One of the first tasks for the video and sound class was to watch the TED talk by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie called “The danger of a single story”. Chimamanda talked about the fact that we often are guided by one side of any experience, aka a single story. I believe it is essential to talk about that, as I sometimes was both a victim and the perpetrator of the “single story” and the assumptions it created. For instance, when I was studying in the UK, the first associations people had with being Russian was that I liked vodka, that I had a bear, or that I was immune to cold temperatures. To their shock, I didn’t drink alcohol, felt cold most of the time and most certainly didn’t have a bear. Some people were so disappointed with this realisation that I felt like I failed them. But in fact, their limited experience of my culture that created these assumptions was the problem.
Once I was told that according to evolutionary studies, people form assumption to survive and navigate between different experiences. We label some tools as dangerous and learn to be careful with them because they can hurt us. We label some animals, mushrooms and plants as poisonous and keep away from them. We label some foods as organic and some materials as eco-friendly to let consumers know that their choice will be beneficial for ecology. However, we also started labelling people, cultures and even countries. Logically, these labels or assumptions should prepare us for future life and make it less problematic. But I don’t believe it does and here’s why.
As Chimamanda said, as a child they only read the books written by American and British authors, so they couldn’t identify with most of the characters and their experience became one-sided. But after reading African books, the perception changed that in turn influenced their life. That’s why I think everyone should have as many experiences as possible to be actually prepared for further life. Of course, labelling something as just dangerous might be useful, but what if this something can also bring benefits? For example, leeches for sure will suck the blood out of you. Still, they’re also commonly used in medicine to treat skin diseases and infections. We’re used to one-sided experiences because it is more difficult to be open-minded and non-judgemental. It’s also widely reflected in social media that we use every single day. But if some people I met in the UK weren’t constrained by their assumptions, I would be more likely to share my cultural experience with them and feel like an equal. So, my final thought on this topic is that we should try our best to be open-minded to benefit from the experience of others.
As the saying goes: “Don’t judge the book by its cover”…or by its author, or the publisher, or the country it was published in and then maybe just maybe your will experience it in full.
Another task was to create a sound collage using Adobe Audition. I decided to use this collage to tell the way my every morning usually starts. Every day my cats are asking for food and obviously receiving plenty of it. And because I'm gonna be in Brooklyn for this year, I won't be hearing these lovely sounds. Initially I made around 10 recordings and created a single sound collage. I was surprised that Adobe Audition is quite intuitive and I didn't have any struggles while using it.