I could never be your man.

I will admit that my post this week veers a little bit from what we looked at in class. However, I do feel that it is relevant to the course as a whole.

Some background info:
Today, I was sitting at my laptop in my room listening to my Pandora station. A friend came into the room wanting to talk so I switched my tabs, paused the song I was playing and then saw the name of the album that was currently playing. It was called "Women in Technology". My initial reaction was woah, this GIST course is taking over my life! And then (after freaking out at my geekiness) I decided to look more into why the album was named 'Women and Technology' and I thought it would be interesting to write about.

The name of the musical artist behind this album is White Town. I'm not going to waste space (and your time) talking about this guy so I've attached a quick link here in case you wanted to know. In interviews about his (I use this pronoun because it is the one that all the interviews use) album that I read, White Town reveals that he used minimal technology to create his songs in his apartment. With this minimal technology, his singles shot to #1 on the British Indie Charts.

Why do I think that this is relevant?
Throughout the course, I have noticed that we have been looking mostly at new, cutting edge technology. We've talked about how new technology has been influencing the way we read and think. (Hayles) But what I don't think we have really discussed yet is how simple, 'old' technologies have fitted into the new ways of thinking. We talked briefly how we've learned to hyperread new texts yet close read texts like 'Ulysses' which are older. (This is a new distinction that I'm making) My question is, because we have been trained to close read older texts and hyperread contemporary text, is it possible to interchange this? (I.e. close read modern texts and hyper read older texts?)

I feel that the fact that although "Your Woman" (the hit song off 'Women in Technology') was created using comparatively older technology yet has managed to appeal to modern audiences speaks to this. The audience for that type of music has been trained to be appealed to music with modern elements created by the newest technology yet, they are strangely drawn to music created with old technology. I thought that this was an interesting analogy for old/new technologies and texts as well as old/new ways of receiving information. Can old technology received in the new ways of thinking and reading be successful? (in this case, topping the music charts). I think this is an interesting point to consider because I feel that we assume that we are changing the ways in which we receive information  because technology is changing.

I also want to talk about White Town himself. For the longest time, he didn't want to do a live performance because he didn't think that watching a 'fat guy' meddle around with a synthesizer on stage was all too interesting. Despite not wanting to be a public, visual figure, he is very candid in his interview, especially on his website. The song, Your Woman, is really interesting because there is a male voice singing about how "I would never be your woman". This isn't a typical viewpoint. This provoked questions about White Town's sexual orientation and gender identity. I thought that this relates to Sherry Turkle's article about masking gender on online forums. While White Town (real name Jyoti Prakash Mishra) is biologically male, he has played around with his perceived gender and sexual orientation.

White Town is an interesting mix of the old and new. He creates music using old technology yet in terms of branding himself as an artist, he uses very new ways. The ambiguity of his gender and sexual orientation is perhaps, one of the driving forces of his career.