This American Life: Mapping

The audio broadcast by Ira Glass broadened my understandings of a map; I did have a rather narrow view of the word but I don’t disagree that the maps that have been created related to other senses are maps. I had indeed never considered mapping by a specific object in an area like in the first act in Boylan Heights or other ways mapping could mean like in act three with regards to the electronic nose.

The subjects presented in each act seemed like experiments in a process that is rather similar than the creation of art, which can also be considered an experiment. Some experiments are more interesting and/or useful than others which were the overall feeling I had about the broadcast. The second act about hearing was by far the most interesting and useful experiment in the recording. For a long time I put on music to listen to while doing a variety of tasks. It wasn’t until last summer that I turned it off and listened to the sounds around me. I never went beyond just listening to the sounds as they were. When the sounds were translated to different chords that subconsciously affect our moods in act two, my attention was absorbed.

Much of our time is spent indoors and so we mostly hear the mechanical noise of our interiors when we listen closely. It makes sense that these noises can be represented through musical chords which inherently have moods associated with them but I had never considered it before. It only makes sense that there are so many unhappy people in this world. With technology taking care of everything, it is always around. Computers may be a primary example because many people work in front of them: according to Toby Lester, the hum of a computer is a G minor which is naturally sad. It is almost no wonder, considering that some 70 percent of what affects our thoughts is subconscious that computers and other technologies that drone in the same chord subconsciously make us sadder and irritateable. It only made me curious of more sounds and combinations of sounds, outside of the main three Lester spoke of, that subconsciously affect our moods.

The third act about the electronic nose was the most daunting. If we can make technology associate smells then it seems more possible that one day humans will be machines. The progress they have made with the nose is quite impressive with regards to intelligence, but it is absolutely terrifying to me. If only the fittest will survive, then it feels like it will definitely be possible to create a machine human that will be more fit for the world, namely after exhausted resources. As mentioned in the act, a machine can never achieve complete humanness because they can never have a brain like ours but as much as technology has advanced so far, maybe there’s no telling how much more advanced it will get.

The last two acts were the most uninteresting to me. The sense of mapping was present but I am hoping more inventive ways to map with touch and smell will be discovered and shared. I probably feel this way because they were mapping in a sense that I was familiar with, though I didn’t necessarily call it mapping. The broadcast overall effective in getting me to step a bit further out of my box and reconsider different ways to mean.