Grant Bishko

Music 256a: Reading Response Chapter 7

11/07/2021

Social Design

I’ll start this reading response by responding to Ge’s Rings of Familiarity in Social Design (going from the self to loved ones, then friends, acquaintances, familiar -- huh? -- strangers, and finally total strangers). I have surprisingly never seen this map of relationships, but it makes complete sense to me. My main question: what is a familiar stranger? I am imagining them to be someone we don’t know but have stuff in common with. I love that Ge separates types of strangers though, because let’s face it, we are all connected through those 6 degrees of separation.

My thought is (and Ge does this with the Ocarina and other Smule apps): the arts is a perfect way to connect with everyone in each of the rings of familiarity in social design. By making and listening to music with and for people, we are establishing connections that run almost deeper than a “small talk” relationship. This applies to all arts as well, painting, theater, singing, writing, dancing, etc. There is an implicit connection that occurs between people when the arts are involved, and I love that technology these days is allowing us to do this in a virtual world. During the COVID-19  pandemic in quarantine in my  bedroom, I was able to create a devised theater piece with stanford and create art with people across the country who I had never met before in person. This was for the TAPS fall production last year. I think technology is a blessing allowing us to connect through the arts, and I can’t wait to be a part of the technological wave as we improve these tools and make new art together!

Social networks and social media both “engage us, but it is unclear whether they make us happier, more authentic, truthful, interesting, or more fully appreciative of our human connections.” (Ge). This quote is insanely funny to me, because I very much believe that social media these days does NONE of those things. It in fact makes us incredibly unauthentic, lying, attention-seeking people. Our online presence becomes this glorified version of who we want to be, that we forget who we are and we forget how to make meaningful connections with people around us. I believe that the arts through technology (maybe social media…) is the only  way we can make authentic connections with people through this platform.

I agree that we can be more authentic through the idea of anonymity like in principle 7.7 “a little anonymity can go a long way”. This takes down our facade of ourselves and allows us to just exist. The arts!! The arts!! The arts are a way we can do this, and even anonymously it’s beautiful how we can make these connections.

Whatever you do, do it with authenticity (principle 7.14).