Portfolio 2: Reflective Essay

Directory:

01. Informal Writing #1
02. Informal Writing #2
03. Theorizing with the Visual Mode
04. Composing with the Visual Mode + Rationale
05. Theorizing with the Aural Mode
06. Composing with the Aural Mode + Rationale 

For my first informal writing, I used my notes from class when we were first developing our themes for our second portfolio, based on a social issue we were interested in. Because it was something I had read about in the newspaper recently, I started thinking about the general lack of access to mental health treatment in Illinois and its effects on those who have mental illnesses. In these class notes, we were asked to use four different types of questions we had read about to start developing the sorts of questions we wanted to ask (and answer) in our portfolios. As can be seen from this informal writing sample, although I still needed to conduct more conclusive research, these questions became the basis for the main theme of my second portfolio and ongoing final project.

My second informal writing wasn't so much a writing as a rough sketch of what ended up becoming my "Composing with the Visual Mode" text artifact. For the connected "Theorizing with the Visual Mode," I had been thinking about how unrealistic depictions of female bodies in art and media leads to negative self-image in many women, and was trying to think about how I saw myself vs. how I wanted to be (based on media depictions of women). These thoughts led to this impromptu sketch on the back of a worksheet, which later ended up becoming the model for my finalized "Composing with the Visual Mode" text artifact.

In my "Theorizing with the Visual Mode" piece, I wrote about the chapter "Visible Guerillas" by Karen Springsteen which examined the subversive nature of both the work of the Guerilla Girls and Edouard Manet, particularly in the way they deconstruct prominent visualizations of the female form. I connected these theories to another prominent artist called Gustave Courbet, who, like Manet, subverted the 19th century French art world's beliefs on how female bodies should be presented.

Towards the end of the first draft I mentioned how modern-day depictions of female (and male) bodies are similarly warped to fit society's ideal, albeit in the context of technology in which Photoshop and Instagram filters have replaced oil paint as a method for smoothing over perceived imperfections. However, I did not manage to connect this to my main theme for this portfolio, which was mental illness, and so when I went back to write a second draft, I expanded upon this train of thought. I wrote about how, by having only a few body types portrayed as attractive or desirable in the media, many people end up developing poor self-image, disordered eating habits, body dysmorphia, and even eating disorders such as anorexia or bulimia.

For my "Composing with the Visual Mode" text artifact, I continued along this train of thought and decided to use art as my medium to express my message, similar to Courbet or Manet. I chose to represent my actual self vs. my "ideal" self: thinner, with more piercings and better hair. Additionally, to connect to the theme of mental illness, I represented my own personal history of depression. In my "real" self-portrait, I depicted my head as opened at a hinge- unhinged- with colored flowers and bees flying out to represent happiness leaving. Then for my "ideal" self-portrait, I drew a normal brain inside my head, to represent the desire for having a brain that produces serotonin properly.

With my essay for "Theorizing with the Aural Mode," I reflected on the reading by Jennifer Stoever which explained the concept of the "sonic color line." Because I couldn't think of a way to connect the sonic color line to my own experiences as I am white and have not been racially profiled from my voice, I first wrote about what I called the "sonic gender line" and how some music is unnecessarily gendered, for example "harder" music is perceived as being masculine, whereas lighter, pop music is perceived as being feminine. In my revised version, I then wrote about how women aren't listened to and are seen as being shrill, overemotional or hysterical and how this can impede their access to mental health treatment.

Finally, for my "Composing with the Aural Mode" assignment, I created a short video featuring different songs with different "textures," as inspired by Steph Ceraso's paper "(Re)Educating the Senses: Multimodal Listening, Bodily Learning, and the Composition of Sonic Experiences." Ceraso wrote about multimodal listening, which can be defined as the experience of listening to sound with more than one sense. For example, when going to a concert, you not only hear the music, you see the musicians, feel the vibrations of the music in your body, smell the sweat and cigarette smoke of the crowd, etc. As an avid music fan myself, I noticed that some songs have specific textures, and wanted to portray that. Therefore, I created a short video that consisted of 5 different songs, each with a different "texture." Additionally, to tie it in with the theme of mental illness, each of the songs I picked were about mental illness.

Through completing this second portfolio, I put a heavier emphasis on making sure there was a consistent theme threading through each of the facets of my portfolio. While my first portfolio was more of a free-for-all, I wanted this one to be more concise and connected through the theme of mental illness. This was a new practice for me, because usually I don't have to worry about connecting individual assignments, I just write it, submit it, and forget about it. However, for this portfolio, I had to be conscious while working on each composition on how it would connect to the project as a whole.