In Harmonium

Posted By Marc on February 1, 2010

A week ago, I posted about the medium is the message vs. massage and used a couple of YouTube Videos from the Ottawa Back Choir as example.  On Saturday, I was over for dinner at an old friend’s house and he showed me one of his favourite YouTube recording artists: Pamplamoose Music.  As he showed me some of the videos, I started to understand what I was seeming – a truly brilliant use of the video medium that bypasses some of the sensory limitations.

Extension and adaptation

McLuhan, and others, have argued that media is the “extends” humans in time, space and, most importantly, potential (see here for the main work).  These terms, which show up all over the place, need to be pulled apart.  By “extension”, I mean two things.

First, a media “extends” some characteristic of human senses through time, space or level.  So, for example, and audio recording extends the duration in time of an event and makes it portable through space.  Depending on the detail and fidelity of the recording and playback technology, an audio recording may also extend through various “levels”, making it easier to “hear” what one might not normally be able to, etc.

The second form of “extension” derives from the first, but takes conscious advantage of it.  Thus, for example, the ability to record audio tracks and manipulate the listener through time, space and level allows for such “impossible” things as, say, Billy Joel singing all the parts of a song at the same (apparent) time (see here).  This type of “time looping” has been pretty common in the recording industry for decades as, of course is its corollary: fixing individual tracks until they are “perfect” (an extension that enhances teh development of the professionalization of music and the star system).

What is not as common, and where Pamplamoose Music really does some nice work, is using the bias of video to enhance what we would normally think of as an audio or kinesthetic “message”.  Take a look at this song and, in particular, watch the facial expressions, especially the eye movement.

This coupling of multiple tracks with multiple video shots worked in using split screens is, once again, not “new” per se.  What is is, however, is an absolutely brilliant use of the limitations of the YouTube technology and a bypassing of those limitations by using a different sensory channel – in this case, it bypasses the audio recording fidelity limits by using visual imagery, in the form of controlled facial expressions, to convey an emotionality that cannot come through in the audio.  Personally, I could do without the T shirt adds…

Compositional grammar and adaptation

Before I get into talking about “adaptation”, we need to understand a bit about the “natural laws” of media.  The first thing, and it is crucial, is that all media have biases not only in time, space and level but, also, in sensory channels (e.g. sight, sound, etc.).  Now these biases act as the boundary conditions which establish selection crietria in the strict, Darwinian sense.

That might sound excessively “academic”, but it is a very useful way of expressing something that we all, instinctively, recognize.  Think, for example, how often we close our eyes to better “hear” a piece of music.  What we are doing is purposefully decreasing one sensory track (visual) and focusing on another (audio / kinesthetic).  Various media have these already built in via their technology, at least in terms of the potential or ease of one sensory track over another. Humans, likewise, have inbuilt biases based on sensory tracks, and we also have the ability to manipulate input levels.  Still and all, our “default” values, assuming we match the species norm, tend to be fairly standard, at least within a given socio-cultural environment and social roles within that environment.

Note, however, that our “defaults” do change based on two environmental biases: the society we live in and the roles we play in that society.  Populations “adapt” to a “new” socio-cultural environment by changing their default sensory input levels, and the training systems associated with these levels and social roles that go with them.  In some cases, these systems and roles hypertrophy (i.e. think “X on steroids”) and lead to the development of “professions” where, in theory, the “default” level of some sensory level(s) are extended well beyond the social norm.  Think, for example, about someone who makes their living by hunting or singing; we “expect” that they will not be “normal”, at least in the associated sensory levels.

This is where “adaptation”, as a concept, fits in.  A socio-cultural environment (including technologies) will establish boundary conditions with selection criteria based, in part, on the biases of the technologies that establish it.  For example, the “classic” assembly line production system establishes a bias towards a “standardized” bureaucratic organization where individuals are treated as interchangeable “parts”.  This, in turn, established a bias towards credentialization and “one-size fits all” solutions including, but not limited to, how people were recruited for employment.  Change the base technology, say increasing use of roboticization or a shift in sectoral employment towards information manipulation, and you inevitably change the selection criteria for employment – that, BTW, is why networking is the number one way of getting a job, and resumes (including all those spiffy automated, online application systems), which are artifacts of the credentialization system, are the worst.

This brings me to the idea of a “compositional grammar” related to media.  Anyone who has ever had to mark papers will know that most students these days have a disturbing (to academics) tendency to write as they speak.  As our students rapidly (we hope!) discover, written English (or any language) differs substantially from the spoken version.  For those of you who may suffer through powerpoint presentations they, BTW, are closer to the spoken version of the language and, I have to say, some of the military powerpoint presentations I’ve seen are amongst the most “credentialized” – and excessively boring to the point of numbness! – compositions I have every seen, simply because the “authors” do not seem to understand that powerpoint is, essentially, a verbal medium.

The concept of compositional grammars, as I am using it here, refers to the biases inherent in a medium that act as selection criteria.  Put simply, media have transmission biases that make their audience have to work either “harder” or “easier” in order to “get” the message being sent.  The “harder” you have to make your audience work, the more likely they are to not “get” the message you are trying to send.  So, if you want to be an effective communicator, you not only have to understand the media you are using, you also have to understand the “default” settings of your intended audience(s).

This is where “adaptability” comes in (vs. “adaptation”).  In the context of communications, “adaptability” refers to the ability of a communicator to take advantage of the positive selection criteria of a medium and to tailor their message and presentation to make it simple and easy for their intended audience to both “understand” it and “agree” with it, even if they dislike the particular message.  In long “conversations such as, for example, a counter-insurgency campaign, this also means teaching your intended audience(s) how to interpret you messages, such that future messages are easier to understand.  This “teaching” has to use the simplest form of communication, which is aligning your actions with your messages in a coherent manner.

Category: COIN, Communications Theory, Evolutionary Theory, Presentation & Performance
Tags: adaptation, Canadian Communications Tradition, New Media