Reflective Essay

The Omeka Exhibit: The Process of Coming to Understand the Digital Age

Throughout the semester as we studied the different authors and discussed memorialization I felt a shift in my understanding of the World War II Memorial in Washington D.C. and the argument I was trying to make through my Omeka Exhibit. It would seem obvious that the space is trying to memorialize the war which it is named after. However, how the space memorializes the war and the goal of the designers of that space is something I struggled to articulate throughout the semester. Originally, I was stuck on the idea that the memorial had to be a somber one to truly memorialize the lives lost. At the end of the semester, I have come to realize that I was misinformed in looking at the memorial in terms of its “success” in memorializing the war in this way--as seen in my first critical essay. Now, I have come to a better understanding of the memory created by the memorial through a more indepth look at the authors we have read, the items I choose, as well as the layout of the D.C. Monuments.

The biggest battle I had in creating the exhibit and studying the memorial was in the process of figuring out what collective memory was being created by the memorial. Ultimately, I decided that the space memorializes the collectivity of the states and territories which made sacrifices during the war time. Therefore my final argument is that the point of the memorial is to honor the unity of the nation during wartime and beyond through the creation of a space central to the other monuments of D.C. that allows people to come and congregate and enjoy, remember.

In light of this purpose, I selected items that exemplify what the memorial attempts to create: an original song from World War II, two movies based on World War II, and a biography about a veteran of World War II, and my own personal photos taken in Washington D.C.. To put it in the words of McLuhan, I used various forms of media to express my message for the memorial. After completing the Omeka Exhibit I realized that I had actually created a digital griot that acts as a continuum of print, digital and oral traditions without even being aware of it. I know that was the goal that we were working toward all semester but I still had that moment of realization and sense of accomplishment when I revisited my notes and saw that I had achieved this purpose. My collection of items are composed of texts, photos, movies and songs in order to create an Omeka Exhibit that remembers World War II. I feel each of these items relates to my argument because they commemorate the sacrifice and loss experienced during the war while also demonstrating the sense of community and nationalism drawn from the war.

The first item I choose to use is a song, “Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition”. The song was written by Frank Loesser in 1942. The subject of the song is the 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The attack itself was unanticipated and thus resulted in thousands of casualties in a very short amount of time. The song lyrics portray this death but do not focus on it, instead they sing of the soldiers banning together to complete their “mighty mission”. The rhetorical mode being used with the song is an audio mode; in an age where music is accessed on Web 2.0 technology, it is interesting to include a song that was originally published on sheet music and can now be accessed on spotify. While the lyrics of the song tell of an individual memory, it becomes a collective memory through mass media and broadcasting. To accompany this oral tradition from World War II, I included a secondary item, a clip from the scene of attack in the movie Pearl Harbor; my intention with including this item was to provide a visual connection to the moment that the song is about. I felt that combining these two items created a more well rounded page within my exhibit about the attack on Pearl Harbor. In the words of DJ SPooky, I was using the turntable needle “to weave the sound together”(Miller, 36); in my own words I was using the song and movie to create a collective memory within my exhibit for the attack on Pearl Harbor. The song concludes with the lyrics, “Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition, and we’ll all stay free”. These words in a sense emulate the common goal and prayer of the people of the United States during the war; ultimately, the purpose of their sacrifice was for freedom. When researching items I felt that this song fit into the argument I was trying to make about the World War II Memorial through my Omeka Exhibit. It moves the focus away from the tragedy of the war and celebrates the unity and sacrifice of the nation during war time.

The second item I choose was a clip from the movie, “Saving Private Ryan”. This item draws on both visual and audio modes to contribute to my argument. I choose the clip from Omaha Beach because of the way it graphically portrays the ultimate consequence of warfare--thousands of lives lost. The memorial remembers these lives with the Freedom Wall in the northwest end of the memorial. The Freedom Wall is decorated with 4,048 gold stars that each represent 100 American Soldiers who died fighting in World War II. I included the movie clip in my exhibit because it is important to remember and honor the lives lost in the fight for freedom against tyranny around the world; It matters that this is done through a clip in my exhibit because there are just certain things that text alone cannot portray and I think this scene is one of them with its visual and audio contributions to the memory. The clip shows exactly what soldiers were up against and the bravery they embodied in every battle during this war.

The third item I included in my exhibit is the book, Unbroken, by Laura Hillenbrand. The rhetorical mode the book draws upon is textual. Hillenbrand’s book is a biography about World War II veteran, Louis Zamperini. The book is about his survival story as a prisoner of war and despite the painful memories and how he overcame these troubles, regained his faith and ultimately forgived the captors that wronged him. It is inspirational the way he maintained his love of his country and humanity despite the horrors he suffered. The book does not focus on the hatred created by war but the resilience and the resolve for freedom. I felt that this contributed to my argument with the way Zamperini’s individual memory and personal sacrifice, is shared in a collective memory by so many others. I choose to use the text instead of the movie because I felt the print text follows more closely and in depth the journey of this veteran and his individual memory that is made public with the book’s publishing.

My fourth item is the neatline tool. The neatline I created is a map of the monuments on the National Mall in Washington D.C. and my own pictures that I took on different trips to D.C.. The rhetorical mode used is digital. The creation of the Neatline map helped me achieve a better understanding of the memorial’s purpose. Ultimately, creating the map and looking at the timeline at which the different monuments and memorials were created along the National Mall is what allowed me to truly understand and articulate the argument I wanted to make. This item clarified alot about the purpose and memory being created by the memorial.

Unfortunately, the software for neatline is not as user friendly as I would’ve hoped it to be; it was a challenge to even access information to learn the software. I spent a few days looking up videos and online tutorials to try and get a better idea of the software and it’s capabilities and I still feel as though I do not understand a fraction of the software. One suggestion I would make is to teach this technology earlier or to have students create their Omeka in the beginning of the semester so they have more time to familiarize themselves with the site.

Rhetorically I struggled to maintain the argument I was trying to make about my memorial with the different readings throughout the semester. It was not until the completion of the Omeka that I truly understood the big picture we were trying to create. One possible reason for this might be that we focused a lot of class discussion on how social media and new technology changes memory and I had a hard time applying those concepts to my own memorial. I wish I would’ve chosen a more contemporary memorial, such as other classmates’ memorials like the Egyptian Revolution, Tanacon; or other exhibits in which social media and technology plays more of a role because it might’ve had more relevance and connections to the readings and class discussions. However, I do acknowledge that I needed to complete the exhibit to reach a full understanding of how new media applies to my memorial--it provided the example I was struggling to envision all semester.

I drew on my print literacy skills to advance the argument I was trying to articulate with my audio and visual rhetorical modes. This is something both DJ Spooky and McLuhan employ in their books which combine print literacy with other rhetorical modes. While the world may be moving away from print literacy toward a digital age I would argue print literacy will always carry scholarly weight. For example, in a class which studied the transition of rhetorical modes, we still needed to read print literacy on the subject in order to familiarize ourselves with it. We also had to write our own papers, like this one, which incorporated aspects of print literacy into our own writing. It is hard to envision a time when it will be entirely ruled out of scholarship. My position on this subject seems to be in opposition to DJ Spooky who writes about humans on a path toward “technology as a core aspect of their existence” (Miller, 16). Perhaps, it is the thought of a complete conversion toward technology and away from print that I continue to struggle to accept and embrace. The fact that Miller had to use print literature to convey the message of his audio just shows that we are not there yet. After attempts to utilize the scholarly technology on Omeka I am not sure I would like to experience this total technological conversion during my lifetime.

The creation of the Omeka exhibit was a completely new challenge for me. While I feel college students are more familiar than ever with technology, I did not personally feel as if I was at the level to work with this kind of digital scholarship. This class was the first class I’ve taken that challenged me to really consider and engage with this idea. At times, I definitely felt nostalgia for the classes where I was able to just hand in a paper and not have to engage with scholarly technology as it proved to be much more difficult and thought provoking than simply writing a research paper. In creating my final Omeka exhibit and writing this paper, I re-read Marshall McLuhan’s, The Medium is the Massage; little did I know that his words would ring true as I struggled to cross the barriers from traditional literacy toward digital literacy (McLuhan, 10). Another connection I was only able to make at the end of this semester is to the “collide-oscope” (McLuhan, 11) of perceptions he writes about. All semester I struggled with the “collide-oscope” of memory that Casey created in his definitions of individual, public and collective memory, as well as how these lenses did or did not work with my memorial and the argument I was making.

This semester, more specifically this course, changed my understanding of how information is accessed. Similar to my classmates, aside from our own visits to the places we wanted to examine, the majority of research for our items was done over the internet. If I did not have access photos of the memorial and information listed on the Memorial’s website the project would’ve required a lot time consuming textual research. McLuhan writes, “new methods of instantaneous electric information retrieval” (McLuhan, 12) has completely changed the level of access we have to information. My particular Omeka Exhibit creates yet another platform to access scholarly information about World War II; while I hope my exhibit is unique in the way in which it combines certain items relating to World War II to create a way of remembering it, it is by majority, items and information that had already existed. This then ties into DJ Spooky’s “sampling” from Rhythm Science. He directly ties sampling to memory, “sampling as a kinesthetic theater of memory” (Miller, 32). Through our creation of these Omeka Exhibits we are using the information already out there to create our own reply; “The copies transcend the originals” (Miller, 36). While I may have referenced other pre-existing ideas and facts to create my Omeka site, I hope I did so in a way that revealed my own unique understanding and knowledge into the exhibit created.

Overall, I am grateful to have had the opportunity to work with the software and the texts we studied this semester. I believe it is important that colleges transition with the digital age and I wish Manhattan College would offer more classes on digital literacy and scholarly software like Omeka within traditionally print literacy oriented majors like those in the School of Liberal Arts.