“Freedom’s Ring” is an interactive presentation of Martin Luther King Jr.’s infamous and inspiring “I Have a Dream” speech. Produced at Stanford, this speech is presented in a manner that the viewer can observe and compare the written as well as hear the spoken part through a series of images, annotations, and emphases. Vector’s Journal explains that “to capture these differences, Scalar was used to annotate every phrase of the speech, following King’s own cadences. Each annotation contains both the spoken and written versions of the phrase (if they differ), plus markup that distinguishes the two for display.”

What I saw in MLK Jr.’s interactive speech reminded me of kinetic typography. Kinetic typography is essentially just moving text or what wikipedia describes as “an animation technique mixing motion and text to express ideas using video animation.”

An example of kinetic typography would be this:

And this:

Kinetic typography doesn’t always have to be in video format. Lately is seems to be appearing in gif form:

The text moves along with the speech in an animated manner to match the significance, context, or visual intentions of the speech. It provides a visual for dialogues with text. This is precisely what “Freedom’s Ring” also intended with its interactive visuals. What I find incredible about kinetic typography is the creativity that is needed to go hand in hand. The extensive use of dynamic layout for the “V for Vendetta” video makes for a very interesting fluid form of typography. Also the intent that each word or sentence plays not just a part in the overall dialogue, but visually as well. Words bloom, shrink, dance, shiver, and spin according to what the words describe and how it is spoken by the speaker. Even the fonts are adjusted according to the feel of the video. “Lions Roar” kept a thematic color of red, blue, and yellow to represent a traditional circus. “V for Vendetta” used different fonts to emphasize the speaker’s eloquence and broad vocabulary.

Kinetic Typography involves a great deal of forethought artistically. “Freedom’s Ring” included incredible images of activists and historical references that incurs emotions of the struggle of the Civil Rights Movement.

Perhaps kinetic typography is the solution to visual learner’s plight. Reading speeches and essays can be difficult to comprehend for those who learn kinesthetically. Kinetic Typography uses artistic value and images to create better understanding of auditory sounds with images which would benefit those who need visuals in order to grasp concepts.

As Stephen Ross describes in his essay “Demystifying Networks” networks are a “net-like arrangement of threads and wires” later to stand for an interlocking system aka stuff and relationships. Something that I can speak on behalf of is the concept of arranged marriages. Now my reader is seeing the word arranged marriages from an individualistic societal perspective. I beg that they don’t. Arranged marriages are a reflection of a collectivistic culture and to say that it is backwards or “not right” is insulting and dehumanizing an indentity. Moving forward, the way that arranged marriages operate is essentially through a network. For example, you feel like you’re at the right age to get married. Your mother and father will spread the word through their friends that you want to settle down. They will spread the news through a network. Each friend of your parents’ also has a network which the news will spread through. And so on.

Now you could be satisfied to marry someone so far along networks that you can’t really see how you found each other, but that isn’t the point. What you really strive for in this process is someone from a network you relate to, can vouch for the family. So you would want to marry into a family preferably from your aunt’s network, because presumably your aunt is a trusted source. Your parents would be the centrality as they decided that your aunt is an important part of the network to give responsibility to. So the concept of arranged marriages is entirely based off of networks.

I came to this idea of arranged marriages as a network after watching this commercial someone had sent to me over Facebook.

Just as a post note, there are different types of ways to approach arranged marriages. It’s not an oppressive way to trap women. (Though we are in modern times, I would be an idiot to not recognize that forced marriages do occur still.) The arranged marriage that I am describing in my post is a typical Pakistani manner of an arranged marriage in which both prospects have the freedom to say no, yes, etc.

Johanna Drucker in Humanities Approaches to Graphical Display talks about how digital visualization tools act as an “intellectual Trojan Horse,” or a “vehicle which assumptions about what makes up information swarms with form.” As I was reading this I realized that graphical displays are not the only forms that act as Trojan Horses. Advertisements have become just as sneaky, playing on consumer assumptions.

The advertisement that came to mind was the one below:

I saw this post float around Tumblr for a bit with the caption, “Who’s Alex? Billboard demonstrating gender stereotypes as most people automatically assume that Alex is the boy.”

I sure as hell did. I’m even sure the people reading this blog post even assumed that Alex was the boy. I even thought it was a clever advertisement, a company riding on the strongly rising movement of gender equality. It was clever that they were forcing people to face their stereotypes and their assumptions. It’s clever because we think that it’s doing exactly what Drucker has been saying. The advertisement is saying “Look, you assumed! That’s okay though. You can change. Buy our products.” Or something to that extent.

This is where it kind of gets Inception-like.

We’ve been fooled. We’ve made the assumption that this ad played off of our gender assumptions and stereotype, when in fact the advertisement actually just used advertising and design trick. Tumblr user, Urulokid demonstrates that Body Shop is catching us red-handed but because the little boy is the focal point, we immediately assume he’s Alex. Furthermore, Urulokid proves that the ad is fallacious because English readers’ eyesight scans from left to right. The first thing we read is “MEET ALEX” and then our eyes go immediate right of the words to the boy.

SlaveVoyages.org is a website that “is the culmination of several decades of independent and collaborative research by scholars drawing upon data in libraries and archives around the Atlantic world.” The website took two years of research and information to collect. The fact that the creators of this site were able to have access to primary sources which documented the people that were illegally captured is mind-blowing to me. The sources were coming from hard copy volumes of voyages from different ports. What went through my mind was that how fortunate we are (recognizing that this was a very dark and dishonorable spot in history) that we have historical evidence in documentation form. This made me think of how many names we do not have because of the sex trades that occur today.

For example, Yahoo posted an article  about the tourist wonder that is Dubai is having women from Pakistan sold to nightclubs and brothels. Hundreds of women are taken hostage and threatened to become sex workers. In the case of the Yahoo article, the women are coerced by being lied to obtaining beauty parlor work. Unfortunately no progress is made in stopping this horrid trafficking problem in Pakistan because the gangs in charge have influential power and connections to politicians and the police. This is just one country’s problem with trafficking to Dubai. Millions of people are trafficked every year, according to the UN, and 800,000 are trafficked internationally. Those names are not documented. Those names are lost. How do we determine that we want something documented, such as slavery? Would it be that we do not want to document names of people, not just because it is illegal and inhumane, but is seen as a cause of shame? How do we determine ethically what should be database-d and what shouldn’t? The TransAtlantic Slave Trade Database is history to us that we should never forget. Then why should we forget those who are still sold today?

Sources:

Soroptomist faqs: Sex Slavery & Trafficking facts

Database: The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database 

Yahoo Article: Agony of Pakistani Women Enslaved by Dubai Sex Trade

Plateau Peoples’ Web Portal is a brilliant and elaborate site is a “gateway to Plateau peoples’ cultural materials” held in multiple historical preservation establishments. Tribal administrators (working with their tribal government) provided information and their own materials as to expand the archives. This website is crucial to celebrating diversity within the Indigenous People’s culture rather as to group them together singularly as “Native American.” The website provides cultural materials, respectively to each tribe, digitally along with a map so that one can see exactly where it used to be.

Just looking at the six tribes featured is only six of the 560 federally recognized tribes that exist in the United States alone. Most of the cultural materials provided provide insight to the devastating imperialism and cultural genocide of these tribes. 50 million people had been living, thriving, existing in America before the voyage of 1492. The Plateau Peoples’ Web Portal is a terribly real reminder that the land we live on today is occupied illegally and the persistence of Indigenous Peoples’ Day should be federally recognized instead of Columbus Day. Replacing Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples’ Day is a huge feat in recognizing that Christopher Columbus did not discover anything. One cannot discover land that is already inhabited by millions of people. On top of that, Columbus is the notorious catalyst that caused the genocide of millions of North American inhabitants and the cultural annihilation of hundreds of diverse cultures. The Plateau Peoples’ Web Portal is an homage to the tragically destroyed cultures and classifies them individually giving them the recognition that is due.

Indigenous Peoples’ Day is not a new phenomenon, just incredibly unrecognized. Minneapolis recently passed a resolution this April for Indigenous Peoples Day to rename the second Monday of October. Hopefully we can observe just the start of a historical observance revolution. Going through this website and viewing the pictures available is a huge reality check.

(Note: The Indigenous People of the Plateau include some parts of Canada, not just the U.S.)

Sources:

Plateau Portal

Indian Country Today

City Pages Blog

After reading Julia Gaffield’s “Haiti’s Declaration of Independence: Digging for Lost Documents in the Archives of the Atlantic World,” I couldn’t help but to think of how her accomplishment became world famous. Reading her passage about how the “story quickly spread around the world, broadcast on news networks and printed in over 50 national and international news sources,” I was curious as to why the story picked up. She’s made it known that the devastating earthquake was just weeks before her discovery, and we all know that the earthquake made major news (I don’t personally know a single person who wasn’t aware of the disaster in Haiti). But I’m still curious as to why this find made international fame. My basic knowledge of businesses is telling me that whatever will make more profit will be made more important.  But why was Haitian news profitable? Was it because of the (at the time) recent earthquake and death toll? Was it because of the involvement of many other countries in the making of the document? Is it the fascinating and compelling story of a lost document being found? Perhaps the adventure of discovery?

(Buzzfeed.com)

When I read Gaffield’s section about her discovery becoming international attention I had been reminded of the TIME MAGAZINE comparison. Though one can find it on any other website, Buzzfeed has popularized the comparison of American versus the rest of the world’s TIME Magazine covers. What you are able to see is that the cover of Burma’s President, Thein Sein, is replaced with New Jersey’s governor Chris Christie. “Reinventing College” replaces “Reinventing India” and a large photo of Mitt Romney replaces a cover with the title “Pakistan’s Darkest Heart.” Though the obvious answer might be that the audience is different in the case of one cover that graces the rest of the world ‘s magazine, “The Tragedy of English Football.” Why would Americans be interested in English Football? They wouldn’t. So that cover wouldn’t make money. So they don’t print that cover, they print a more relevant one. But does that mean Americans aren’t interested in the Egyptian Revolution? Fine, American’s don’t care about England’s football or Queen, but the covers still printed in Asia. It still printed in the Middle East and Africa. It strikes me curious as to what the reasoning is on what is considered news “worthy” and what isn’t. So that still begs the question as to why the story of Haiti’s lost document gained such grand importance. It’s a fascinating thought that I urge all my classmates to think about the next time they read the headlines of any news.

Works cited:

Gaffield, Julia. “Haiti’s Declaration of Independence: Digging for Lost Documents in the Archives of the Atlantic World.” The Appendix 2, no. 1 (January 2014)

Schwartz, Hunter. “Time Magazine Covers In The U.S. Vs. The Rest Of The World.” Buzzfeed.com (July 2013)