DRAFT 1 Multimodality
by: Jordan Palmer
Multimodality has changed the way the world works, with the help of technology we've gone from communicating with parietal art to being on the verge of sending holograms. To me multimodality is a creation of which the author, artist, designer, has made that tells a story while using two modes of communication. This can be a plethora of things like a Bob Ross painting, a Mutemath album cover or a poem from William Berry. The days where my mother and grandmother read to me when I was a child are gone but now told in a different way, with the help of technology some may get a tell a story or a read a book were they wouldn't have been able to. When I was 16 I drifted into my own things and pulled away from my family a bit, I found solace in metal core and works from UnderOath and August Burns Red. These works lay the base layer for your own emotions and thoughts to be applied to, I have never fully drifted from my elders influence but went through a time of not appreciating things the way I learned through these works. Today I try and share all of my projects with my family, my grandmother still reads to me everytime I call her, “If I got just a second” she’ll say so kindly that even if you didn’t have a second you would have to make one, but who doesn’t have a second to spare for their grandmother? She finds herself getting caught up in the story she's telling me and that minute or two turns into 30, I try to remember that 30 minutes will be here forever but she won't.
I think back to some of multimodal works I’ve read like “Full Planet Empty Plates”, I think the title alone is enough to be a multimodal creation, before I even read the first page my mind went to a painting I created on the spot of reading the line, I saw the children that go hungry while simultaneously seeing my own full garden out the window. Upon reading Lester takes you through some of the current pressing issues the world faces by using a mix of pathos and logos, he paints a picture of anthropogenic destruction of earth while simultaneously showing signs of hope. This is one of the core writings that has pushed me to pursue a higher education in Sustainable Development. Mr. Brown describes Africa with numbers of the goat population amassing more than quadruple that of the rest of the world's. This followed with statistics on the Earth's ever depleting Topsoil that is critical for the growing of fruits and vegetables, that, even if you're a meat eater, must understand we need. Speaking of meat he’s quick to point out the depleting aquifers like the Ogallala, which is the one of the largest aquifers in the world that is drastically being reduced due to the consumption of meats and the consumption in general that the United States and most of the developed world exhibit.
Through multimodal works like music and movies they’re so many different ways to tell a story, so many ways to visualize one. I think back to films like “Memento” and “Inception” though these are fiction movies what they represent I find to be nonfiction. Its often like a dejavu moment in life where you see the end before the beginning, you think of films like the Matrix that have had such an impact on the world it has altered people's perceptions of reality, Bands like the Grateful dead, The Beatles, and Bob Marley and The Wailers through there multimodal work were able to build and gather followings so big that even our Government was scared of what they might be able to accomplish. With there multimodal work they were able to inspire and unite races together that had once only been united by violence. Each of these artist use different methods and work different angles to reach through to the reader. The songs they play are like a fractal in your mind they can take you from one place in time to another. The thing I enjoy most about multimodal work is, though the author or artist may be trying to tell a particular story or try and share their viewpoint with you, it really is all based on your perception or train of thought. The visions and places or feelings I feel and receive from listing to Bob Marley play live at the power plant sausalito may be completely different from the you or my neighbor. Your disposition can shape your future self, and i believe that each interaction and experience we have slightly alter and form the person we currently are in life. Looking back I often wonder how we would be with no human interaction, never experiencing a multimodal project, to never listen to a tune, but then even without that aren't the birds chirping tenor with crickets playing bass a form of music. I presume nature herself to be an artist who creates multimodal projects for all of us to watch and listen to.
While all of these different works have different means of capturing or sharing a story they all share the one central theme, a story, a message. There's still so much left to be created so much we have yet to experience, did george winston know he would touch the heart and soul of a 20 year old college student and impact his social life but also somehow make him more eager to learn and study? We are constantly learning in life and if you asked me 5 years ago what was a multimodality project I would remark annoying math or english homework assignment, the fact that definitions and meaning change in your mind is a beautiful concept to grasp.
One of the most influential writings in history is also a multimodal project, it connects almost all the modes in existence. It is a writing of unknown origin in my skeptic based mind but one I think was created for all. It all started the day I entered this world, my parents used to read me Bible stories like david and goliath, and noah's ark. From the beginning of my existence my life has been shaped and formed by multimodal work. Even to this day I base everything I do off the foundation that was shared to me through this book. In this day and age I get a bad reputation for aligning my viewpoints in the way I do, granted this can go both ways. I personally am very thankful for my parents giving me this as I owe much of my success to this, to me this life is the greatest multimodal work ever created, even our own life’s experience the rhythms of a classical composition or a good story, joy and pain, fast and slow, birth and death. This work addressed most questions I’ve found myself wondering, I made a connection with struggles I faced as a man or even just a being in existence. I formed purpose for my existence that I may or may not have made without it. Its brought me from not being interested in going to school to spending my time getting a degree with the purpose of helping humanity. Its helped me make sense of the evil I’ve seen and felt on this planet all the while inspiring me to rise above it and take the stone that were thrown and build with them. Each writer has their own style of writing and though the four gospels of Jesus are the same story, they have different feels and tones. They each write with emphasis and concern for slightly different things, some use this as a way or means to try and disprove the work, to me it makes it all the more beautiful, It’s incredible to me that each of these writers works are connected and tied together so intimately. I know that the writers read each other's work and didn't scream copyright infringement, I know they read the work and went on a journey that's separate from reading their own, at least that's how I see it in my own mind. It has an interesting way of speaking to you as sometimes it's through the actual words that it says, other times its conclusions you make from it, while others are real life experiences that have your mind racing back to something you've previously read or a conclusion you came to before. Since its a biased writing for change and because that's one of the messages it brings it has people coming to the conclusion that it's a just a tool, a device, a biased writing to control the masses, a way of forming and shaping minds, and though this is true to an extent seeing as I have previously stated it's done just this to me it misses the whole point on why and how it's managed to do this. It hasn’t changed my heart because it told me to it's because it is a multimodal work that has immersed itself in every facet and angle of my life, and for that I am thankful.
