Unit proposal - Danni McGrath

This semester I'm investigating different communication media on a DIY scale. In the ASAP unit, I'm looking specifically at print media (think newspapers, posters, flyers) and in AVR I'm going to be looking at radio and potentially television media. 

So, why communication media? Two reasons; firstly it's because I'm really interested in making connections to people (whether I or they know it or not). Now I'm either sympathetic and quote Beuys talking about distribution of multiples:

"You see, all those people who have such an object will continue to be interested in how the point of departure from which the vehicles started is developing. They’ll be watching to see what the person who produced these things is doing now. That way I stay in touch with people; just as you have come to me, because of what I’ve made and we can talk about it, I can talk to just about anybody who owns such an object. There’s a real affinity to people who own such things, such vehicles. It’s like an antenna which is standing somewhere and with which one stays in touch. There are also cross-connections between people, or deviations." (Interview with Joseph Beuys by Jorg Schellmann and Bernd Kluser. 1980. Joseph Beuys: Multiples.) 

Or I get all cynical and quote Hennessy Youngman:

"Basically Relational Aesthetics is when someone with an MFA wants to meet new people but because they spent all that time pursuing an MFA they don’t know how to talk to people normally, they’ve got really poor social skills and they can’t find no other way of meeting new people other than forcing them into odd activities at their own poorly attended art openings" (http://youtu.be/7yea4qSJMx4)

Secondly, I want to make and distribute my own communication media because I feel weird about the way that much mainstream communication media seems so far removed from the interactions we have on a daily basis, despite often talking about similar things. I think this has to do with slick, highly polished production values and 'artificial' people in presentation roles. This also has something to do with New Journalism.

Anyway. Re: this class, I'm want to learn how to produce and distribute internet radio (and potentially also television, but I'm going to start with the radio stuff and see how that goes first). Some inclusions/considerations I've thought of so far:

• I'd like the radio (and television, if I get that far) to be broadcast live and not as something that can be streamed later or downloaded. I think this has to do with my desire to retain the human-ness; listeners will actually be listening to a live human talking. It's about some other things too I think, but I'll elaborate on them later.
• To include conversations with other people (i.e. not just me waxing lyrical about SFA)
• Tone is important. Conversational, not newsreader. But there's different types of conversational. Breakfast radio is considered conversational but I don't want it to be like that.

I'll be posting things on my uni tumblr, dannimcgrath-uni.tumblr.com but also doing weekly summaries on here, so like, you can follow the tumblr if you want but there might be some repetition.

Ok. Cool. Bye.