Part I
Oral history is the process of someone speaking about their life and the many stories that come along with it. When receiving someone’s history orally, the listener/viewer is able to get a better understanding of the emotions that form behind the words. They can hear the quiver behind the person's voice or the laughter after a funny story. Hearing the voice creates a more vivid picture in the listener's head. The reason oral history is so successful also has a lot to do with the fact that the person talking is talking to someone else, not just writing on a piece of paper making it one sided. Having someone to talk to creates a dynamic conversation, adding questions and their own little comments making the speaker more comfortable and talkative.
Part II
It’s an interesting concept, but if I didn’t figure it out in the first 5 minutes I would probably get frustrated and give up. But now that I know how to use it, I find that it’s an intriguing process and opens a new door of options for multi modal projects. It makes the story almost interactive, which in turn makes it exciting for the viewer. It reminds me of going to a museum and pressing a button to hear someone talk about an artifact, hearing their voice while looking at a single thing made you focus on that one artifact, allowing you to soak in all of the information being said to you.
This was a great way to represent someone's life, however I wish there was another navigating option to keep things in chronological order. At some points I didn’t want to skip to her marriage, I wanted to still hear about her childhood, and not being able to undo the click was frustrating. I understand that this may have been done on purpose to allude to the fact that in life nothing can be undone, which fits with the theme of the project however from the listeners point of view, it would have helped. All in all, I believe the concept of this project and the way she decided to portray it was very creative and allowed a double message to be told. Her grandmother’s story, as well as the notion that a bunch of random keywords/experiences have created a beautiful life story.