While I know it's not the case for all, multimodal didn't involve a computer in 1999. I was in Dr. Todd Finley's Advanced Composition course my sophomore year of undergrad when he tasked us with four letters and one large project. Multi-genre research projects (MGRPs) were new to me but exciting in so many ways.
For one, we could pick whatever topic we wanted as long as we dug deep into it. Because people were considered an "easier topic", I knew I needed to dig extra deep in my research and presentation of Andy Kaufman.
I had always been curious about him. His performance of wide eyed and soft spoken Latka (aka Foreign Man) made him seem so vulnerable while his obsession with his self-created inter-gender wrestling championship made him seem insane. A couple of biographies about him had recently been released, and there was a bio-film promised. I was ready to dig.
Such interest didn't start or end on Wikipedia or Youtube. Instead, I remember watching old episodes of SNL on Nickelodeon late at night with my sister. They were episodes of peace filled common laughter in our otherwise conflict-centered childhood relationship. She was three and a half years older than me, which was close enough to be considered taboo while living under the same roof. (Once she left our parent's house and hometown for college, our friendship stretch far beyond SNL, but for that time, it was what we had.)
I remember watching with feigning interest when Cheevy Chase fell and giggling when Bill Murray and Gilda Radner went to the nerd prom together, but I was all in when a stranger - a lesser player - in a turtleneck and tweed jacket walked from the back onto the mostly blank stage. Saying very little, he placed the needle of a player on the vinyled curves of a mysterious record with a shaky hand. We both/all waited. The Mighty Mouse orchestra played; he/we remain still but eager.
As the notes rise and lyrics come, an embodiment of Might Mouse emerges with a lifted hand and slight movement of rhythm in the hips. Here I am to save the day closes with a return to a neutral stance, forcing you to ask yourself, "Did that really just happen?" Was it my imagination? There is no evidence to suggest otherwise. No immediate artifact from the situation... Until the next round arrived and the performance is repeated.
I am left in wonder.
<I would like to keep playing with this narrative to see what it could contribute to my ideas on bodies, embodiment, and digital embodiment. It makes me feel nervous enough to think it could something cool.>
For one, we could pick whatever topic we wanted as long as we dug deep into it. Because people were considered an "easier topic", I knew I needed to dig extra deep in my research and presentation of Andy Kaufman.
I had always been curious about him. His performance of wide eyed and soft spoken Latka (aka Foreign Man) made him seem so vulnerable while his obsession with his self-created inter-gender wrestling championship made him seem insane. A couple of biographies about him had recently been released, and there was a bio-film promised. I was ready to dig.
Such interest didn't start or end on Wikipedia or Youtube. Instead, I remember watching old episodes of SNL on Nickelodeon late at night with my sister. They were episodes of peace filled common laughter in our otherwise conflict-centered childhood relationship. She was three and a half years older than me, which was close enough to be considered taboo while living under the same roof. (Once she left our parent's house and hometown for college, our friendship stretch far beyond SNL, but for that time, it was what we had.)
I remember watching with feigning interest when Cheevy Chase fell and giggling when Bill Murray and Gilda Radner went to the nerd prom together, but I was all in when a stranger - a lesser player - in a turtleneck and tweed jacket walked from the back onto the mostly blank stage. Saying very little, he placed the needle of a player on the vinyled curves of a mysterious record with a shaky hand. We both/all waited. The Mighty Mouse orchestra played; he/we remain still but eager.
As the notes rise and lyrics come, an embodiment of Might Mouse emerges with a lifted hand and slight movement of rhythm in the hips. Here I am to save the day closes with a return to a neutral stance, forcing you to ask yourself, "Did that really just happen?" Was it my imagination? There is no evidence to suggest otherwise. No immediate artifact from the situation... Until the next round arrived and the performance is repeated.
I am left in wonder.
<I would like to keep playing with this narrative to see what it could contribute to my ideas on bodies, embodiment, and digital embodiment. It makes me feel nervous enough to think it could something cool.>