To record or not to record

Now, for the actual recording I made. The idea behind it comes from the overwhelming feeling I have that we live in a dystopian world. We talk about progress, evolution and going forward, yet, for me, in more ways than one the world and societies are moving backwards. There is a division between us like never before. Once again, we are building walls - real and metaphorical. Ideologies of all kinds are pulling us apart. Under the illusion that, with all that information out there, we are all full of knowledge and possess critical thinking, each and all of us feel no choice but to take a side. And this stand, this having an opinion, this expression of a certain position, we share everywhere and with everyone for the sake of finding approval, ‘likes’ and ratings. For a while now I have been saying that the public sphere as such is dying. Jürgen Habermas has always been a favourite of mine, even before I decided to study Media and Communication. I do believe him to be one the most influential and important philosophers, when it comes to his work in the sphere of communication, knowledge and mostly reason and rationality. Not to go into details but the foundation of his theory about the public sphere lies in the idea of a reasoned and critical public debate societies engage in, in order for informed and free choices to be made. For me the world is no longer a rational place as a whole and the public sphere is one of entertainment for the masses. I mean, how soon is now to start introducing epistemology as a mandatory subject in schools! As someone who grew up in a former Soviet satellite country under totalitarian regime the idea of propaganda has always been important for me. I remember reading as a teenager “The origins of Totalitarianism” by Hannah Arendt and one idea stood out for me - the function of propaganda is not to make people believe in it, but to make them doubt the truth. Arendt believed that public opinions are not to be formed in private. They can be formed, confronted and established as valid only within the context of public debate and argumentation. The opposite of what is happening now in a digital world. We mostly form our public opinions (especially when it comes to politics) in the safety of our homes, each and all of us alone in front of a screen, restricted to our eco chambers, where we find approval and reassurance, but we are rarely confronted. All of this were ideas I wanted to incorporate in my audio file.
I chose Ronald Reagan’s famous words about the Berlin Wall (which were propaganda in their own rights, but this is so not the purpose of this post) and in contrast I made a recording with Donald Trump’s word about another wall aiming to serve the same purpose - Us. Vs Them. I combined them with John Trudell’s words about civilisation taken by the documentary ‘Trudell’ (2005) about the life of the Native American poet and activist, a must for anyone with even a slight interest in social rights movements. My transitions were a recording of a heartbeat machine and I finished the file with me reciting a speech from one of my favourite movies - “The Network” from 1976. In it Peter Finch plays Howard Beale and makes the famous ‘mad as hell’ speech. It is beyond me how this movie is not a big hit in today’s reality where ratings are what drives mass media. We are all media consumers that lack patience and time which eventually makes us susceptible to populism and looking to be entertained, not informed. I thought this part of my recording is quite aligned with the previous segments though I wasn’t very keen on doing it myself. At the end I decided that I will be doing the speech segment in order to make my audio file more personal this way, as I thought quite a lot about the concept. I made the separate audio files with my phone using an audio app, extracted them in different tracks in Audacity and then made sure to align them properly and adjust my transitions. I decided not to use any special effects, apart from a small fading after the first transition I made. I saw no point in making this too complicated. The final result was quite rudimental, and I am totally aware that it is not the brightest or the best executed creative effort out there but in all honesty, I am pleased with how it turned out. So, definitely- to record! I can totally see myself doing something like this again, this time just for the fun of it!



Photo Credit:
Image 3 - Copyright belongs to and available at Native America on the Web

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