Remediating and Reflecting, A Look at Project 2

                Project 2 for my WEPO class required that I find an assemblage and then remediate it into something new. An assemblage is something that is composed of parts of something else, and can be anything from a painting to a poem. For my project, I decided that I would take a song and turn it into something else, but what song and what new form would I use for this new creation? Ultimately, I decided that I would use not one, but multiple songs sung by Beyoncé for my project. I would then take those songs, analyze them, and use them to give advice to others in the form of a listicle. Here is a link to my final product: faithsiplin.atavist.com/5-life-lessons-from-beyonce.

                A common theme on my blog has been writing and composing. I often use my puzzle piece analogy to define these two terms. Composing is a skeletal framework, or puzzle pieces, while writing is more thought out and is the full picture that the puzzle portrays. This project utilizes both of these components of writing. It is a composition because I had to take various elements and put them together to create a complete piece, or a complete writing. I had to use different elements and place them together in a way that is logical and articulated the point that I was trying to make with my remediation.

                My article is an effective example of communication and design because it is straightforward. Viewers simply read the article and they will be delivered with the message that my project is attempting to make. They will receive different types of advice, some of which may be something that they are struggling with while they are reading it and some of which they may not be dealing with but can take with them in the future. The design is effective because it is simple and utilizes boldface text to emphasize the important parts of each section. I also believe the design is effective because it provides readers with a way to listen to the music that I am discussing while they are reading, this allows readers to have a better understanding of my project if they are unaware of the songs that I am basing my project on.

                Audience, design, exigence, and assemblage are four of the main key terms from class that I see this project relating to. Assemblage is the keyword that most directly relates to my project. I had to base this project on an assemblage, which would be the songs, so without an assemblage my remediation could not have been created. I also designed my project in a way that would make the most sense to my audience. I used different texts and links to allow my audience to understand my remediation, even if they were not familiar with Beyoncé or the songs that I chose to use. My remediation also directly responded to an exigence. Beyoncé addresses the pressures people, women in particular, feel from society in her songs and lyrics, which allowed me to address these exigencies as well. I also used my project to speak to those that are in lackluster relationships, which is another exigence.

                From this project, we can learn that other pieces of work can be reused in a way that provides it with new meaning and while also using new forms. This allows people to draw inspiration from or reference other work in a new creation, while also presenting this older text in a new form. This allows people to remediate an original text without copying it. My project is one example of how we can reuse other work and create something new, using a different design and format.