https://frequency2156.com/signal/40

Alright I don’t know why but I used the name Roger yet again for another assignment. I guess it’s just the name of the day. I chose this assignment because I was looking for something that would slowly introduce me into the audio assignments category. This was the perfect introduction! I started by visiting the website and browsing the content on there a little bit. Such an interesting user created website. Then I followed the instructions for creating my own broadcast which were very straightforward and easy to understand (even for a internet simpleton like myself). The story I created was entirely off of the top of my head. I chose to be an individual running from a pari of zombie twins. Why were they twins? I thought it would be funny. Was it actually funny? I thought so. Anyway so I wove the story of a post-apocolyptic survivor who was on the run from these zombie twins who are abnormally intelligent and fast. At the conclusion of the transmission the character asks for someone to come and find him, where he is, and that he has to go because he hears the zombie twins outside of the door. This story was something fun that I put together in order to push myself outside of my comfort zone.

Just Zaying..

I made another Frequency2156 contribution as part of this assignment.

I wanted to tell a bit more about silo 17 beyond what Wool gives us. Now we know that the head of IT messed things up and why everybody bolted for the doors. This message also serves to create a sense of camaraderie among all the other IT heads as they all carry the great burden of lying to the whole silo and usurping natural law to keep everything in tact.

I recorded this on my phone and edited it within Audacity, making the voice sound tin-ier and adding some background static as well as background gun fighting at the end.

My first impression when opening Frequency 2156 was that the interface was super cool because it was interactive and included posts from all over the world. I must have had some bad luck because the first couple markers I clicked on were all super weird and did not make sens. For example the first one that I clicked on was #117172 and it talked about beer lol.

I think the author chose audio as a medium because audio is unbiased. This is important because that means viewers cannot be influenced by visuals. I really enjoyed how it was based on audio because it made some of the frequencies even creepier.

If I was making the story, I would have had categories to put all the different threads under. Also I would make it even more interactive and have a checklist that people could use to say which supplies they needed. Along with those, I would let people add a single visual so that it could set a basic setting for audiences listening to the audio.

My own frequency tells the story of a single man hiding from the government because he has escaped their attempt to wipe out a large part of the population.

take a listen..

I think that the creators chose audio as the medium because it gives the audience a greater sense of context to what is going on in the message. The way someone projects their voice through the audio messages tells you whats going on. The crowd-sourced audio does a great job telling the post-apocalyptic story because it also gives the audience a visual aspect to make it seem like you’re actually in a post-apocalyptic era. The background audio effects while waiting on the standby page seem like a vital part of the atmosphere. There isn’t much that I would’ve done differently other than add more sound effects to hopefully intensify it more somehow.

This is my recorded audio message from

Dhaka, Bangladesh.https://frequency2156.com/signal/501 

Frequency 2156 is an awesome sight that collects different audio posts from all over the world and compiles them into one gigantic audio narrative. The idea is that the apocalypse has come and people worldwide are attempting to reach out and communicate with someone, anyone. Some of the posts I listened to were goofy while others were rather chilling. I think what helped make the chilling ones so terrifying was the audio effects you can apply to your recording before uploading it. There’s wind sounds, crackly radio feedback and strange noises that can all combine to make it sound like you really did pick up on a signal of distress from years ago or years in the future. I think audio recordings serves this sight well as a way to tell a story of the apocalypse. Although nobody’s narrative seems to sync up exactly, they can stand alone or mix together to give you a picture of a world shattered in numerous ways with everyone looking for help. I especially liked the posts I listened to that tried to sound like official announcements from government or army bases. Those helped make the story immersive and more realistic and balanced out the numerous personal pleas for help. If I were to change anything about this medium, I think I would try to make everyone’s posts blend together more by offering a vague and open storyline to guide everyone along. I would also make it so you could reply to other’s audio posts to start some interaction and back and forth communication. That would make this site extra cool!

https://frequency2156.com/signal/525/

Above is the link to my radio dispatch, shared to the UMW pin along with many other DS106er’s work. Under my name, Lauren Sargent, is a hopefully spooky message from a mother looking for help and supplies. I had a hard time thinking up a creative message to say on the air and while I didn’t quite achieve that, I decided to give audio mixing a go. By adding the sound of a baby crying, I hoped to make the message for help seem more urgent and distressing. That baby cry upsets me just listening to it on its own but in the context of the apocalypse, it’s extra distressing! I combined the two sound tracks in Audacity and lowered the volume of the crying to make it less distracting. I then added filters and a little bit of pitch lowering with the Frequency2156 audio mixer.

https://frequency2156.com/signal/525/

Why do you think the creators chose audio as the medium?

I believe it sets the tone of an apocalyptic world, because they would not have TVs nor internet. Radio signals can move across the world and is very reliable for communication.

How well does the crowd-sourced audio work to tell this post-apocalyptic story?

It they tie together is by having a source of communication that can be reached by anyone who is at the right frequency. Thus, creating a sense that the whole world has gone to ruin and looking for help and answers.

What would you do differently if you had created this story?

I would not do anything differently, I believe this idea is awesome and could reflect what it would look like if the world was to end some how.

How I contributed?

I created an entry of a man who has run out of resources in the bitter cold begging for help as he has a child to care for. Why I threw in the child is because in a post-apocalyptic situation the population is depleting and they need to keep procreating in order to prevent the human race to go extinct.

Forreston Grade School Broadcast: https://frequency2156.com/signal/531

Creating my broadcast from Forreston, Illinois, was actually quite the adventure. After getting everything downloaded and ready to go, I had to think about how I wanted my broadcast to be. I don’t know what kind of apocalypse I’m in (it seems rather war-like from other broadcasts), but I figured that either way there would be people fighting. I went with that and decided I was to be a part of a group hiding out in an elementary school where we were looking for assistance from others. We had run there when fighting had started, so there are people who are injured. I made it seem at the end that they had been found. There was also an explosion sound in the distance right before the broadcast cut off. This was meant to put an ominous end on the broadcast.

Overall for my very first audio project (ever), I’m pretty proud of how it turned out. I had fun trying to find the sounds that would work with it. In the end I had my own voice recording, the sound of gunfire and explosions, and I also added the sound of people talking in the background (it was a bit faint in the final product though). I made the voices fade completely when the first gunshots came in in order to show that the crowd was hushed in fear. I think I wasn’t quite able to show this since my audio work still isn’t fantastic and it’s hard to hear.

Audio really isn’t a medium I am familiar with. It was something that was never hit on in school for me before, so I walked into this completely blind. The Audacity tutorial in the Audio Resources page helped immensely though. I can see why audio was such an important part to this class. Hearing other radio broadcasts and the ds106radio broadcast really helped show how important audio is. You don’t absolutely need pictures to show a story. Audio is able to tell a story just as well – it even lets the audience picture things for themselves.

I think the crowd-sourced audio also emphasizes this with the post-apocalyptic story line. With how the world will most likely be after an apocalypse – with very limited technology – a radio broadcast is one of the more simpler ways of communications that can be created fairly easily in the event of an apocalypse. It allows groups to communicate with each other, and it also helps people find those who are in need. The only thing I would have changed about this story is to have made it a bit clearer on what the apocalypse had been for this story. I understand that it’s a forum for us to make up our own broadcasts about the post-apocalyptic world, but it would have been nice to know if there were diseases, radioactive places, etc. that should have been mentioned in the broadcast.

I know it sounded really simple, but I worked really hard on this broadcast and I like it. I hope you like it too!

First off… this is reallyyy reallyyy cool! Love this site.  I think the creators chose audio as the medium because I think it allows the listener to create their own images of who is behind the voice and fully immerse themselves in the stories. I think adding video would distort the cohesiveness of this story even more.  The story is a little all over the place from what I listened to due to the crowd-sourced audio but I still think it all has an awesome post-apocalyptic theme.

I think if I had created this story I would have it be more organized, and create characters that are more closely related beyond being alone, I think that would help the listener become more involved with the story. I like that it is from all over the world, even in different accents and languages and I think that really helped to tell the story of this world wide catastrophe.

Frequency 2156 Contribution:

I decided to build the story on my character of Sarah Thatcher being on a farm all by herself with only the animals left to keep her company.  I tried to incorporate some farm animal noises and make it seem as if she didn’t really know what was going on as she has distanced herself from the community quite a bit sine the loss of her family.

http://https://frequency2156.com/signal/525/

Frequency 2156 was very interesting, I must say. Even though it was just a website that is very clearly fake, I couldn’t help but feel a little bit of impending doom actually waiting around the corner for me. I’ve never seen a digital project quite like this, and love how collaborative it is.

Immediately, I saw responses pouring in from Virginia Beach, which is where I am from, and it kind of scared me and made me wonder how I would get in contact with my family if the end ever did come. When I clicked on the location of Virginia Beach, it said it was completely barren, and the one radio submission for that area mentioned that everyone was dead. I couldn’t help but feel a terrible sadness for my family even though I know it wasn’t real.

One thing I can imagine would be an issue with such a collaborative project like this would be the inconsistency in the story. I didn’t find any baseline story that Frequency 2156 had given their participants, making it a free-for-all of any apocalyptic story line they want, making the overall story inconsistent. Maybe some people thought the end was from a tsunami, some maybe thought aliens were responsible. Realistically, the end of the world probably wouldn’t be natural disasters, zombies, AND aliens- so just something to think about.

I have been learning about interactive webpages in my Applied Digital Studies class and this is the coolest one I’ve seen. I think it would be incredible to make something like this and create a community of storytellers from all around the world to participate. However, if I were to do it, I would give everyone a prompt to follow along with so that the story is cohesive.

Here is my submission:

https://frequency2156.com/signal/527

I wanted my “storyline” to be about an end where there are other beings coming to attack. That’s why I mention it in my recording and insert alien noises. I also like the idea of, if there was an invasion, that there would be bombings (Maybe why all of Virginia Beach is dead?) and so I included bombing noises.

I thought Frequency 2156 was very interesting. I listened to alot of deep radio stations and lite hearted ones. One i listened to sounded pretty similar to the tweet along audio we listened to earlier in the week. But i did think ones were pretty creepy, one of our classmates had one where they were yelling for help, it sounded extremely believable.

When it came to the assignment to upload my own audio to Frequency 2156 it didnt work out and  was pretty upset because i uploaded the song “Its the end of the world as we know it” and i edited on Frequency to make it sound creepy and mysterious but it didnt load. I waited 2 hours. So if you want to hear what i tried to upload to the Frequency Radio its Here.