EP 17: 'That High Lonesome Data'
What do Dobros and datasets have in common? We're about to find out. On this episode we talk with A'yen Tran and Jer Thorp of the New York-based Office for Creative Research to hear about their folksy initiative -- a finalist in the 2017 Knight Cities Challenge, no less -- to strengthen civic engagement via bluegrass music. Mystified? Well, the modern wave of data in municipal policymaking can sometimes mystify, too, at least when put in the form of charts and graphs for public consumption. Could data-fied mountain string music -- and lessons from the past that changed the history of bluegrass -- strike a new chord? Listen and learn why this novel approach is a Knight Cities finalist. Show notes: A'yen Tran, Jer Thorp and the Office for Creative Research - https://ocr.nyc Tran-authored piece, "Cultural Data Collection in Appalachia" - https://medium.com/memo-random/cultural-data-collection-in-appalachia-9c4a9547e80f#.l39hmhnrp 2017 Knight Cities Challenge Finalists, including "That High Lonesome Data" - http://www.knightfoundation.org/articles/144-finalists-advance-in-2017-knight-cities-challenge GovTech coverage about the project - http://www.govtech.com/civic/Demystifying-Civic-Data-Through-Song-and-10-Other-Civic-Tech-Finalists-in-the-Knight-Cities-Challenge.html A front-porch tune from Bascom Lunsford - https://youtu.be/FS_BeQMWUEA
Top Keywords
- bluegrass 0.027
- data 0.020
- music 0.013
- appalachian 0.011
- kentucky 0.009
- culture 0.009
- project 0.008
- civic data 0.008
- musicians 0.008
- lexington 0.008
- work 0.008
- artists 0.007
Transcript
On this episode of Municipal Equation. A lot of the decisions that are being made in our cities and all kinds of places in our lives are being based on data, and yet general levels of data literacy are extraordinarily low, such as the average person doesn't really have a voice in discussions around data. And I think part of the reason why is that the modes that we use to communicate data, like charts and graphs, they're not very culturally resonant.
There's absolutely huge interest in civic data, but how do we make it more human, more relatable? We can start by tuning up the banjos. My name is Ben Brown, and this is Municipal Equation from the North Carolina League of Municipalities, episode 17. So my family goes back generations in Ashe County, North Carolina, mainly around West Jefferson. It's a town of about 1,300 people in the Appalachian Mountains in the Northwest corner of the state. It's famous for a few things, Christmas trees, really good cheese, and an annual festival, a street fair, called Christmas in July. I should say that I wasn't born in West Jefferson. I was born on the coast of North Carolina. But my dad and everybody before him was from that town or from that county. And every year, we hit up that street festival, meaning I saw my share of authentic, in context mountain music, old time and bluegrass. Again, this is the Appalachian Mountains. But to be honest, bluegrass has never really been my thing. Which is maybe a shame because Raleigh, the town I work in, is the home of the World of Bluegrass Festival from the International Bluegrass Music Association. I'm not averse to it at all. It's an amazing community builder. And as a musician myself, I'm wowed by the talent that it takes to play string music like that. Especially the upbeat fiddle, banjo, and mandolin material is really impressive. Ash County, by the way, was the birthplace of banjo player, Ola Belle Reid, and of GB Grayson, who was a notable fiddle player who played with famous folk and bluegrass heroes like Doc Watson, who was also from North Carolina, a place called Deep Gap, not far from West Jefferson. So I I guess I appreciate where it all comes from, at least the North Carolina part of it, and especially the history. I'm not an expert. I can talk up and down about other forms of music, but I do dig the bluegrass and folk effect on the community. So to take a hard left, I work in the space of municipalities, which increasingly involves the collection and application of data for better planning, better service delivery efficiency. And I've been planning an episode on the smart use of data and open data web portals that are increasingly catching on with local government. And by the way, I do have an episode coming up about that. A great example out of Fayetteville, North Carolina, which is doing really great things with technology. But while researching, I came across two people, Ayan Tran and Jer Thorpe, with a really different approach towards civic data. And it directly involves, guess what? But, yeah, I know. How? How in the world does Bluegrass relate to city datasets? Well, the word relate is kinda big here because for all the effort put into open data and civic datasets, it's not always easy for the public to relate to. The graphs and the charts aren't always easy for the public to relate to. They may be vitally important to their daily lives, but not always easy to relate to. But guess what is? By that, I mean music in general. It's a great communicator. But I was still unclear about how Bluegrass and Civic data were going to intersect. So I asked Ian and Jerrah to be on the podcast. They're with a New York based entity called the Office for Creative Research, and they're behind a project called That High Lonesome Data, which as I speak is a finalist in the twenty seventeen Night Cities Challenge, which draws and rewards the best ideas for making cities more successful. So data, bluegrass. So, Ayane, could you tell us about your background, who you are, what drew your interest, Appalachian culture, and old time music and bluegrass, attraction to this cultural study initially?
So I I, started out as a as a singer in Brooklyn, New York, and, and I was introduced to country music and to the roots of country music, through Appalachian string band music, and ballads. And then, and then from there, I got into bluegrass music as well. And those three forms are all kind of intertwined, and and all really fun to play. There's a super lively old time community and bluegrass community in New York, that that I'm I'm very active in. And they I fell in love with this music. And then this past summer, through the with the blessing of OCR, I went and traveled all over Appalachia through Kentucky and North Carolina, and, and all all states in between Tennessee and West Virginia, and and studied with a lot of, old masters, forebears of, of Appalachian musical culture and and also, with actually with one of the pioneering women of Bluegrass, Alice Gerard. She's absolutely amazing. So very, very interested in the roots of this culture and and I was really interested in figuring out kind of where where this came from. It's it's one thing to listen to a recording and go play it yourself, and then it's an entirely other thing to go and become a part of of a culture through the food, the dance, and and the music that that's handed down from its its older folks.
And, Jared, how is this brought to you? What what's what's your background and and your points of interest?
Yeah. I I mean, I kind of have a strange background. I I, I studied cell biology and genetics and and and somehow through a a a a long chain of events that involved playing in a rock band and, you know, dive team in an aquarium and all kinds of strange things ended up with that practice that that is really focused on how data and culture are intersecting. And and I think one of the things that that that has always attracted me, to to to a problem or to a project is when it seems it seems like you you can't immediately see where the answer lies. And when when Ayen and I started talking about this concept, which really came up really, really organically. Of course, I know about Ayen's musical practice, and and and and we just thought, wow. Data and Bluegrass, like, how how could that possibly work? And I think that the the the incongruity that lies there and and and when we describe this project to people, people are like and I think that, that's always been a really rich place for us and and for me and my practice and our and for our studio. We we've done work with with theater groups who who are performing data. We we've brought data as culture into into public place. And so I think, personally, what attracted me most of the project is that kind of apparent in intractability of it, this kind of strange date between those two things. Mhmm. And and I think I am starting to to speak a little bit about this, but we we really look at this project as a way to work with, musicians and with people from a community to to learn more about what promise may lie here, what kind of conflict may lie here, what things will work and and won't work. And and I guess it just it just more or less fit my my my ideal of what I what a project should be.
Yeah. And I I wanna talk more specifically about the project. So I I was reading up on the finalists for the Night City's challenge of twenty seventeen, came across your name and a submission titled that high lonesome data or data, whatever you prefer. And the blurb said, strengthening civic engagement by working with bluegrass musicians in Lexington, Kentucky to demystify civic data through song and performance rooted in Kentucky's heritage. What does that mean?
I've always been really, really interested in this divide, which I I call it the data culture divide in that a lot of the decisions that are being made in our cities and and, like, all kinds of places in our lives are being based on data, and yet general levels of data literacy are extraordinarily low. It's such that such that the average person doesn't really have a voice in discussions around data. And I think part of the reason why is that the modes that we use to communicate data like charts and graphs Mhmm. They they're not very culturally resonant. And and and so Right. Mhmm. It's very hard for people to see themselves within those forms. It it's hard to to to build narratives around them. It's hard to tell stories with them. And so we thought this is a a really unique opportunity to say, can we take a really traditional form that has a deep history within a a community? And and can we try to try to use some of its strengths to to bridge that that gap? And and so, we're not exactly sure what that what that form will be, but we can think about, we can think about performers using some of the the the techniques that they're sort of inherently good at to combine either either with a dataset or maybe collecting data or or helping people, understand patterns within data. And and and that just to me is very intriguing. And and I think it it to me, it's a real it's a really serious problem. We're we're we're seeing a lot of these broad level effects of the of that gap of the idea that we as a culture are not you know, we don't do a good job of understanding data. And so maybe musicians and other performers and and and artists of various forms, maybe maybe we could find an answer there.
To get a better sense of the background and foundation of this project, Ayn had forwarded me some of her writing about Appalachian culture and music. Essentially, a history of the history. How people in the past attempted to document Appalachia, and how their possible biases and motives at the time affected that. In one case that IN writes about, an English folklorist named Cecil Sharp, 100 ago, began a data collection effort in Appalachia, Collecting material like songs and dances, reportedly in support of an erroneous conclusion that the people of Appalachia were essentially a purely preserved group of ancient Anglo people. A nationalistic project to document supporting evidence, which ended up being elements of song and dance from Appalachian culture. There's a lot of debate about this, about Sharp collecting data that fit with his framework or agenda and missing evidence that would undermine it. IN says that Sharp didn't get the evidence that Appalachian culture was shaped by all kinds of influences, from African American to Native American and more. The funny thing was that Sharp's work got a lot of attention and kind of gave a jolt of life to Appalachia and its art forms. He catalogued all kinds of stuff. Hundreds of ballads and songs and dances. And supporters of that work say that he's pretty much responsible for saving and advancing those cultural art forms. So if his read on the culture was wrong, or if his agenda about the culture was wrong, the attention and activity really kind of influenced the life ahead of it. And there's a takeaway there. Again, there's a lot of debate about Sharp's motives and his role in Appalachian history and future. But given the issue, IN comes up with some questions. What's the point of data collection? Who benefits from it? And when we go after data, how complete is it? What's missing? And how might that absence of critical info affect the community? Entering this project without assumptions, IN is going into the Bluegrass community in Lexington, Kentucky and will connect with the culture and community leaders who work with civic data, collaborate, and see what comes up that maybe they wouldn't have guessed. They might find some values and surprises. Unless I've got it wrong. But their approach does give the culture and data respect and natural interplay to make that data more human. So the data can tell a story about the city without the coldness of graphs and numbers and with the warmth of art.
Well, I think that we, were really careful not to over define the entire thing, in advance. I think the thought is that we at the very beginning of the project, we'll start to convene a conversation between, community organizers, possibly people who are working with civic data in Lexington closely, and also artists to think about, like, what are what are the pieces of data that are interesting to you, or what are the sets of data that are interesting to you? And and, you know, probably, like, what stories are you are you hoping to tell? There's kind of, you know, when musicians go out and and write new material or create new songs, there there's always, some research that happens if they're talking about, you know, any kind of, like, world issue or even local issue. And so there's there's that piece there. But but back to the idea of collaboration, since the hope is that there's a big listening period. You know, we have research in the title of our name, and so that's that's really important that, that this is a sort of a collaborative listening effort that happens together at the beginning of the project. And then from there, we we can sort of define the exact form that it takes. So we're, yeah, we're we're kind of hoping to create this I think you could you could call it, like like, an API for for artists so that we would find a way to to essentially, you know, come up with with specific datasets that are interesting to people in Lexington, and and use that information to to as a prompt for artists to work with, yeah, within the the realm of of Bluegrass and traditional streamline music.
Yeah. And I think I think what I am just referencing right now is probably the part where where where we do have the most clarity, and and that is this kind of idea of, what does the platform look like, to access civic data that isn't for programmers, that that is that is for, you know, creatives and and artists and musicians and poets and novelists and so on and so on. So what would it look like to to have a a public beta API that was for those people? And and we're we're starting to model that out. That's sort of based on some work that we've done in the past about about trying to, build tools that allow people to access data through nonconventional ways.
Yeah. And so in some of the the the press that this has gotten, you know, GovTech wrote an article about it. You were writing the headline. What's the have you guys received feedback, and and has some of it come from the artistic community? Have you heard a voice from the artistic community saying, you know, we would love to be a partner in this. We have some ideas. Or how has that gone?
Oh, absolutely. Yeah. It's, well, I I spent some time in in Kentucky earlier this summer. So I actually already knew a bunch of people in Lexington just just, as friends, and they're all musicians. So that that whole community is is, like, really excited to to work on it, the folks that I've been talking with. But we've also, had people reach out from Lexington, who are there there's one one fellow who's a a PhD and and who both teaches and also is a bluegrass musician, and, and was super excited about the project. So, yeah. Other we we've been been talking with artists. We've been talking with, the folks from Kentucky for Kentucky, so sort of community organizers, who also do arts work in the area. And then, yeah, we kind of had had an an endless line of of communications with, with organizers and artists in the area who are are super excited for this to come to town.
Do you have anything to add, Jair? Yeah. No. Other than it's it's I I think as I said before, it was it was sort of our intention to to provoke a little bit with something that that you're you're reading go and go what? And and I think that's really worked for us and that and that we have had a lot of emails from musicians. We've had emails from folk historians who who are really interested in in Bluegrass. We've had emails from people who are working with with Civic Data, who who who wanna know, like, what exactly are we gonna do. And and that's been really awesome because it's like, well, why don't you come and meet with us, and we can together figure out exactly what we're gonna do. Right. And and, you know, that's it's so central to us as as a bunch of bunch of people from Brooklyn that that the community is is is there right away and and that it's not us bringing a prebaked idea and and and kinda forcing everybody to eat cake. It's it's about, like, let's put a bunch of bikrini on the table and and together kinda make something.
In a way, if if you're looking at it from a bluegrass perspective, this kind of becomes a new take or a new spin on the study and appreciation of Appalachian culture and folk history and what we can draw from it. And this might have, you know, champions of other forms of music too, just kinda thinking on it, you know, whether it's rock or jazz or hip hop or punk or reggae or whatever, thinking about how they might weave in data interpretation. Has your work reached that point? Or is that part of the conversation yet? Or
No. No. I was just gonna say that, you know, fundamentally, we we see this project as a first step towards building a series of approaches that could be used in other communities with with with other sort of entrenched relationships to a traditional form. And and I I I find that really interesting. I'm actually I'm I'm here in New Orleans because I run a I run a conference, and and we just had, this this group speak, yesterday called Complex Movements, and they're a there's a a hip hop based group out of Detroit who who does, work that combines music and performance and data. And and we we had the same discussion with them about about, in this in their case, using hip hop, as a way to to communicate data. And and so I think it's it's not just us thinking about this because I think there's a lot of activists and artists who understand that we really do have to get this the the collective data literacy up and and and maybe we can use this kind of long history of of of of that bridge between, music and and and activism and and find something there. So I'm really hopeful. And I I think what what what ends up coming out of it will probably surprise us and and, you know, whether that is a series of performances or a recording of some kind or or, as I answered, a kind of toolkit. Either way, we're we're we're we're just happy to to have so much interest from people to to look at what we think is an important problem.
So what's happening now? You know, part of the night cities challenge, what's what's rolling right now with this and and what's next?
Well, we all of the finalists will be turning in our final application. And then, the the the final the, panel goes back and deliberates and, the winners will get started in July, then it's an eighteen month project. So what's great about having eighteen months and the summer, is that a lot of Bluegrass happens in the summer. So, yeah. So I think that that a lot of that, that kind of listening and convening we talked about would be really well timed with, in the summers and the various festivals that happen, and we could really, yeah, convene some interesting conversations, where people are already gathering. Cool. Yeah. And then go and do the work, sort of for the intervening year, basically. And, yeah,
and and start to work then and then probably be doing continuing to do the work the following summer. And it's been kind of amazing because I don't think anyone we've reached out to has said no. Every everybody's like, yes. Yes. Yes. And so we're we're building up a big a big body of of collaborators. And and, I think, for me, this project is is it's gotten so so much interest that, it feels kind of inevitable for us at this point. So we really we really hope that we, you know, we do get the the support from the Knight Foundation. But even if we don't, I wouldn't be surprised if if we found ourselves, in Kentucky anyways this summer because it seems like such a a a an important idea.
Well, Ayan, is there anything that I didn't ask about, with regard to the project or, the the relevance of Bluegrass to what you're doing or anything? I'll leave it open ended for you. Yeah. I think that,
I think one piece that that we just can't avoid talking about right now is, you know, we're we're looking at at going to a place we're we're looking at essentially going to a blue county in a red state, a bluish county in a red state. And and this is a moment where our our our country and and and certainly the the, you know, that there's there's a big divide right now between blue and and red states, and there are a lot of of tensions happening with the inauguration. And, you know, historically, I think that more modern Bluegrass has been supported, sometimes by people who who are on the more red side of that that divide. And some of the more traditional forms of music tend to be supported by some some occasionally the the more blue side, although these boundaries are really fluid. But I think that that this project is really interesting for for that and that there are some opportunities. There's a chance here, for people who are are really falling along both sides of that political line, to come together around the creation of of this music, the performance of the music, the, potentially, the collection of the data itself. So I know that at the IBMA, the International Bluegrass Musicians Association, meeting in in North Carolina. I know that there are a lot of panels about diversity and and the the people are thinking about this in the Bluegrass community. Mhmm. And I think it's it's a really an interesting moment for this project to happen for us to talk about what is happening in Lexington, what is happening in Kentucky, you know, what are the interesting civic datasets that people wanna know about right now, and how can we work work with artists who probably fall on both sides of this aisle, to talk about it.
I'll have all kinds of info related to this show, including the details about that high lonesome data and I N Tran and Jared Thorpe of the Office for Creative Research in the show notes at soundcloud.com/municipalequation. By the way, the bluegrass clip you heard for demonstrative purposes earlier in this episode was some front porch playing by Bascom Lunsford. I'll link to that as well. It's a video. There may be some feedback to this episode. Please send on to my email address. That's bbrown@nclm.org. I'm also on Twitter at muni equation. Municipal equation is brought to you by the North Carolina League of Municipalities. Please spread the word about this podcast. We'd love to grow, and, we'd like to thank everybody who's given us time and friendly emails and conversation. Shout out to ELGL and the Gov Love podcast. You can hear me and some other similar podcast hosts in episode 95, which was specifically about podcasting. Keep checking back for more episodes. Again, soundcloud.com/municipalequation. The North Carolina League of Municipalities is found online at nclm.org. Thanks for listening. This is Ben Brown. Talk to you soon.
