all the awkward sounds, silences and accompanying noises really did make the piece. Transduction was featured heavily in my project: taking pieces of the readings, reorganizing them, and then having them transduced from the realm of the visual to the realm of the aural was truly an incredible journey. Transduction had taken place and, with each reader, more was added to the piece than was lost.

 

Overall, I am very impressed by the results of this endeavor. It was far more complex than I had originally predicted. It was much more personal and intimate than I had anticipated. Most importantly, though, the project was a result of my own hybridization of material and creativity and for that I am very thankful and proud.