EPISODE 5 – POWER

1. When Krukowski asserts, “the marginal-the rejected-the repressed-is whatever the powerful have decided is of no use at the moment.” He means that society forget about anything they get tired of to replace it for something new, and that happens to the music too, the audience has power to control what is on demand nowadays. Why would people go to a record store when they can buy any album they want in Ebay or Amazon? Krukowski says he pick up some knowledge every time he goes to a record store, in a record store you can find new perspectives and approaches to art looking at what the mainstream culture has no use for.

2. Forced Exposure employees listen to every new release and they even write about it, and produce a printed catalog, they inform us what is worth it; people choose the music they want to hear based on the reviews. Paul design recommendation programs, instead of having to search new music for yourself, you just hit one button and the algorithm plays songs based on what you like, your mood, where you are, where you are doing. Also this companies like Spotify and Pandora work with almost all the music available in the world so it’s impossible for them listen to every song.

3. Surprise is not the same as discover, when you discover music is because you were searching for a specific type of music, but being surprised by music means that you were not expecting to hear that kind of music. Music corporations want to keep us engaged, they want us to find what we are already comfortable with, they don’t want to turn our requests upside down. They are replacing the freedom and chaos of the internet at large, with the control and predictability of their programs making harder for us to find new perspectives and question our knowledge.

   EPISODE 6 – NOISE

4. Noise and signal are always connected in the analog world, think of a radio if you turn up the volume you turn up the noise, but digital allows the busting of signal without the busting of noise, for example when you are listening to a podcast online there is no static, no surface noise, so if you turn up the volume you get more volume. There is no noise to restrain the sound and everything is louder.
5. Noise is the background sounds, sounds that you are not interested in, signal is the main sound, the sound you are trying to pay attention to. This episode conveys the importance of noise and signal. We are very skilled at shifting our attention from noise to signal, focusing and refocusing on different sounds in the environment, and shutting out others.
6. In all the episodes they talk about the switch between analog and digital changed our ways of hearing, and also the impact of technology in the society. Digital devices remove the noise we don’t want to hear and make more clear the message we want to express. Our perception of sound is not as natural as we tend to believe, we hear what they want us to hear. This episode explores the differences of noise and signal, it’s related to the other episodes because it is like the start of everything else, for example in the episode 2 when they talk about the efforts to control sound or the episode 3 when they talk about how digital devices remove the musical qualities of our voice and the main message are our words.

EPISODE 3 – LOVE

1. According to Krukowsi the difference between a microphone and a cellphone is that the sound of our voices in the phone has become worse with the switch to digital phones, but is not because the microphones in it. Cellphones don’t transmit the whole range of sound picked up by their mics instead they digitally process that sounds compressing it to remove unnecessary data and transmit just the essential information, our words. Another difference is the proximity in a cellphone you hear someone as far or as near as they are, with a microphone you could perfect techniques of recording controlling your respiration and diction, without disruption of any sounds, or getting closer and far to the mic at certain times so the people listening could feel like the singer is right at their ear, you can transmit feelings through a microphone.
2. Before we had language hundreds of years ago we had utterances with musical qualities that communicated what we needed to survive, making social organizations. Gary Tomlinson says “There are musical absences at the heart of a language, we are musical beings as much as linguistics ones” he argues that teachers nowadays tend to focus on syntax and grammar and they leave out the musical aspects of language, Krukowski adds that in digital devices nonverbal qualities of our voices also tend to be lost, the sound of our voice across digital lines is limited, just to recognize a voice and understand the words, but that is not enough.
3. Digital tools had allowed us to share our voice across the world, but they fail us in many aspects. To make our voice understandable across digital lines, the codes remove certain aspects “non essential”, but if you leave out the musical aspects of speech. The significance of these comments is that even though digital tools make our life easier, face to face encounters are essential to transmit our feelings through the music of our voice.

    

   EPISODE 4 – MONEY

4. Krukowsi said “most musicians I know are paid way too little or much too much maybe it’s because no one is sure what music is really worth”. We have a lot of resources to listen to music free like Youtube, Pandora, etc. but in some platforms like Spotify and Apple music, you have to pay an amount monthly to stream music. Musicians invest time and effort into their music, mostly when they are starting in the business, everybody knows the musical business is competitive and just few people succeed, I think digitals tools are a great advantage to support new musicians and discover hidden talents. It’s also true that many people can’t keep their career as a musician because they have to found a job that makes money, being this said we should really support local artists that we like, paying for their music so they can keep producing it. I support music file sharing because even though it has its disadvantages for artists I think music should be available for everyone and not just for people who have money to pay for it.

5. Music connects people, it helps you define your personality since a short age and even our social group even though you could listen to every genre of music it’s most probably that you like more one or two and your friends may like many artists that you do. Before people were classified in social groups according to the music they liked, but nowadays is not that common.

6. I think charging for music helps support the circulation of music, because producing a song with good quality costs money and time, charging for music could keep musicians creating new music. I don’t think this impede the formation of communities around this music, if an artist is liked by the audience they would pay for its music and share it to more people.

EPISODE 1 – TIME

1. Krukowski’s main point about how we experience time in the real world versus in the digital time is that the experiences in the analog world are real, are happening in the moment and you can’t pause it, delete it or try again. We benefit from these conveniences of digital time like communicating with your friends no matter where they are but it comes with a sacrifice, we trade real reactions and face to face talks to texting and latency. Krukowski argues that we give up the opportunity to experience time together in the same instant and therefore we lose the opportunity of sharing our individual timing to one another
2. When Krukowsi says that listening has a lot to do with how we navigate space he means that we can have an idea of where we are just by listening to the sounds, each place has sounds characteristics to it for example in a church you will hear bells and a minister giving his sermon. We should be more aware of the sounds that surround us and train our ears to detect where we are without sight.

EPISODE 2 – SPACE

1.  Jeremiah Moss argues that developers in Astor Place are privatizing public space in a very stealth way. When he says that the city is suffering a hyper gentrification he means that some streets and neighborhoods are being changed slowly, being stealth privatized, he puts the example of Astor Place it’s still a public place but you can see security guards walking around and not skating signs, Moss defines a public place as a place where people can do whatever they want to like make protests or somewhere where people can express themselves without having to follow rules set by private companies. He argues that when you are walking looking at a screen you are creating a private bubble for moving through public space, so you can not realize the encroaching of public spaces, people are not paying attention to the changes in their surroundings.
2. In the 1920’s when the cities were starting to modernize, noisy engines, vehicles everywhere, trains and subways running through the cities made it difficult for people who were not used to it. Emily Thompson’s argues that the efforts to control sound in the streets lead to another set of changes to control interior spaces as are concert halls with noise-insulating walls and architecture to reduce reverberation so the people can fully enjoy the concerts without interferences from outside. According to Krukowsi we are using interior sound to create a refugee as in the 1920’s and our digital devices have extended that interior space into the street that mean that with headphones we can listen to whatever we want in any space.
3. Sometimes we are not aware of the changing environment, because we are immersed in our devices like phones and earphones, we look at the screen almost all the time and have our earphones all the time avoiding exterior sounds to interference. Hearing helps us to navigate space, certain sounds gives a place characteristics that makes it unique, often in the big cities sounds like sirens, traffic is annoying so people prefer to be listening to music. With electronic devices we create a private bubble for ourselves not letting sounds and public spaces interfere with your thoughts, this leads to not realizing the changes and the elements in a public space.

sorry for posting this late but the first half of the week is busy for me

1. According to Berger publicity persuade consumers to spend their money showing them people who have a way of life, a possession or something the consumer would like to have, the purpose of publicity is to convince the consumer that buying certain objects, or acquiring certain service will change their lives. The purpose of publicity is to make people spend money in things that would make them seem richer or feel happier than they really are, even though they are poorer because they spend money in that. Publicity makes people think they could be someone they are not just by buying things.

2. Berger argues that glamour is a new concept that didn’t exist for the aristocratic society because when you born into a predetermined social class, being impossible to overcome poverty the concept of personal envy is a less familiar emotion, so without social envy glamour can’t exist. Berger compare oil paintings and publicity saying that they “share many of the same ideals, all of them related to the principle that you are what you have. Their purpose and their effects, however, are very different”, oil paintings used to show the real life of the owner, showing his wealth and power, publicity is about a way of life that the viewer aspire to have, publicity shows how these possessions could even improve your relationship with people, from your sexual life to your relationship with your family.

3. Publicity plays with the viewer’s mind, making people believe that they are not enough to be enviable, but they can still achieve the dream. One of the dreams Berger talks about is “the dream of a faraway place” in these kind of publicity they show people being and acting so natural with people of other cultures, and in beautiful places so the people can question themselves and think that maybe a trip to somewhere else could change their lives or give meaning to it.

1. Berger argues that being naked is to be oneself without clothes, to be nude is to be seen naked by others this is considered an artistic representation; these differences are significant because being nude is a form of art, when you are nude you are posing for others to see you, but when you are naked you don’t expect someone is seeing you, you are with yourself without any shame so it’s awkward if someone would. I think almost every time in a painting you can identify if the artist painted someone posing (nude) or if the artist had the intention to paint someone naked, this can be recognized in the attitudes the body takes when is posing, or the sensation of vulnerability the painting conveys when someone is painted naked.

2.

Since the history of Adan and Eva, women were associated with sinfulness and desire. According to Berger, western works of art have defined women as the object to see and judge, and men seen superior and stronger than woman; the nudes being depicted for men consumption only. These paintings were like a beauty contest, and the prize of the winner was to be owned, this puts beauty as a synonym of money. Sometimes in the picture the woman was with a men lover, but she does not reply to his sexuality, because she is arranged for the spectator. Women in the European oil paintings have to be shown like they don’t have any interest as Berger said “they have to feed an appetite not to have any of their own” this is one clear example of how these depictions influenced the sexual role of the woman in society because for a long time the woman was not supposed to have any desire, it was not a characteristic of a woman, while for the men was normal to have sometimes a violent appetite towards women.

3. Berger argues that men put a mirror in a woman’s hand and that is a sign of vanity when they paint that woman for their own pleasure, all these paintings infer that a woman’s beauty is defined by men. These conventions are created to fulfill the expectations of the male. The female gaze is staring at the viewer, making him feel as he owns her gaze. Today, in magazines we can see how female gaze is also towards the viewer, looking at him looking at her, kind of hypnotizing him. idealizing women have been systematically affecting women’s life for a long time for example that woman have to be coy and women their bodies have to be curvy.