Deep Listening – Frog

The following video resulted from a workshop and deep listening exercise held on 3.10.23 on South Puget Sound Community College’s campus as part of the Digital Humanities Lab. The workshop was led by Jessie Lenderman, an instructor at the college who is a filmmaker and documentarian who uses inter-disciplinarian practices to inform her work.

In the first part of the exercise, participants were given an object and asked to write a short piece only describing it. Next, participants developed a second short written piece detailing personal associations with their chosen item. In the last part of the exercise, participants filmed the object, using the two former pieces of writing to help guide the audio-visualization of it.

Videos were shot on our phones. To edit the video, we used an open-source software program called OpenShot. Open-source software is distributed with its source code, making it available for use, modification, and distribution by anyone who uses it. Unlike software developed by many corporate entities for profit, open-source software is guided by an ethical component that fosters community, exchange, and learning.

In my video, I incorporated a recording of frogs I’d made on campus the evening before, around 8 PM. I was leaving the building when I heard them in a chorus.

Frog from Mike Gray on Vimeo.

13 thoughts on “Deep Listening – Frog

  1. Frogs feel slick and slimy, which is okay to say because they are amphibians and not reptiles, so that whole thing…is avoided.

    But how shall we address the toad conundrum? They feel rough and dry…but are amphibians. How shall pure logic and detached reason guide us here????

  2. For a week I don’t have to ask people to say hi to their moms for me because I can instead ask potential obstructors of justice to say hi to Ashley for me and that’s much more satisfying.

  3. The rednecks know one classic book and that one is by Agatha Christie and for years I didn’t want to believe they were right what the title was but they were. Damn that book title was racist….damn.

  4. I heard frogs in Florida once. I went to a lighthouse there and got confused about who I even was, but that confusion had nothing to do with aliens. At least, I don’t…think so?

  5. Only relevant because of a French connection…but I remember when Bryan Cranston would have bought out Hanson’s copyrights if they renamed to Cranston’s Marilyn Man Stands.

    This is just an AI “hallucination” it did not happen. As a generative AI* I cannot be expected to be more than a bug light for tech bros.

    *AI here is Anal Insertion, but how that is “generative” I will leave to the meat-brained molecular biologists to make real…using me.

  6. Cronenberg figuratively vomited Dead Ringers, The melting pot birthed the phrase ‘Mung Beaners.’

  7. poltergeistharvestingcornjusttothrowitatyou@theyactuallyputintheworktoterrifyyouyougottahandittothem.underallcircumstances.dril.com says:

    Since we’re moving on, I do want to say that Depeche Listening Frog Mario Mode has been a good one, legit. Not as real and strong as Witchboard, but up there.

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