Category: Artist Statement

For the fifth hack, we were supposed to look at one of our previous hacks and expand upon it, perhaps giving it a deeper meaning or providing an expansion into the details of the previous hack. For this hack, I decided to look back into my third hack for the course, my Software Invasion of Spotify, which I used in a completely different way than it was intended. For a refresher here is the artist statement for that hack, which I had renamed Mixify as a play on words from Spotify, but incorporating the baking element of creating recipes through playlists.

The Creative Process

My first iteration was an expansion of what I had already created in Spotify, playlists consisting of recipe ingredients & instructions because I thought it would be cool to make an extension of what I had already started in my previous hack. However, after looking at the instructions, I realized that I would have to put more thought into my work in order to “fundamentally reimagine it.” For the first portion of my work, I spent time trying to expand the recipe idea into a entire recipe book of sorts, even creating AI images of the different desserts in order to make a cohesive folder of these recipes which was made up of American Classics.

However, once I started actually making these different playlists, I felt as though what I was doing wasn’t fulfilling enough to be a deliverable for this project. Which brought me back to square one after a good chunk of time working on this first version of my project. When I was thinking of what I could do, I looked into previous ideas that other Spotify users had done and noticed a trend of making “POV” playlists where they would make up scenarios such as taking an exam and being unsure of the answers to certain questions, labeled “POV: you’re trying to complete a test.” With this, my mind started heading in a different direction of trying to do a point of view playlist, and my focus was more on “POV: Dr. Seuss reads you ‘Green Eggs & Ham'” but once I started creating this playlist, I deemed it useless because Spotify already has a feature where you can follow along with the lyrics of a song, or in this case, a story.

So, yet again, I was back at square one and getting a little desperate because I didn’t have much time to start over from scratch before we needed to present our hacks to the class. I went back through the Reddit subreddits that I had been looking at previously and that is when I started digging deeper into the playlists and seeing what I could make up that maybe Spotify doesn’t offer. This is where I found even more playlists labeled as “POV” that furthered my thought process into my creation, when I found playlists such as “POV: ordering McDonald’s in France.” Though the idea of this specific playlist was silly, it helped me think about how vast the song/audio collection on Spotify is, and how sticking to one language would be restricting me in ways that I was previously unaware of. I also had begun thinking about how the “Green Eggs & Ham” already had the lyrics available for listeners, but only in English. With these two thoughts intermingling in my brain, I then came up with my final idea, which was to use Spotify playlists in way of translating songs as this is something that Spotify hasn’t accomplished yet. Once I started delving into this realm more, I realized that this is an idea posed by many Spotify users as noted on the Spotify community page here.

Once I had locked in this idea of translating lyrics, I then had to look into what song/artist I wanted to use and whether it would be better to translate from a different language to English or vice versa. In terms of choosing what language to translate from, I had decided Spanish would be easiest since I know both English and Spanish already, and I decided to translate a Spanish song into English because I had already worked on searching for songs with specific wording in English with the previous hack, as well as, with the previous ideas in this hack. Once I had this idea locked in, I then had to decide what song or artist I was going to look into and use for this project, and I wanted to use a song with a deeper meaning that might not be as known amongst other communities besides the Latino one. This is when I landed on Bad Bunny because as some may be aware, Bad Bunny has used his music in order to advocate for different issues that the Latino community has faced such as displacement of natives in Puerto Rico, violence of LGBTQ+ members, and machismo. For example, in his music video for “Yo Perreo Sola,” Bad Bunny dressed in drag throughout as a statement about respecting women and bringing attention to trans women in the community who should be treated in the same manner because they are women as well. He has stated many times that he feels he needs to use his platform to make a difference in the communities that enjoy his music, whether they want to listen or not. Though his music is widely known because of how catchy it is, I felt that sometimes his message flies under the radar, especially when people are unaware of the weight his lyrics carry when all that they can understand is the beat. So, due to this, I decided Bad Bunny would be the perfect artist to highlight in this project. I also decided that his song, “Andrea” would be the perfect song to translate because it’s a personal favorite of mine, not only because I love how it flows, but also I love the message behind it. As a Latina woman, I found this song to be similar to my own and other’s sentiments, it has become increasingly obvious in my learning, reading of the news, and independent research that women in Latin America face much more hardship than men because of machismo. I felt this song is catchy, and I’ve heard it played around when I’m in public, but maybe people don’t know the lyrics or the message behind it, and I wish Spotify would implement translating songs to allow for more listeners to interact with music in the way that artists intend.

I definitely found translating lyrics to be a much more difficult task than creating a recipe book, perhaps because Bad Bunny uses more complex language than ingredients or instructions would, or perhaps because my translation differs from another person’s as was mentioned in class, but once I finished the first verse, I felt accomplished about my project and what I would be presenting to the class. For this hack, I think I would label it, “concierto mobile” since it showcases Spotify’s Karaoke/lyrics feature similar to a personal concert and naming it in Spanish to also showcase the translation feature to it.

Research

Reddit

Believe it or not, Reddit was a big help in my creative thinking & process for this project because I was aware that other people had used Spotify in these similar ways that I had begun using playlists and folders in Spotify. When I found r/weirdspotifyplaylists, I began a deep dive into what was being created with all the different and unique songs that are readily available on Spotify. With every look into all of the playlists, I felt my idea growing under the surface, waiting to be found.

I even found a website that a user had created that could create this playlists with whatever you inputted for it, if Spotify contains a song with the words you searched, showcasing how this playlist creation format has become popularized throughout the world, allowing people to show creative freedom, send messages, and whatever else their heart may desire. I even used Weird Spotify in order to search for words that were giving me trouble when I was creating my own playlists.

Bad Bunny

Besides research into the different playlists that were being created by Reddit users, I also had to do research on Bad Bunny for this project in order to showcase just how important my decision of using his music was for me. Bad Bunny is a Reggaeton artist from Puerto Rico who has famously used his platform to advocate for different communities within the Latino community because he believes in justice for all, even staring into the face of violence or hatred in order to send his message. The biggest example I can think of his advocacy in his work is through his music video for “Yo Perreo Sola” because he dressed in drag in order to help advocate for the LGBTQ+ community and women all around with his visuals and his lyrics despite the ridicule he received for his work because of the machismo that exists in the communities that he is popular in.

Andrea

Though his biggest example of advocacy, in my opinion, is through this music video, this is not the only time when Bad Bunny ruffles some feathers with his work. Arguably, I believe he does this a lot with his work as he uses his lyrics to talk about current issues affecting his community. With that being said, I found that “Andrea” would be the perfect song to showcase for this project as it is another beautiful example of Bad Bunny using his platform to advocate for women, violence against women, and vulnerable communities. When Bad Bunny first released this song many of his fans speculated that he had created it in response to a murder case in Puerto Rico at the time, where a woman named Andrea Ruiz had been failed by the legal system as she tried to fight for her abusive ex-boyfriend to be arrested or file a restraining order against him but was not granted this, and just a month later she was found dead, with gruesome injuries on the side of the road. Though Bad Bunny has come out and said he did not write this song about her specifically, he and myself, find it powerful that many viewed the song in this way because it showcases just how well his words flowed to bring attention to gender-based violence in the Latino community, so much so that fans connected it to a specific cased. Although it sucks that this advocacy is needed since gender issues are widespread throughout Latin America, I’m glad that someone has taken it into their hands to help with bringing the attention to the media.

Sources

weirdspotify.com

https://www.reddit.com/r/weirdspotifyplaylist

Reddit about Spotify Translated

https://community.spotify.com/t5/Live-Ideas/Translation-lyrics/idi-p/5799639

https://www.ksat.com/entertainment/2020/03/27/bad-bunny-goes-full-drag-and-makes-empowering-statement-in-yo-perreo-sola-music-video

https://peopleenespanol.com/chica/bad-bunny-andrea-song-true-meaning

In this Hack, I chose to return to Hack#3, which is the real timing clock I built in Minecraft. In the original version, my goal is to precisely introduce real time into the game world through technical means, thereby breaking the boundary between the two. This clock converts the changes of each second into digital signals through redstone circuits and presents them visually on the screen in the game. This approach reduces “time” to a highly computable and continuously advancing mechanism, enabling the game world to structurally simulate the time of reality.

But it was precisely during the process of using this device that I gradually realized its expressive potential was still confined within a framework of “technical synchronization”. Players do not have a particularly profound perception of this time number that changes second by second. Instead, it is more like “reading data” rather than “experiencing time”. Therefore, in the Beta version, I attempted to shift the focus from “controlling time” to “feeling time”, no longer relying on precise scales, but rather constructing a time experience that is closer to human perception through unstable and dissipative smoke.

The most notable manifestation of this transformation was that I used redstone to ignite the straw, allowing the smoke produced by the burning straw to form numbers in the air. Because the generation of smoke is delayed and its existence itself is brief and vague, this smoke clock can no longer be as precise to the second as before. It is no longer a “precise device”, but a “visual moment”.  One has to gaze at it, wait for it, watch it slowly emerge and disperse with the wind. This experience is closer to our true perception of time in the game: not being aware of the progress of time until the smoke has dissipated, day and night alternate, and the player suddenly realizes that they have been in it for a long time. Compared with clear figures, this untouchable and vanishing smoke is more like a metaphor for the experience of time itself.

The most fundamental difference from the original project is not only the change in the presentation method, but also the shift in the conceptual focus: I no longer attempt to make the game “imitate reality”, but instead demonstrate the coexistence and tension of the two time mechanisms through two parallel smoke clocks. One shows the real time and the other shows the game time within Minecraft. This just a position constitutes an experience structure, allowing players to passively perceive the conflict between the two temporal logics as they travel through the space. Real time relies on local area network synchronization and requires additional plugins to connect to the system time for accurate operation, while game time is rooted in Minecraft’s internal day-night mechanism and always progresses at its own pace. This “external access” in reality instead makes real time seem out of place in the game and also reveals the heterogeneity and intrusiveness of real time in the virtual space.

Behind this concept reconstruction, I referred to multiple theoretical frameworks. The concept of “continuous time” proposed by Henri Bergson is one of the theoretical fulcrums for my current transformation. Bergson defined scientific time as a quantifiable and divisible unit of scale, while understanding conscious time as an immeasurable and continuously flowing “continuity”. The smoke clock embodies precisely the latter: it is not a rhythmic advancement but an immersive experience, an existence that is only realized in the process of dissipation.

I also encountered many technical difficulties during the progress. For example, the realization of real time relies on local area network plugins and precise Tick control, while the smoke effect is difficult to predict and is easily affected by wind direction and spatial interference. However, in a certain sense, these “technical difficulties” also precisely constitute the contradiction that this project intends to convey: the control of time is always limited. The more technology attempts to precisely express time, the more it will expose its instability and imperceptibility. Ultimately, the smoke clock is not a tool for answering questions about time, but a device that constantly poses questions. It is both a sensory experience and a philosophical metaphor: Do we only realize that time is flowing around us when it is about to disappear and the smoke rises and then dissipates? Perhaps, in the process of immersing ourselves in the game world, are we experiencing the escape of time or another continuation of the rules of reality?

Link to project: https://abracadabacus.glitch.me

I chose to reimagine my virtual abacus made in Google Sheets because I wanted to explore how I could design the abacus to have more utility. I thought about the Oregon Trail Game and how games can be designed to enhance learning and make players think more critically, which I wanted to attempt by gamifying the abacus. I was inspired by the critical play hack, where we redesigned games to have players think more critically on a topic, and thought this could also be done through making the abacus a mode of engaging in critical play.

There is no clear purpose for a user in my initial abacus, they are invited to play around with the tool to see how it represents different numbers, but there is no specified goal. In my beta version, I wanted to think about how playing with the abacus could help users better understand some of the basics of our computer systems. In the first artist statement, I talked a lot about how our computers are a black boxes where we don’t understand their algorithmic processes. In the new project, I wanted the abacus to act as a tool to better introduced users to some of the invisible processes our computers engage in. 

Many people don’t realize that the basis of what computers do is based in binary, that everything is abstracted down to 0s and 1s. Similarly, an abacus abstracts numbers through how the beads are placed. I decided I could make a game that could better exemplify to a player the concept of data being abstracted. Inspired by a comment from Dr. Sample, I thought color was a type of data that could be represented well through the abacus. I came up with a concept for each row of an abacus to represent a color in the CMYK color model. I then thought users could adjust the beads to see how the color changes, when there are more or less beads clicker representing certain colors. 

I realized I could further make this idea a game by having the code generate a random color and then the user has to attempt to match the color by adjusting the beads on the virtual abacus. This challenge allows users to begin to teach themselves not only how an abacus works, but also gain an understanding how things like color can be represented through numerical data. To someone with no familiarity with an abacus, the game is rather hard to figure out in the beginning, but over time the goal is for the user to keep experimenting until they start to get the hang of using the numerical data below each color to adjust the abacus.

In the alpha abacus, while the tool itself is meant to be simple, the code existing beneath the surface is rather intricate. This is similar in the beta version, where the proper code to make the game function is pretty complex, but a user would never know. In this way, there is cognitive friction because while I aim to teach about the hidden processes hidden below a computer’s surface, the algorithms that allow my design to function are inaccessible to the user. This introduces a from of resistance where making a tool meant to highlight its simplicity requires rather developed and more inaccessible technology.

The utilization of complex modern technology to create the abacus is also essential in combating ideas of technological utopianism. In designing my game, I maintained that it was important to have the abacus be a central feature despite there being other tools to represent data. O’Shea explains the dangers in viewing technological progress as the marker of a perfect society and how we shouldn’t view technology as the method to supposedly rewrite our future. Thousands of years ago, the abacus was a remarkable piece of technology, yet today it would seem to have no utility. It would be unwelcome in the technological utopia, yet my game is centered around its abilities and how it can act as a learning tool. In this way, I hope to argue that new development in technology is not a solution to all our problems, instead we can also callback to the past to reframe our understanding of the present. 

Works Cited

Lizzie O’Shea, “Technological Utopianism is Dangerous” from Future Histories: What Ada Lovelace, Tom Paine, and the Paris Commune Can Teach Us about Digital Technology (2019)

My fifth hack builds significantly on my first hack of short-form content consumption and its psychological effects, but takes a more interactive dive into addressing the physiological neglect that can result from digital addiction. Inspired by Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, I focus specifically on the foundational, physiological needs – hydration, nourishment, and rest – that often go ignored during extended sessions of media consumption.

In my first hack, I considered short-form platforms like TikTok and YouTube Shorts, exploring their addictive characteristics as described by Xie et al. in their research on short-form video addiction. I previously connected this to Roger Caillois’s concept of Alea from his taxonomy of games, drawing parallels between random reinforcement seen in gambling and the mechanics of endless scrolling. These early explorations framed digital scrolling as passive, compulsive behavior.

In my alpha iteration, I attempted to leverage this addictive nature toward health-conscious behavior. By creating a physical interaction through a MakeyMakey and a water cup, scrolling required users to hydrate – completing an electrical circuit to trigger the next video. This simple interaction introduced a mindful break into an otherwise passive experience.

While this initial hack proved to be conceptually intriguing, it only addressed one facet of self-care – hydration. Recognizing the limitations of this first approach, I aimed to reimagine and significantly expand my beta iteration by encompassing a more comprehensive range of physiological needs.

This hack includes three distinct physical interactions designed explicitly to address hydration, hunger, and energy:

Hydration: I maintained my original method, a water cup connected to the MakeyMakey via an alligator clip. Drinking water completes a circuit, prompting the next video to appear.

Energy: To symbolize rest, I incorporated a napkin layered with aluminum foil attached to the MakeyMakey. Touching one’s mouth with this napkin pauses the video (shortcut key K), enforcing a mindful moment of rest from constant digital stimuli.

Hunger: The third interaction involves using a fork connected to the MakeyMakey. Touching the fork to one’s mouth completes the circuit and inputs a “like” to the current video (shortcut key L, utilizing a YouTube shortcut Chrome extension), metaphorically connecting engagement with nourishment.

To further strengthen the user’s awareness and interaction with their physiological state, I developed a Chrome extension that visually gamifies these needs. The extension displays three interactive progress bars for hydration, hunger, and energy, which diminish over time as users consume short-form videos. Each physical interaction described replenishes the corresponding visual meter, creating an immediate feedback loop that highlights bodily needs, prompting users to maintain balanced self-care habits.

Further, informed by the embodied interaction theory explained by Paul Dourish, my hack emphasizes how physical interactions can foster mindfulness and heightened self-awareness. In addition, it employs B.F. Skinner’s principles of behavioral psychology, harnessing positive reinforcement techniques to recondition digital behavior toward healthier outcomes.

Overall, my fifth hack synthesizes various psychological frameworks into an experience that encourages users to evaluate their relationship with technology. By transforming the compulsive act of digital scrolling into purposeful, health-conscious behavior, I aim to disrupt passive habits and promote a mindful integration of digital and physiological well-being.

References:

Caillois, Roger. “Man, Play, and Games.” University of Illinois Press, 2001.

Dourish, Paul. “Where the Action Is: The Foundations of Embodied Interaction.” MIT Press, 2001.

Xie, Jin et al. “The effect of short-form video addiction on undergraduates’ academic procrastination: a moderated mediation model.” Frontiers in psychology vol. 14 1298361. 15 Dec. 2023, doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1298361

By splicing, reforming, transposing, and transforming musical elements of my previous project, Hack #4, I remixed my remix to offer a new, critical message. This old work used three musical pieces from three distinct time periods to exhibit music’s quality and tendency to be used for advocacy against systems of oppression, inequality, and injustice. “This is America” (2018) advocates against gun violence and speaks upon the Black Experience in America, “What’s Going On” (1971) offers heartwrenching melodies and lyrics to tackle police brutality in wake of the Vietnam war, and “Water No Get Enemy” (1975) critiques dictatorship and governmental water pollution through innovative soloing and percussion. Thus, these three pieces share a common factor of using music to unveil the overwhelming negativity and corrupt undertones of society. As a response, my Hack #5: Beta Release recontextualizes these pieces by suggesting that music, in addition to being used as a form of advocacy, can also be used as a coping mechanism to forget and distract from these times of negativity. By keeping and splicing certain lyrics of “This is America” and adding new elements from songs like “Funny Thing” (2020) by Thundercat, “Boogie Wonderland” (1979) by Earth, Wind & Fire, “The Bottle” (1974), and “Comment #1” (1970) by Gil Scott-Heron, the meaning of Hack #4 becomes reshaped to exhibit how music offers an outlet during dark times. My Hack #5: Beta Release achieves this reimagination by relying on rhetorical devices of remixes and mashups as described by Virginia Kuhn in “The Rhetoric of Remix” from The Journal of Transformative Works and Cultures 9 (2012). First, I use Ironic Recontextualization to subvert the original meaning of Hack #4 by placing the lyrics of “This is America” in a new context. I used lyrics like “this is America, look how I’m livin’ now,” and “look what I’m whippin’ now” in tandem with the upbeat, energetic instrumentals from “Funny Thing” and “Boogie Wonderland” to shift the original meaning entirely. Previously, these lyrics spoke on inequality and gun violence towards Black lives portraying that this is a corrupt America that we live in and that guns (whippin’) are being abused. Now, however, these lyrics offer more uplifting meanings, suggesting that we can live lavishly by whippin’ fancy cars and go dancing in clubs to forget about the horrors of society. Other lyrics, like “And America is now blood and tears instead of milk and honey” from Gil Scott-Heron’s “Comment #1” also become recontextualized by these new instrumentals. By only keeping the words “milk and honey,” and placing them among the infectious groove of “Boogie Wonderland,” the iconic spoken word that criticizes white supremacy becomes a rhythmic ad lib that contributes to this idea of escaping and forgetting corruption in society. Finally, I used layering to stack the multiple pieces of music together to create a deeper texture of meaning. For instance, I used Logic Pro’s stem splitting audio feature to combine an aspect of each piece of music. I combined the drums of “Funny Thing” with the instrumental of “Boogie Wonderland,” and later mixed in the vocals and percussion of “The Bottle.” By doing so, the larger meaning of each track became more visible. For instance, these three pieces of music all exhibit coping mechanisms during times of distress. “Boogie Wonderland” represents how dancing, music, and disco clubs can be used to escape everyday troubles, “The Bottle” depicts alcohol and substance abuse in times of racial prejudice and inequality, and “Funny Thing” combines these two themes of music and substances by using the two to escape depression. Thus, the layering of the various elements of these music pieces continues to support and strengthen the idea of using music as a coping mechanism. Through these rhetorical devices, my Hack #5 significantly alters, transforms, and reimagines its alpha version, Hack #4. 

Link to YouTube Video: The Evolution of Protests for Racial Discrimination

All sources are linked in the description of my YouTube video.

Growing up in the age of technology and social media, I have always been surrounded by remixes of all different forms of media throughout my whole life. So many of my favorite music artists remix songs from other artists, my favorite YouTubers create parodies and reactions to other videos on YouTube, influencers all over socials are doing the same trends with their own personal touch, people are constantly editing photos, and so on. Remixing someone else’s work has always been a popular phenomenon in various forms of media, but it has become especially prevalent in today’s age with social media and the continuous rapid rise of technology, including newfound forms of editing software (Kuhn, 2012). With this new age, remixing comes in all different forms. At first I was a little confused on what a remix was because I thought it had to be some complicated, really well put together form of art, but that is not necessarily true. As I mentioned, a lot of the popular media we consume are remixes, whether we know it or not. Anything that is combining a new piece of media with another already existing piece of media, or even putting together numerous pieces of already existing media, in order to strengthen or contrast the message in that media. These messages can be very serious or very playful, it does not matter. 

For this fourth hack, we were tasked with making a remix of our own. At first I was caught up on the idea of the remix being heavily edited with complicated software, but once I looked back at our class discussions, I reminded myself that this was not the case. I also wanted to make sure I built upon a message that is both prevalent and meaningful in today’s society. In order to achieve this, I decided to center my hack around protests in the United States. More specifically, I wanted to compare how protests against racial discrimination have changed from the past with the Civil Rights movement during the 1960s to the Black Lives Matter movement that took place during 2020. In order to really capture the similarities and differences between these two movements, I gathered images, audio, and video clips from various digital commons spaces and compiled them together in order to hone in on the messages that the philosophical teaching from Martin Luther King Jr. (MLK) have been lost as our protests today continue to grow more and more violent. According to Lizzie O’Shea, “the digital commons is the space where projects are worked on, where historical context allows integration with more recent initiatives. It allows people to scour the history of human endeavor to look at how problems have been solved in the past and how this thinking might usefully be applied to modern conundrums. It also facilitates the freedom for people to work in different ways, to spend varying amounts of time and energy on various elements of a particular project. The capacity to work in this way is diminished when the information commons is privatized” (O’Shea, 2019). Essentially, these spaces known as digital commons are places where people on the internet can have free access to past information for just about any topic that they may want to look into. These spaces are extremely useful when gathering information and learning about the past events. Spaces like these are the reason I was able to turn my ideas for my remix into a reality.

My source material for a project like this consisted of a lot of past news footage, interviews with past Civil Rights activists, actual footage of both past and present protests, etc. As I mentioned earlier, I focused on two distinct time periods for this remix; those include the Civil Rights movement and the Black Lives Matter movement. To really highlight the similarities and differences of these time periods, all the sources I gathered for this project were either from or about those two time periods. The sources that I looked at first focused more on the Civil Rights movement. First, I gathered real footage from the MLK’s march on Washington. The footage showed that peaceful protests could be successful and it displayed MLK’s true philosophy on protests. I next found an interview on YouTube with one of the activists that marched with MLK that day in Washington. In this interview, he speaks about how nonviolence and peaceful protests was the method behind the Civil Rights act. I thought this interview paired really well with the footage from the march on Washington, so I decided to extract a portion of the audio from that interview and have that play while the real footage was being displayed. This was a good way to start off my video as it captured the main ideology behind many of the protests in the 1960s. Although protests were civil a lot of the time, the police and Whites during that time were still extremely violent towards African Americans. A few weeks after MLK’s march, massive violence from the police force and Whites struck in Birmingham, Alabama as a church was bombed. I got real images of the damage and violence caused by this horrible act of violence from Wikipedia and archive.org. As these images were displayed on the screen, I played an audio clip of an interview I found on YouTube that was from two victims that were there that day in Birmingham. One of the people being interviewed spoke about how horrifying it was being a part of an incident such as that one, and the other spoke about how it was very hard to remain peaceful during that time and how many African Americans wanted to retaliate despite MLK’s method for change. I thought this was an amazing transition into the protests during 2020. 

The 2020 protests were filled with lots of violence. Many individuals felt that the issues at hand were too harsh and severe to be able to just sit back and not take action, so because of this, violence struck all over the country. As time went on, it grew tougher and tougher for people during the Civil Rights movement to remain peaceful as well. At a certain point, enough was enough and violence slowly started to grow. To show this massive wave of violence due to racial injustice in the United States, I gather a bunch of video clips off YouTube from the riots, looting, and violence from the protests in 2020. For context for the viewer, I played the audio from a news broadcast from archive.org explaining what happened to start this movement. At the end of my video, I played the audio of an interview I found from a Civil Rights activist explaining the main differences between the protests during the Civil Rights movement compared to those during the Black Lives Matter movement. I felt like this was the perfect way to tie the two time periods together and really put into words what my video was trying to convey to the audience. Throughout the whole video you can see the progression from peaceful to violent protests in the United States, but then at the end, the audience is able to take a step back and think about the two different time periods together at once.

I intentionally ordered every clip in the manner that I did. I arranged them in a way where the viewer can get some historical background and also see the progression of protests, but then in the end, have the opportunity to compare the two and process the two different ideologies from different generations. I felt like it was important to bring it back to the Civil Right movement again at the end of the video because I wanted the viewers to be able to get a reflection period to have to think deeper about the message at hand. I also strategically put audio clips over video clips that way the viewer could have background context on the historical events, but also see how horrible the protests were and make them emotionally feel for the victims. I initially wanted to edit the video in a manner that was more fun and engaging, but I felt like with a topic as harsh and serious as this one, more simplistic stc editing was needed. It did not feel appropriate to add music and comedic cuts when bringing attention to a topic that had such a negative impact on so many people in the United States. I think with a message such as the one being conveyed in this video, the simpler the better. I was aiming to be straightforward and make my message very clear, and I honestly think that I accomplished this goal of mine. 

When people think of protests these days, they often think of them all being extremely violent, but this was not always the case. Obviously one of my goals was to just compare protests and depict how they have changed, but the main goal of my video was to remind people that protests can be peaceful, although that can be very hard to do at times. I really do feel as though my video can bring this to the attention of all people. With so much political and governmental disagreements in the United States, I think it is of extreme importance to remind citizens of our country that we do not need to always be violated in order to provoke change. 

In this remix project, I criticized the “persistent and hidden forms of gender discipline language”. Through textual rewriting, AI voice substitution and image inversion of 1950s family gender education videos, I reveal how structural control over women has been constructed in a “gentle”, “considerate” and “natural” way in history, and attempt to trace the continuation and reproduction of such disciplinary mechanisms in contemporary technological discourse (especially AI voice systems).

Also, by introducing Meghan Markle’s public speech and a group of realistic image materials of outstanding women from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds, I transformed the original “disciplined” object into “expressive subject”, making the silent body open and the blurred face clear. On this basis, I use the music and words of Vixen, an all-female Glam Metal band, as narrative support, giving the work structural rhythmic tension and symbolic meaning.

I tried to guide the audience through a journey of irony, empathy, and inspiration. I want them to not only understand how absurd disciplinary language can be, but also to recognize how it still shapes us today in new ways. This includes how we imagine and accept ideas like the “neutrality of AI” and the “naturalness of gender roles.” The opening scene of this remix is the most important structural starting point of the entire work. It is also the first moment when the audience is challenged in how they perceive what they hear and see. I used the script of a 1950s educational video called The Good Wife Guide as the base text, and I rewrote it carefully to create The Good Husband Guide. I kept the original structure, grammar, and emotional rhythm, and only changed the gendered words. For example, “your husband” becomes “your wife,” “he” becomes “she,” and “master of the house” becomes “mistress of the house.” I did not stop at changing the words, however. I also used an AI text-to-speech tool to generate a female voice reading the new script. This voice has a calm, smooth, and pleasant tone that sounds neutral, like a middle-class American speaker. It is not overly emotional and has no strong personality. It sounds like a mix of a newsreader and a digital assistant. I chose this kind of voice on purpose. I did not want a robotic or unnatural sound. Instead, I wanted a voice that feels gentle, clear, polite, but also firm. It should remind the audience of the kind of voices they have heard in traditional family advice or home education videos.

I used background music that was common in 1950s American household advertisements. The music is a piano melody in a minor key, and it represents a strong cultural memory of the “home atmosphere.” I chose this type of music instead of something heavy or dark in tone, because I wanted to build a contrast between the voice, the music, and the visuals. The spoken content is a form of structural violence. It tells the husband to give up his own judgment, to follow his wife’s emotions, to never ask questions, and to stay in a lower position at all times. However, the voice and the background music together create a feeling of calm and softness. The sound feels gentle, pleasant, and peaceful—almost as if this is how life is supposed to be. The visuals show men from the 1950s. They wear suits, smile, relax, clean the house, and wait for their wives to return. These men are placed in the kind of domestic scenes where women were traditionally expected to be quiet and obedient. This creates a strange effect of role reversal that feels both awkward and ironic.  Through this combination of voice, music, and imagery, the audience experiences cognitive dissonance. What they hear, see, and emotionally feel is a picture of a happy home. But what they actually understand is a system of gender-based control. This contradiction opens up a space for reflection: Why does all of this feel so “normal”? And why do we only realize how wrong it is when the script is given to men?

In the last scene, I chose a smiling male actor as the end of the segment. His eyes were calm and there was a polite, gentle smile on his lips. He did not know that he had just been taught “not to question his wife’s judgment,” “to be considerate even when she is out late at night,” or that he had been cast as the “submissive male” in a script of control and restraint. And it is this shot that further twists the dubbing in front of the picture into an invisible structure. When gender discipline is packaged as soft tones and family harmony, the danger lies not in violence but in “rationality.” That is to say, the core of the criticism in this part is to construct a cross-reference between the “pseudo-calm scene” and the “violent semantics” , and break the existing cognitive framework with contrast. If this language is unacceptable to men, it should never have been applied to anyone in the first place. This paragraph also foreshadows an important framework for the follow-up of the work. Since old structures can be “glorified,” is today’s AI discourse also a disguise for new structures? This issue will be extended from the first part to the “polite tone” of AI, the setting of assistant personality, and the presupposition of gender roles, and ultimately constitute a question and challenge to the contemporary “computational law training mechanism”.

After the first part, the piece cuts to Meghan Markle’s speech at the United Nations. It expresses that after the experimental structure of “men being disciplined,” the voice of a real individual finally emerges. I chose this speech not because Meghan Markle is a “celebrity,” but because the story she tells is pretty much the moment most of us have experienced when we first “sensed gender injustice” growing up. Instead of speaking in abstract political terms, she said she heard the boy say “women’s place is in the kitchen” and she became angry, saying: “I knew it wasn’t right, I knew something had to be done.” Visually, I kept the static close-up shot of Meghan standing on the podium, allowing the audience to face a “not so perfect but real” expression after just experiencing the calm discipline language and beautiful music. This is in sharp contrast to the “inorganic calm” of the AI female voice. AI audio conveys order and procedure; Meghan’s tone of voice, on the other hand, represents a genuine sense of self. I want to emphasize through this that resistance is not always grand, it often stems from a naive “this is not right” sentiment. It is this kind of primitive anger that is the first to be suppressed in our growth, is the most frequently “interpreted as misunderstanding,” and then leads to silence. Through this transition, I laid the foundation of “body with emotion and power” for the realistic female images that emerged in the following years. She is not an actress in a fictional play, but a speaker in real history.

After Meghan’s speech,I moved into a collage section made of both still images and video clips. This part of the project has the least amount of spoken language, but it is the most powerful in terms of challenging the structure of the whole piece. It directly responds to the “ideal wife or husband” image created by the earlier system of speech by showing real women from real life. 

The women I selected come from a wide range of ethnic, cultural, geographic, and historical backgrounds. Their accomplishments span politics, science, art, sports, and technology. I chose to highlighted their actions, ideas, and leadership by fast-paced editing and preserved the original contrast and texture of each frame. I also avoided softening filters or polished effects because I wanted to show each woman as a full presence, not as a symbol or decorative image. The viewer is not being told how to feel. Rather, they are invited to observe what these women are doing. My intention in this part was to shift the way women are seen. I wanted to move them from being the subject of explanation to becoming the ones who shape the narrative. They are not defined by the system. They operate beyond it and define their own terms. While some remix projects treat clips of powerful women as emotional highlights, I wanted it to be part of the central argument. I also paid attention to editing rhythm and the direction of their gaze. This was meant to challenge the way audiences are used to looking at women on screen. In most media, viewers are trained to evaluate women, to give them labels, or to assign them a certain value. In this remix, I wanted the gaze to reverse. The women look directly at the viewer. That moment of eye contact changes the experience of watching.

For the background music in this section, I chose Edge of a Broken Heart by Vixen. This song plays an important role in setting the pace of the visuals, but it also signals a deeper cultural meaning. Vixen was one of the few all-female bands in the 1980s glam metal scene. They worked in an industry dominated by men, where gender roles were strictly enforced. They were constantly asked whether they could play as well as male musicians. People assumed they got attention because of their looks. Their work was rarely judged on its own terms. Vixen’s presence was always compared to male standards. Even when they achieved success, it was framed as “impressive for women” rather than as artistic or technical excellence on its own. The issues they faced connect directly to the themes in this remix. Women are not only told how to behave or feel. They are also taught how to speak, how to perform, and how to present themselves creatively. Expression itself is shaped by rules that often reflect male-centered expectations. The band members often spoke about how they were treated. They were seen as girlfriends of other musicians rather than artists in their own right. They were excluded from touring with some male bands because the bandmates’ girlfriends felt jealous. These examples show how deeply ideas about gender shaped their professional world. The same forces that shaped the “wife” figure in The Good Wife Guide were still active in the world Vixen had to overcome. Vixen was described as a breakthrough act, yet the media kept defining them as “the female version of a male band.” Reporters focused on their looks, clothes, and sex appeal. Their skills in songwriting, performance, and live shows were rarely discussed with the same seriousness given to male musicians. Even in spaces that claimed to be open-minded or progressive, women were rarely treated as full creative subjects. More often, they were discussed as symbols, exceptions, or novelties. On one hand, they resisted the gender labels placed on them. On the other, they were shaped by those same labels. This tension gave their voice a unique strength. They were both outsiders to the system and deeply affected by it. That contradiction is what gives their work emotional weight and complexity. This remix ends by highlighting that position. Women do not need to copy power structures in order to succeed. They do not need to become a version of what already exists. What they seek is the right to define the terms of expression itself. The interview clip I included near the end ties everything together. It brings the remix full circle. In the beginning, the AI voice speaks from within the system. In the final scene, a real woman speaks for herself. The voice, once a tool shaped by others, becomes a weapon of her own.

The process of making this project turned out to be much more complex than I expected. The biggest challenges came from two areas. First, I had to balance the meaning of each source and make sure they worked together without conflict. Second, I needed to manage the emotional rhythm across the whole piece. In other words, it was not enough for each material to carry meaning on its own. When placed side by side, they also had to build up, not cancel each other out. Only then could the remix form a clear narrative arc and maintain a strong sense of critical depth. One example of this challenge came from the first section of the piece. I knew that showing men in the 1950s being “disciplined” in the style of old homemaking advice might make some viewers laugh. It was important to me that the scene did not feel like a joke or a parody. I did not want the humor to take over the argument. The tone needed to stay uneasy and thought-provoking. Later, when editing the section about real women, I decided not to use traditional voiceover. I let the rhythm of the Vixen song guide how the images were cut and arranged. This was not just a stylistic choice. It was a way to challenge structure itself. I wanted the rhythm of women’s presence, not a voice explaining what we see, to lead the experience of watching. Making this remix helped me see more clearly that every piece of sound, every image, and every edit I used had to respond to one core question. It is not just about letting women’s voices be heard. It is about allowing women to decide what should be said and how it should be said.