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Auriah Cao

Whitney Gilchrist

Artist Statement

29 April 2017

Artist Statement: Critical Consciousness

The process of remediating my research essay was an arduous task filled with many

options that could easily represent or misrepresent my message. The goal of this presentation

was to get my audience to get out of their comfort zone and put themselves in another persons

shoes. The topic of critical consciousness can be described as both psychological and emotional.

The topic is psychological due to its study of human interactions and its attempt at manipulating

behavioral tendencies. It can be categorized as emotional as well because the topic thoroughly

discusses the struggles and hardships of those who are stigmatized in society; it really looks at

how the stigmatized are discriminated against and actions that can be taken to combat the social

injustices.

When choosing genres I wanted to express both the emotional and psychological aspects

of my topic. Some appropriate genres for this topic might include mediums such as academic

journals, documentaries, or dissertations. These genres focused too much on the logical appeal of

my topic. So I decided to really branch away from mediums relating to academics because I felt

the topic needed a more relatable and emotional approach. In the end I chose a PowerPoint, a

satirical science fair project, and a original music composition.


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The PowerPoint was chosen because it gave me an easy outlet to outline all my main

points fast and efficiently. This medium easily helped express the rhetorical appeals pathos and

logos. I was able to divide both the scientific evidence and anecdotes into separate slides. This

really helped because I was able to present my facts and then afterwards raise a call to action.

The satirical science fair project was chosen because it was an easy way to express all the

information gathered. Science projects can be considered condensed scientific journals. They

present the reader with the essentials, which include what they observe, their predictions, their

experiment, and their results. This remediation really broke out of the genre because most critical

consciousness experiments are very inaccurate because they focus primarily on the subjects

opinion at the end of the experiment; these experiments can contain many outliers and can

sometimes be impossible to tell whether or not an individual's decision were based off of a

manipulated variable. Most results from a science experiment are usually cut and dry. What

made this remediation satirical was how I presented critical consciousness as definite results,

even though they are many outliers.

The last medium chosen for the project was an original music composition. This medium

is the most effective out of all of my three genres because it appeals mostly to pathos. From my

personal experiences people tend to talk and listen from their heart before they reason with logic.

For many, music is an escape from reality; music puts the listener in the shoes of the performer

and allows them to see life from another perspective. Music is the epitome of what critical

consciousness is about, seeing life from another persons perspective. The topic of critical
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consciousness lies in the realm of science and psychology and bases its identity on facts and

statistics. By switching the genre to appeal to the arts, critical consciousness bases its credibility

on emotions and personal anecdotes to present its message.

In the end I felt my message was understood. But, if I could redo the project I would

replace the PowerPoint. The science project and song clearly represented two fields I was trying

to discuss. Although the PowerPoint did an amazing job of organizing my ideas, I felt that it

lacked symbolism and creativity. The audience targeted for this project were young college

students. I feel a call to action can be elicited more through emotions than by scientific evidence.

If I were alter the project, I would replace the PowerPoint with a medium such as a protest sign

because without saying much it symbolizes the fight for equality.

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