Family Discourse

Assignment 2: ‘Family Discourse’: 

‘Make a website documenting a scene that sticks in your memory from the childhood years of your family life.’ 
One scene that sticks out to me from early in life is fishing with my dad in the north Georgia mountains. We were camping, and trout fishing in a small mountain stream. Using corn, I caught a trout. My dad took it off the hook, and released it just upstream. That trout swam right back to my piece of corn, and ate it again. Unhook, release, recatch. I seriously caught this fish 3 times before we decided to release it downstream. I think I must have been 7 when this happened, because I remember riding in the truck that we got in 96, but it was pretty new.

EXERCISE 5: HOME(PAGE)SICK:
“Make a Homepage” 
www.keatonawheeler.com

EXERCISE 6: DECISION SCENE 
“If driving a nail flush into a board is an image for a decisive state of mind, what is a good image for your manner of making decisions?” 

The decision scene came quickly to me, but you'll need the backstory to see why. 
I've been working on a webseries for a few months..... well really I've had the idea for years, but we only just started to make it happen a few months ago...but thats besides the point. I knew what I wanted the content to be, and I had a list of ideas for names....they had the right idea, but none of them were perfect. Fast-forward to last night, we've already finished the  first round of filming, and I'm half way through editing. I got angry at not having the name picked, and not being able to start promoting it when I wanted to, so I decided to do something about it. 

5 Minutes later, a name was had... and it was perfect.

EXERCISE 7: MEMORY GLIMPSE
“Put into an image or scene one of your earliest memories. Note especially the details of what you remember. What is the atmosphere of the scene? What details carry this atmosphere?”

My earliest memory is strangely specific, yet vague.  When I told my dad what I could remember, he didn't believe me until I described it to him. The following is a physical description of my first house. I moved out of it when I was 2 years old. 

the house was Grey, with diagonal lines down the side (siding). When you walked in the front door onto the plush off-white carpet, our dining room was immediately to the right with a black and white wrap around couch that I miss very much. You can see from the front door, out the back sliding glass door, the corn fields out the window behind our house, and the garbage dump behind it. At the back right corner of our house was our kitchen, which I remember learning to count to 19 in (20 stumped me I guess). On the left from the front door was our living room with our TV and other couches. I remember building a snow reindeer in the front yard, and the next day, hobos had eaten its nose eyes, and whatever other body parts we built of food. That is all I remember of this house.

EXERCISE 8: MICRO SCENES
“To locate some of the features of the home setting that contributed to your themata, compose at least two ‘micro narratives’.”

EXERCISE 9: A COSMOGRAM 
“Begin the process of inventorying the documents and scenes generated through your memory work and research related to the two popcycle institutions treated so far—Career and Family. Use The New Cakewalk as a relay to see how Conwill makes his cognitive map, linking his personal situation as an African- American with the history and culture of his identity group. What are the equivalents in your own case of his sacred places, heroes, and popular entertainment and folk forms?” 
Computers definitely seem to be the reoccurring theme in my early childhood development. I was allowed to use them young, and had almost unrestricted access to them from an early age. This drove my desire to learn more, and it eventually became obvious that this was going to be my career path. Art was also a prominent part of my upbringing. My mother is an artist, and from an early age creativity was encouraged. Its interesting to me, because I'm equally as passionate about art and technology, even though I feel that they exist on opposite ends of the spectrum. Maybe its just because I feel like I can use more of my brain when I'm using both halves at once.  EXERCISE 10: MAPPING HOME
“Locate an appropriate map and draw your own Blue Line trail, connecting the significant sites of your life. Extract from the map the shape traced by the trail and treat it as an abstract design—a basis for a logo.” 

My life off 75.... mapping what felt like home for me is an odd task. I've moved 26 times in just under 25 years. The longest I've ever lived in one house was 6 years, but by number of years, Marietta is where I have lived the most. It's where I lived 6 years as a child, and I moved back here for college, where I have spent another 7 years (between 5 houses). I've never started and finished at the same school. The common factor between all of them is that I've always lived off of 75. Maybe not directly off of 75, but close enough that It was always a consideration for traveling to another state. I live less than a half a mile from it now. I only recently learned that the hospital I was born in was just off of 75 in Illinois. I guess I'm just a 75 kinda kid. Heres what that looks like:

EXERCISE 11: VERNACULAR GENRES 

“Select some activity, practice, or form common to your Family life, and use it in the way that Mesa-Bains used the home alter (or the way Conwill used the cakewalk) to structure the materials of the mystory Family discourse.” 

Theatre was always an important part of our family activities. In addition to going to see many live plays and productions as a child, my mother would often play the music from them on the piano, and if it were a song we knew, we would sing along. When I homeschooled, I participated at the public theatre, and was in a few different plays, including a main character or two. My sister also did theatre, and my parents actually met backstage at the theatre at Indiana University. I stayed actively involved with it until I moved back from Florida. I don't miss it, but I do see it as a contributing factor to my performance based creativity. It gave me the confidence to act in front of a crowd, as well as the passion for public arts.

EXERCISE 12: MAPPING THE POPCYCLE
‘On a map/diagram of your hometown, locate the sites that are the local embodiments of the popcycle institutions and introduce some documentation, details, stories, noting how you experienced each of the institutions’