Certificate of Apology: An Annotated Mix-Tape

Description

This is not a mix-tape. This collection of reflexive essays annotates a mix-tape in progress. The lyric essay form is used to bind artistic statement, methodological reflection, interview excerpts, and personal narrative. Organized around the aesthetic of an evolving track list, these essays dance with emergent themes including: memory, embodiment, narrative worldview, and generational trauma. Davis conducted a series of interviews with friends, eliciting stories he hoped would dislodge debris from his own cluttered memory. A large set of pre-writing was generated using a daily routine in parallel with conducting and analyzing the interviews. The track list was drafted from songs discussed in the interviews, with a limited set of songs added for aesthetic coherence. Using that track list, selections of pre-writing and interview excerpts were organized into a comprehensive document. Iterative revisions, and newly generated writing, re-shaped the essays around an underlying world-view: a version of reality where the experience of music fundamentally shapes emotion regulation, interpersonal relationships, intrapersonal understanding, and the encoding of memory. 

Team

Members

Student: Joseph Kelly Davis

Supervisor: Michelle Dove